Exile's Gate (50 page)

He
slipped the red paper from its place and carefully, with fingers which
trembled, managed to get one of the tiny pellets beneath a fingernail,
and then, losing his resolve and his trust of the gift, dislodged it
and let it roll back into the paper. He folded it up again, and put it
back.

Fool, he thought again. Coward.

But he knew that
he
would
take care for her. He was not sure what the stuff in the red paper
cared for. And there was too much and too delicate hazard to deal with,
which needed clear wits and good judgment.

He
gained leverage as he could, took his weight mostly on his arms, hands
on the saddlebow, and let the pain run as it would, while he made the
right leg move, and bend, and the feeling come back in tingling misery.
Sweat fell from his face and spattered his hands, white-knuckled on the
horn.

He
watched Chei ride up to the very doors, draw the red roan alongside
that door-rim and pound with a frail human fist against that towering
mass of metal, which hardly resounded to his blows.

"I
am Chei ep Kantory," he shouted, in a voice that seemed far too small.
"I am Chei lord of Morund, Warden of the South! I have brought visitors
to the Overlord! Open the doors!"

They will not,
Vanye
thought then. It seemed too improbable that anyone inside could even
hear them. He looked up dizzily toward the masonry that supported the
great doors, expecting there, if they had any answer, the small black
figures of archers, and arrows to come down on them like sleet.
Forewarning was all the grace he sought of this place—
time,
for Morgaine to draw the sword, with all the risk
that
was, this close to the gate.

But
metal boomed and clanked and hinges groaned with a sound that hurt the
ears and shied the horses: Arrhan came up on her hind legs and down
again, braced in an instant's confusion. He caught his balance,
steadied her, colliding with the panicked bay at lead, at Siptah's left.

The
iron doors groaned and squealed outward, opening on a shadowed hall of
scale to match them, pillars greater in girth than all but the greatest
trees of Shathan.

He slipped the ring that held his sword at his back, and let it fall ready to his side.

"Not
yet," Morgaine said, as Chei and his companions started forward and
rode into that hall. She began to ride after, calmly, slowly as the men
in front of them.

He touched Arrhan with his heels and curbed the mare's nervousness with a pat on her sweating neck. His hand was shaking.

Reason enough,
he
thought, as he passed between the doors that towered either side of
him, greater than Ra-Morij's very walls. He could not see what images
were on the inside: he dared not take his eyes from where they were
going, into an aisle of vast pillars wanly lit with shafts of sunlight
from above.

There was a second set of doors before them, far down that forest of stone.

They were closed.

Did we expect more?
he
asked himself, and breathed the air of the shadow that fell on them, a
dank chill the worse after the noon warmth outside. He heard the clank
that heralded the sealing of the doors behind them, and steadied
Arrhan, who shied and danced under him. The blaze-faced bay jerked and
jolted at lead, fighting it. Shod hooves clattered and echoed on
pavings, under the machine-noise of iron and chain and ratchets.

And
the ribbon of daylight which lay wide about them, narrowed and vanished
with the meeting and sealing of the doors at their backs.

The horses settled, slowly, in a profound silence.

Footsteps
sounded within the forest of pillars. A qhal in black armor, his silver
hair loose around his shoulders, walked out into their path, into a
shaft of light.

It was not the only footfall in the place. But the pillars hid what else moved about them.

"My lord Warden," Chei said, as the roan fought the rein.

"South-warden?"
Seiyyin's Warden asked. He was not young nor old. The face might have
been carved of bone, the eyes of cold glass.

"Yes,
my lord," Chei answered him—youth's form and youth's face; but that was
not what sat his horse facing this grim lord. "I was Qhiverin Asfelles."

"With?"

"Rhanin
ep Eorund, once Taullyn Daras, and Hesiyyn Aeisyryn, under my orders,
in the performance of my office, with persons traveling under my seal.
We are escorting this lady and her companion to Mante."

The
lord Warden's eyes traveled past the others to Vanye and to Morgaine,
and lingered, unreadable and cold. "These are the Outsiders."

"They
are, my lord. I urge you speak civilly to them. It was a mistake they
ever came through Morund-gate, and due to their falling in with humans,
and due to lies humans have told them, there have been costly
misunderstandings. This lady is a warden herself, and she is not
well-pleased with the things she has met on her way."

Wise man,
Vanye thought, light-headed with the pounding of his
heart.
Chei, get my lady through this and I will be your debtor, I swear it.

And, O Heaven, the Warden's cold eyes shifted toward them with the least small fracture in his command of the affair.

Not a stupid man either. Nor one incapable of shifting footing. "Where are you warden, lady?"

Morgaine rode a little forward; Vanye moved instantly to stay beside her.

"Where
I am warden," Morgaine said, "and more than warden—is something between
your Overlord and myself. But I thank you, my lord, if I am about to
meet more courtesy than has been my experience on this journey. It will
do a great deal to mend matters."

For a long moment the Warden was silent. Then: "We will advise the authorities in Mante," the Warden said.

"I
would suggest—my lord—you advise Skarrin himself, and do not waste my
time with 'authorities' and deputies. He is the one who
can
say
yes or no, he is the one to whom your 'authorities' have to appeal if
they are not utter fools, and I assure you, lord Warden, he will be
better pleased if you do
not
bring my affairs to him through a succession of subordinates, not all of whom
need
to know my name or my business, for your
safety,
my lord Warden."

It was very still in the vast hall.

Then:
"I pray you," the Warden said, "leave your horses to my deputies and
accept my hospitality. Advise me of whatever complaints you have, with
names where you may know them. Our lord will see justice done."

A cold crept through the sudden warmth, a sense of meshes closing. "It is a trap," Vanye murmured in his own tongue.
"Liyo,
I beg you, no."

"My
lord Warden," Morgaine said gravely, gently, "I should fear then—for
your own well-being. I am not a comfortable guest. The Warden of Morund
and his men are in my custody, as I think your lord will sanction when
he hears what I have to say. The South-warden has come into more
knowledge of my business than your lord may like, as it is.
And
he
has created difficulties for me. I have promised him if he makes amends
and if his lord will release him, I will take him and his men with me,
and save their lives. But I am
not
disposed to
leave this world with an entourage of half your lord's councillors and
his wardens. I advise you in all earnestness, my lord of Seiyyin Neith:
my affairs are secret, and I have told you enough already to put you at
some risk. Do as I tell you. Send this message directly to your lord:
Morgaine Anjhuran is here to see him, under circumstances you may
explain to him."

"Anj—"

Morgaine spelled it. "Be precise. Be very precise, my lord. Do you understand? Your safety and his are in question."

"I—have
no direct contact with the high lord. I can gain it. It will take time.
I beg you—step down, rest your horses, let us offer you food and drink—"

"We will wait here."

"A drink, at least—"

"We have our own supplies, my lord. We trust your hospitality includes haste."

"My
lady." The Warden looked profoundly offended, and worried. "It will be
some little time. I beg you understand. Stand down and rest. Take it or
no, my people will offer you what hospitality we have. Your leave, my
lady."

He inclined his head and walked away into the shadows.

They
were alone then, and not alone, in this chill place where the smallest
move echoed, and the stamp of an iron-shod hoof rang like doom.

"We
have disquieted him," Morgaine said quietly, in her most obscure
Kurshin accents. "That may be good or ill. Vanye—give me the stone."

He gave it. His heart hammered against his ribs.

"Come," she said, and sent Siptah suddenly forward, down the vacant aisle, toward the sealed doors.

There were running footsteps beyond the columns behind him, a quick spurt that died away in the direction the Warden had gone.

Someone had sped to advise him.

And
Morgaine veered off into shadow, the other side of a vast column three
quarters of the way down the long aisle, drew in and wheeled Siptah
about as Vanye arrived, as Chei and Hesiyyn and Rhanin clattered in
close behind him.

"What are you doing?" Chei asked, a young voice, which rose incongruously in pitch.

Light
flared, white and terrible as she opened the case of the gate-jewel. It
touched columns, faces, the wild eyes of the shying horses—and damped
as suddenly as she closed her hand about it, veiling it in flesh, awful
as it was.

"Give
it to me!" Vanye exclaimed, knowing the feel of it, imagining the pain
of handling it this close to Mante. But she held it fast, letting a
little of its flickering light escape to strike the stone pillar beside
them.

"Watch the surrounds!" she ordered. "Chei—what is our host saying?"

There
was no word for a moment, in which Vanye loosed his bow from his
shoulder, set its heel in his stirrup and strung it in the strength
fear lent.

"He is reporting our presence—our breach of his orders—" Chei said.

"To whom?"

"To
whoever is watching—I do not know—I do not know who that would be.—He
reports himself in danger. He is going to open the doors. He hopes we
will leave—"

"—into their reach," Morgaine said. There was pain in her voice. "Has he sent what I bade him?"

"No—or we have not seen it—"

"Take it.
Do
it."

"Send
what?
Who
are
you, that he should know you—curse you, woman, have you lied to me?"

"Believe everything you heard me tell the Warden—
Send
the
cursed message, man, send it exactly as I gave it and keep sending till
we have answer, or take your chances with the lord Warden's archers! Or
with that thing outside! Make your choice!"

Chei
reached. For a second the stone flared bright between them, blinding,
light glistening on Morgaine's pale face, on his, which grimaced as he
took it, and the red roan and the gray horse shied apart, both fighting
the rein.

Engines began to clank and chain to rattle at the other entrance.

A
seam of daylight lanced through the hall, blinding bright. The horses
sidestepped and fretted, more and more panicked, doubtful between the
gate-force in the air, and the racket and that view of escape.

"It
is more powerful than his," Chei said between his teeth. He used the
shuttering of the lid to send, less sure in his use of it than the
dimmer, rapid flickers of the Warden's sending, which came through as
weak pulses in his intervals. "We are drowning his sending—Rhanin! are
the warders moving?"

"No, my lord," the bowman said.

"If the gate at Mante should open," Hesiyyn said, "my lord, and you are holding that thing—"

"Send
and wait for an answer," Morgaine bade Chei harshly. "Again and
again—the same message. Watch around us! They have only to get one
gate-jewel positioned—"

"My lady!" a voice called down the aisles. "My lady, cease! You are free to go!"

"Ignore it," Morgaine said under her breath. "I take it that the lord Warden is lying."

"He is lying," Chei said, reading the silence of the stone in the intervals. "He has never reached—
Ah!"

Opal
shimmer flared, rapid pulses. Chei cupped his hand about it, and the
muscles of his face tensed with pain. "Skarrin," he said hoarsely.
"Skarrin himself—has just discovered treachery—has bidden silence.
He—knows your presence. And your name. He—tells the Warden—let us
pass—not to—oppose us.—He asks who wields this st-stone, my lady."

"Answer him. Tell him it is ours. And we have come to talk with him."

It
needed a moment. Chei's face stood out in taut-jawed relief in the
flashes, that came brighter from the stone, brighter than the glare
from the open door.

Then: "He will hear us," Chei said, hoarsely. And shut the case, letting his arm fall. "He forbids—more use of the stone."