The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels )

by Geraldine Harris

  Gidjabolgo was still asleep, his face more peaceful than Kerish had ever seen it. The Prince got up without waking him and wandered along the path. Jeweled beetles crawled on tree-trunks and in the branches above, male birds displayed their brilliant tail-feathers to drab indifferent females. His presence did nothing to disrupt the courtship. Kerish might as well have been invisible.

  He paused in front of a clump of bushes, laden with scarlet and ochre fruits. Delighting in the renewed strength of his left hand, Kerish used it to fill the lap of his robe with fruit. By the time he returned, Gidjabolgo was sitting up, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “I've brought us breakfast.” Kerish squatted down beside the Forgite, sending the fruit tumbling on to the moss. It smelled delicious, but seemed to vanish in the mouth, leaving only moisture behind.

  “Colored water,” spat Gidjabolgo. “Are we to live on this?”

  Kerish nodded dreamily. “On the scents and sounds of the jungle. Shall we go on?”

  They began the day's journey, walking without haste, as the path led them south-east. They gradually became accustomed to the noise, until it seemed a new form of silence, constant and meaningless. The continual movement fascinated the travelers. Many times they stopped to watch jewel-bright birds sucking nectar from flowers, monkeys playing in the treetops, or butterflies hovering. Kerish often thought about what Gwerath's reaction would have been, or imagined describing the wonders of the jungle to her. His face betrayed him, but Gidjabolgo said nothing.

  At noon, they were suddenly confronted by a large, catlike creature with long curved teeth. It strolled to the very edge of the path and regarded them lazily, while Gidjabolgo stood petrified and Kerish remembered Lilahnee. The creature uncurled its pink tongue and twisted round to lick its back. The travelers hurried past.

  Near the end of that day, the path forked and Kerish frowned.

  “Well?” demanded Gidjabolgo. “Left or right? Do we have any idea where this last citadel is?”

  “None. We shall have to trust to Vethnar's advice.”

  Kerish untied the fillet that bound back his hair and fastened it to the lowest branch of a tree full of chattering birds. There was a sudden uproar. Several squabbles seemed to break out, with much indignant squawking and ruffling of feathers. Then five birds flapped down to the lower branch and tugged at the crimson band. One of them got it free and immediately flew off down the right-hand path. The other birds stiffened and fixed their glittering eyes on the travelers, until both of them felt uncomfortable.

  “I suppose we had better follow,” muttered Gidjabolgo, “a bird's no worse guide than a madman.”

  Kerish bowed solemnly to the birds and they took off with squawks that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

  They followed the right-hand path until dusk and then ate the last of the bread and more of the sweet, insubstantial fruit. That night, Kerish dreamed that he was carried through the jungle with a great rushing of wings to a place full of eyes. He woke trembling and saw a scarlet feather fluttering on the path just behind them.

  They moved on quickly and walked all morning. At noon the travelers came across a pool, curving back from the path. In the dappled light, its emerald water reflected nothing and it was impossible to tell how deep the pool might be. Kerish knelt and, cupping his hands, scooped up some water. Even against his skin, it remained bright emerald.

  “Vethnar did say that the pools were safe.”

  “Safe for what?” asked Gidjabolgo sourly, but Kerish had already drunk.

  “Oh, it's good! Pass me the flask.”

  He filled up the leather flask while Gidjabolgo stooped to drink.

  “It's like sipping the jungle, isn't it?” said Kerish. “If the pool isn't too deep, we could bathe.”

  “You can't swim,” Gidjabolgo pointed out.

  “I can wade.” Kerish's eyes sparkled. “You're getting as bad as Forollkin. Come on.” He began stripping off his robe.

  “Safe for what?” repeated Gidjabolgo, “and are you going to leave the keys unguarded?”

  “They'll be safe enough on the path,” said the Prince and unfastened the chain around his waist. A second chain was marked on his skin now and his thigh was black where the keys continually bruised it.

  Kerish seemed to strip away years with the golden keys and he splashed down into the water as carefree as a child. Close to the edge at least, the pool was not deep. Kerish waded through the emerald water, brushing aside golden lilies. With an indignant snort a hairless creature, with formidable tusks, surfaced right beside him. Gidjabolgo shouted a warning but Kerish merely laughed and patted its snout. The creature closed its eyes at this indignity and stood perfectly still, as if it could banish the Prince by ignoring him.

  Answering Gidjabolgo's pithy advice with a sweet, untrustworthy smile, Kerish continued to skirt the pool, disturbing a knot of water-snakes, a cluster of dragonflies and the mate of the first creature. Each discovery was met with a hoot of laughter from the Prince and an acid comment from Gidjabolgo, who dangled his feet in the water but would not be lured further in. At the other side of the pool was a clearing, carpeted with cream and amber flowers. Kerish stooped to examine something on the bank.

  “What is it?” called Gidjabolgo.

  “I don't know.”

  By the pool's edge lay a slab of rock, quite free from moss or lichen. On it stood an object made of glass. It was transparent, yet tinted with blue and green, and had a globular body rising from a twisted stem. On one side there was a wide spout, on the other a slender tube, whose purpose Kerish could not guess. The mouth of the tube was edged with a ring of bone or ivory, and it was worn and scratched.

  Kerish put the glass object down again rather quickly and waded back round the pool. The Forgite was now washing their spare clothes. Kerish ducked his head under and rose up, shaking the wet hair from his eyes, before he answered Gidjabolgo's repeated question. “It could be some kind of flagon.”

  “Placed there for the convenience of travelers?”

  “Not for our convenience,” said Kerish, remembering the curious shape, “and Vethnar warned us against the open spaces. Who knows what might be hiding in this jungle? No, not hiding - living. I suppose we are the ones who are hiding, creeping along the path, hoping not to be noticed. Yet I don't feel now that the jungle is hostile.”

  “A fall of rock isn't hostile, but it will crush you,” said Gidjabolgo gloomily.

  They spread their clothes out over some bushes and spent the afternoon beside the pool, waiting for them to dry. After a meal at dusk, they decided to walk on for a while. Even in the semi-darkness, there was little chance of straying from the path.

  After a short time, Kerish began to feel giddy, as if the path was a narrow bridge over nothingness, swaying in a wind from nowhere. In the fitful moonlight, they saw that some way ahead the path crossed another clearing. For a moment, Kerish thought that he glimpsed something standing there; a tall, winged creature.

  “I think we'll stop here for the night,” whispered the Prince.

  After that, they never travelled later than dusk.

  *****

  Four days passed and the last of their Galkian food was gone but, though the jungle berries seemed so insubstantial, the travelers felt less and less hungry. The only time they had any appetite was on waking, as if the night's journey was more tiring than the day's. Kerish could not remember his dreams clearly, but he thought they were about childhood. The sensation of flying at dizzying speed sometimes returned.

  Once the Prince asked Gidjabolgo whether he had experienced it too. The Forgite nodded. “Last night, I had three eyes, and I was flying to look for you. I wanted to see you with my new eye.” He rubbed his forehead. “But I made myself wake up before I found you. I'm not sure why.”

  They followed the path for another three days, marveling at each new sight: a plant like a waterfall, its moist leaves glowing with prismatic colors; a combat between two birds, fought with their ba
rbed tails; a beetle that moved along on its back, its six legs paddling the air; an ape, teaching its twin young to crack open nuts with a bone.

  Kerish became more and more convinced that the wildness of the jungle was illusory. Why should the path remain free of all growth, and who had made the clearings? By every pool they found the stone slabs with the curious flasks.

  “Who would want to make a thing that shape?” Gidjabolgo had asked and the Prince could not answer him.

  “The jungle is like a garden,” said Kerish on the third morning. “A vast, beautiful garden that seems wild but must really be very carefully tended. It reminds me of my father's garden, or the parts of it that people were afraid to enter.”

  Gidjabolgo questioned him and Kerish was drawn into a long description of the Inner Palace; not a catalogue of marvels such as he had given to the people of the convoy, but an account of what the places meant to him with all their cruel and happy memories.

  At noon they halted to eat, more to keep a sense of time than to satisfy hunger. Kerish unslung the zildar, to play Gidjabolgo a riddle song about the Imperial gardens.

  The full strength of the Prince's left hand had returned in an instant, but its skills more slowly. Several times on their journey from Ferlic, Kerish had tried to play his zildar. He had kept to old tunes, known since childhood. They sounded well enough but he would not be satisfied.

  “I never was happy playing someone else's instrument.” Kerish had held out the zildar to Gidjabolgo. “Now that I have no cause to grudge the gift, it's truly yours.”

  After a moment, Gidjabolgo had just grunted, “We'll share it.”

  Neither of them had yet played the instrument in the jungle. Kerish began to play without remembering Vethnar's garbled warning against music.

  “Why do the fire-flowers burn?

  For whom do the tall trees weep?”

  The tune was insidiously simple, easy to learn and impossible to forget. Kerish had heard it whistled by Galkian children to whom the Emperor's garden was only a legend.

  “Where do the moon cats walk?

  What did the star pool drown?”

  Kerish was too absorbed in memories of his father to notice the growing silence until Gidjabolgo gripped his arm. His fingers stumbled on the strings, his voice faltered into silence - complete silence. Nothing in the jungle moved or cried or breathed. Walls of silence were forming on either side of the path and moving closer.

  Gidjabolgo clasped his head and rocked from side to side. “Play again, before they crush us!”

  Kerish stared around him. The creatures of the jungle were still there, but he suddenly saw them as forces willing him to vanquish even so vast a silence. The Prince swept into a defiant marching song and the trees seemed to sway to the beat, but the silence remained. He played a group of hymns, two dance tunes and a lullaby, but he knew that the jungle was still thirsting for music. He could almost feel it being sucked away from his lips and hands.

  As the sun went down, Kerish sang ballads from Seld, chants from the temples of Hildimarn, sea-songs from Ephaan, and the ancient airs of the Golden City. His voice cracked and his fingers faltered more and more often, but he dared not stop while the life of the jungle remained frozen. Gidjabolgo's voice joined the Prince's, weaving harmonies, and gradually the silence seemed more peaceful.

  Night fell and Kerish stopped, his fingers too numb to play on. The trees bowed and groaned as a great wind passed through the jungle. Kerish's hair and cloak were whipped against his face, blinding him for a moment. Then the wind died away and the creatures of the jungle moved again, hunting, climbing, curling up to sleep.

  With shaking hands Gidjabolgo took out the evening's supply of fruit from his bundle. “Eat!”

  Exhausted, Kerish obeyed and then lay down to a dreamless sleep.

  Gidjabolgo did not wake him until well after dawn. They took the day's journey gently but the going was harder, for the ground was beginning to rise and the mossy path was broken up by jagged boulders.

  “Are there hills in the middle of this jungle?” asked Gidjabolgo.

  Kerish was frowning. “I don't know. I've never seen a map that marks more than the extent of the jungle. On the south it's bordered by the Desolation of Zarn, and at the north by the Jen Mountains. To the east the Zin-Gald joins the River Gal. If there were high hills in the jungle they might be seen from there.”

  “And do Galkians sail the river so close to the Forbidden Jungle?”

  “The people who live on its banks will never cross it,” answered Kerish, “but it used to be sailed. The jungle is very quiet this morning.”

  “Perhaps it's listening,” said Gidjabolgo. “Go on.”

  “Until about a hundred years ago, if a Lord or Lady of the Godborn was tired of living, they would fit out a royal barge and sail down the Gal or the Zin-Gald. When they reached the Jen Mountains the crew would be sent ashore to return to Galkis on foot. The river narrows, just after the mountains, and begins to flow fast . . .” Kerish kicked a mossy stone out of his path. “Sometimes the villagers on the east bank would report seeing a barge sweeping down towards the Desolation of Zarn, with one of the Godborn standing calmly on its deck.”

  “And what then?” asked Gidjabolgo.

  Kerish walked on faster. “Nobody knows, unless it is written in The Book of Secrets, but all rivers die in the wastelands of Zarn.”

  “Slow down,” panted Gidjabolgo, trying to keep up. “You say these voyages stopped?”

  “Too many were making that last voyage and too soon. They must have known even then that the glory of Galkis was fading. The Emperor Shalginor forbade the custom and now the Godborn swear an oath never to journey down to Zarn. I remember that at my Presentation ceremony I got the wording wrong. I thought the sky would crack open but nobody seemed to notice. Perhaps we should all have sailed down into the Desolation long ago and left the Galkians to make a new order for themselves.”

  “If you think that about the Godborn, why put your hope in this Saviour?” asked Gidjabolgo, without a trace of his usual mockery. “If he is to be another Emperor, wouldn't it be better to leave him in his prison?”

  Kerish didn't answer him directly. “Are you going to tell me again that I should have accepted O-grak's offer, or Jerenac's?”

  “It was the only sensible course,” said Gidjabolgo, “so I wasn't surprised when you didn't take it.”

  Kerish rounded on him suddenly. “If you have nothing but contempt for all I do, why do you stay with me?”

  He regretted the question instantly, but Gidjabolgo only smiled. “Because I don't care about Galkis. If you want to abandon it to chase after a dream, that's your affair and my amusement. Besides, you may remember that I have my own reason for visiting the sorcerers.”

  “I did think that you might have begun to care about Galkis,” said Kerish in a low voice. “You seemed to like the temple actors.”

  “Like?” snorted Gidjabolgo. “A man in my position can't afford mild emotions. Hate keeps you alive, but liking is only a weakness.”

  “And love?” asked Kerish, looking steadily into the Forgite's face.

  “I'll allow love, as long as it's selfish,” said Gidjabolgo, “then it does no harm.”

  *****

  The path continued to climb and to widen. Outcrops of rock, twice the height of a man, burst through the moss. The rocks were entwined with creepers which were the haunt of singing birds and scuttling crabs that spat blue liquid when disturbed. For several nights Kerish and Gidjabolgo slept in the shadow of the rocks and had tranquil dreams. They felt themselves floating rather than flying and woke remembering past happiness.

  Finally the path reached its highest point and began to dip again. As they stood on the summit of a hill, the trees were too tall to allow them a general view of the jungle, but they could see for a long way down the path ahead. Below them was a maze of rock and amongst it something moved.

  Kerish gripped Gidjabolgo's shoulder to warn him to be s
till. The Forgite only saw a blur of scarlet, but to Kerish, the creature was much clearer. Wide-winged, long-beaked and almost the height of a man, it walked with a curious juddering motion, as if it were a puppet worked by an unskilled hand. Kerish was suddenly reminded of the guardians of Saroc's citadel who had killed Lilahnee. The creature stabbed the moss with its beak, swallowed something, and stalked back into the jungle.

  “Did it see us?” whispered Gidjabolgo.

  “It didn't look at us,” answered Kerish uncertainly.

  They waited for a few minutes and then walked down into the valley of the rocks.

  No creepers entwined these outcrops. The surface of the coral rock had crumbled away, leaving behind elaborate patterns, subtly colored by encroaching lichens. The delicate whirls, blotched circles and starry meshes reminded Kerish of small sea-creatures and they seemed to pulsate as he looked at them.

  There appeared to be no end to the valley. For three days they walked amongst the rocks, marveling at the changing colors and ever more intricate patterns. On the fourth morning Kerish knelt to study a creamy outcrop.

  “Surely wind and rain could never produce such variety. The patterns here look like animals, like slugs with feathers . . .”

  “Who knows what weather this jungle has,” murmured Gidjabolgo, tracing with one stubby finger an interlocking design of fringed wheels, tinted indigo and mauve. “Or given time, what it can do?”

  They walked on, past rocks of every shade of brown, with patterns like the bark of trees, and paused to eat under a white outcrop, veined with blue and bulging with cloudlike curves.

  By the time they reached the next group of rocks it was dusk and they settled down for the night without looking at them. Tired, but unable to sleep, Kerish felt trapped by his own body. He studied it from the outside, like a stranger, feeling the shape of every limb pressed against the moss, the texture of the hair lying across his forehead, and of the tongue touching his dry lips. He slept eventually, hypnotized by the rhythmic sound of his own breathing and the beating of his own heart.