Exile's Gate (31 page)

"Then take my order. You will go no further with us."

Vanye looked around at her in dismay, at a face implacable in the starlight, a figure that had as well be some warlike statue.

"Liyo
—"

"He is a danger," she said in the Kurshin tongue. "There is a gate yonder. Has thee forgotten?"

"There is not enough time!"

"Tell me how long it takes. There were wounded aplenty back there."

"It is Chei! Would a qhal come asking where his brother was? Is that the kind of question a qhal would ask first, who
knows
what the gates are?"

"Barring other chances, there is the matter of bloodfeud. Of revenge."

"Revenge? God in Heaven, has the man come seeking revenge on me? I wish he would—I wish he
would
say something—"

"In
time to come, at some point of crisis—yes. Being what he is, he may
well think of revenge, when he wakes from the shock of it. I will not
have him with us, at your back—or mine."

"For the love of God,
liyo!
No! I refuse this. I will not have it."

"We gave him what chance we could. Here is an end of it. He goes, Vanye."

"And where is my voice in this?"

"Thee is always free to choose."

He
stared at her in shock, numb. It was the old answer. It was forever
true. It was real now, an ultimatum, from which there was, on this
plain, near the gates—no return within her trust.

"You will go," she said to Chei.

"Lady—"

"Life I have given you. Use it."

"You have taken my brother's!"

"Aye, and spared yours just now. Do not stay to rest. Take your horse and go.
Now."

"Vanye—" Chei said.

"I cannot," he said, forcing the words. "I cannot, Chei."

Chei
said nothing for a moment. Then he struggled toward his feet. Vanye put
out a hand to help him and he struck it away, fumbling after his
horse's reins.

"At least," Vanye said to Morgaine, "let him rest here!"

"No."

Chei did not look at him until he was in the saddle, and then he was all shadow, there between the menhirs.

He rode away without a word, whipping the exhausted horse with blows Vanye felt in his own flesh.

"Liyo,"
he
said then to Morgaine, without looking at her, "I know your reasons. I
know everything you would say. But, Mother of God, could we not have
let him rest, could we not have tried him—?"

"Pity,"
she said, "will be your undoing. I did this. I have spared you the
necessity. For your sake—and mine. And I have given him cause to hate
me. That is my best gift. Best he lose his zeal for us
altogether—before it kills him.
That
is the pity I have for him. And best it come from me rather than you. That is all the mercy I have."

He
stared at her in the darkness, somewhere between numbness and outrage.
Now it was temper from her. Now she was righteous. "Aye," he said, and
sat down abruptly, deciding that numbness was better, for the night,
perhaps for a good many days to come.

There
was a pain behind his eyes. He rested his head on his arm and tried to
make it go away, or the pain in his heart to stop, or the fear in his
gut; and none of them had remedy, except that Morgaine knew that pain,
Morgaine was still with him, Morgaine was sunk in her own silence and
Morgaine was bearing unto herself—she had told the truth—all the
cruelty of which he was not capable.

The
road stretched on and on in the starlight, unremitting nightmare, and
Gault-Qhiverin clung to the course with what followers he had left to
him. There was a wetness all down his side, the wound broken open
again, though he had bound it, and the roan horse's gait did nothing to
lessen the pain of his wounds.

"Go
back," his captain said to him. "My lord, let us continue. You go back.
We dare not lose you—" Which was true: there were many in Gault's
household who were there for reasons which had much to do with court
and intrigue and the saving of their lives—lose him they dared not, for
fear of who might replace him in Morund.

But
they were not mortal wounds, that bled down his side and across his
back. He would live to deal with consequences, and he had said things
and compromised himself in front of witnesses, in ways that required
personal action to redeem him: no, my lord, treason was never my
purpose. I only queried them to learn their business: my offers to them
were a lie.

Form
meant a great deal in Mante, whatever the Overlord knew of true purposes.

There
was most of all, most of all—revenge. And the saving of his reputation:
Gault was never without double purposes, even in something so precious
to him as his best friend's life. There were ways and ways to
accomplish anything; and revenge was always best if it accomplished
more than its immediate aims.

This
was the common sense that had settled into Gault now the blood was cool
and the purpose formed: alliance was not possible and therefore he
would be virtuous, serve his own interests in the other way—and survive
to deal with his and Pyverrn's enemies.

The
pair of them first for himself; and, failing that, for Mante and
Skarrin's gentle inquiries. That was the object of his ride.

But
there was something before him on the road, a single moving darkness
that advanced and gained detail at the combined speed of their horses.

"What is that?" one of his company asked.
"Who
is
that?"—for Tejhos was behind them on the road, where the two members of
their own company had gone message-bearing and asking after troops.
This could be no answer Mante had sent—from upland, from that direction.

Cl
oser and closer the rider came, on a horse weary and faltering in the night.

"Lord Gault!" the rider cried. "Lord Gault!"

Gault spurred the roan forward of the rest. "Who are you?" he yelled back at the oncoming rider.

And had his answer as the pale-haired rider came straight for him with a howl neither human nor qhal.

"Gault—!"

A
sword glittered in the starlight. He whipped his own out and up, and
metal rang on metal as the fool tried to leave his saddle and bear him
off the horse.

But
a knife was in the other hand. It scored his armor and found a chink in
his belly, and he yelled in shock as he brought his own sword-hilt
round, the only weapon he could bring to bear at too close a range,
battering at his enemy who was ripping the knife upward in his belly
before his men could close in and pull the man off.

"My
lord," his men cried, holding him in their arms, lifting him from the
saddle, as he clamped a hand to his gut and stared down at the wild man
the rest of them had caught and pinned.

"Do
not kill him!" he managed to say, while his gut leaked blood through
his fingers and the chill came on him. "Do not kill this one."

The
Man screamed and lunged at him, trying before the others could stop him
to tear him down by the feet, by the knees; but they held him.

"Do
not hurt him," Gault said again, and the man struggled and screamed at
him, calling him butcher and coward and what other things Gault's
dimming hearing lost track of.

"I
am Chei ep Kantory," the man yelled at him. 'Try again, Gault. Do you
want a shape to wear? Do you need one? I will give you one—I will give
you mine."

"He is mad," someone said.

"What
do you want?" Gault asked, fascinated despite the pain that racked him
and the cold that came on him. "What price—for this partnership?"

"For
my brother," ep Kantory said. His sobs stilled. He became quite calm.
"We have a common enemy. What is it worth to you—to have me willing?"

Chapter Eleven

It
was a procession as fraught with fear as the last trek Chei had made
with Gault and his company—the same, in that many of these were the
same men that had taken him to Morund-gate; but here was no one
stumbling along afoot: they let him ride, and though he was bound, none
of them struck him, none of them offered him any threat or harm, and
their handling had put not so much as a bruise on him.

They
went now with what speed they could, such that it must cost Gault
agony: Chei knew and cherished that thought for the little comfort he
could get from it.

Mostly,
in this dreadful place of barren hills and night sky and stars, he
thought of his own fate, and from time to time of Bron, but not Bron in
their youth, not Bron in better times, but Bron's face when the sword
had taken him. That horror was burned into his sight, every nuance of
it, every interpretation of what word Bron had tried to call out and
for whom he had meant it, and whether he had known what was happening
to him as he fell away into nowhere at all.

And
it was all to no purpose, serving allies who despised them both, who
killed Bron and then cast off the faith he had tried to keep for his
brother as if it was some soiled rag, himself qhal-tainted, henceforth
not to be trusted—so much the clans might have done, for their own
safety—but
something,
something, they could
have said, something—anything, to make Bron's death noble, or something
less horrible than it was. They might have offered regret—Forgive, they
could have said: we dare not trust you.

Forgive me, Vanye could have said: could have prevailed with the lady—the man who had taken him from the wolves, been his ally—

—killed Bron.

—then cast him out with a shrug of his shoulders, seeing the lady threaten him with death by fire—with the sword itself.

But that was not the fate that he had chosen.

He
felt power in the air as they passed the shoulder of a hill—felt it
stronger and stronger, so that the hair stood up on his head and his
body, and the horses shied and fought the bit.

Men
dismounted; some led Gault's horse and some led his after this, though
the gelding fought and resisted and Gault's roan horse threw its head
and tried to turn away.

"Not
far now," one said; and Chei felt cold inside. "Not far—" As they
passed that hill and the black menhirs rose up like teeth against the
stars.

Beyond,
atop the hill, the gate of Tejhos itself hove up against the sky,
monstrous and dark, a simple square arch that framed a single bright
star.

Then
Chei's courage faltered. Then, his exhausted horse led perforce toward
the base of that hill, he doubted everything that he had purposed,
whether any revenge was worth this. He pulled furtively at the cords
that held him and found them secure. He looked about and measured how
far he could ride if he should kick the horse and startle it free—but
the horse was doing all it could to free itself already, as men held it
close by the bit and crowded it close.

Suddenly
other figures came into their path, from among the rocks, accosting
Gault; words passed; swords were drawn. What is this? Chei wondered
numbly. It occurred to him that something threatened Gault himself, and
that some other presence had arrived that had the guards all about him
reaching for weapons. It was too complex. He had come into a qhal
matter, and their deviousness and their scheming threatened to swallow
him up all by accident.

But
the difficulty seemed resolved. The qhal who had met them broke their
line and allowed Gault to pass. Then they began to move again, toward
the hill. They passed between the masked warders themselves, strange
helmed figures with visors in the shape of demons and beasts, with
naked swords that gleamed silver in the starlight.

This
was Hell, and he had come to it of his own accord. They left the
warders behind, he and the men who led his horse and surrounded him
with force. The gate loomed above them. There was no way back and no
way of escape, and he had done everything knowing that such would be
the case, knowing himself now, that he was not a man who could die
simply or easily, or lay down his life of his own accord.

At
every step of this he had planned that they would take care of the
matter for him: they would shoot him down on the road—Gault would be
dead or refuse to fight him, and the whole band would ride against
him—he would find them scattered on the road and kill a few of them
before the odds ran out—or he would ride all the way to Morund-keep
itself, and hail out qhal one after the other till they killed him.

Or
his first purpose would succeed, Gault would answer his challenge and
Gault would skewer him outright or he would kill Gault before Gault's
men killed him—

And last of all they might take him prisoner and use him as they planned to now, if there was desperate need—

That
was the bargain he ventured. He had heard while he was in Gault's
prisons, that when they took a body, sometimes the qhal who tried it
lost, and utter madness was the end; or now and again (so they
whispered, devising vague hopes and schemes in that stinking dark) the
war inside that body went on for years, mind and mind in the same flesh.