Читать книгу The Limbreth Gate - Megan Lindholm - Страница 6

‘Come, lover. It’s full dark and the moon’s over the Herald’s Tower. That’s all I promised your friend.’

Vandien felt hands upon him. He was rolled onto his back. He blinked up stupidly at the woman that leaned over him, trying to pull him into a sitting position. He didn’t remember her. He didn’t remember any of this. He scrubbed at his strangely tingling face with sleepy hands. And did remember. He swung his feet to the floor and sat up so suddenly that the woman overbalanced and sat down hard. He glared at her wide-eyed look.

‘What’s going on?’ His tongue felt as fuzzy and dirty as the blankets he sat on. The woman licked her full lips and tried a smile on him. Vandien stood, caught himself as he tottered, and then found balance. One leg was still numb. He gripped that thigh and massaged it; it roused back to life with tingling pain. His whole hip on that side was tender, except for a dead spot right in the center. He touched it gingerly; dried blood cracked under his fingerprints.

‘It’s just a tiny jab!’ The woman dropped her smile and raised her hands as she fell back before him, not attempting to defend herself but only to ward off as much of the beating as possible. ‘Your friend said you could appreciate a good joke. It’s a common enough one. Don’t waste your time on me! The wedding will still be waiting for you, it’s not all that late. If you hurry, that is.’

‘You don’t make one damn bit of sense,’ Vandien growled.

She began to whimper. ‘Well, you know. The other apprentice, Jori, he paid me to do it. Said you’d done the same thing to a friend not three moons ago. Just a little jab with a dose of numbweed, and the bridegroom’s a little late for a wedding. It was just a joke!’ she cried out before his murderous look.

‘On the wrong man. Do I look like an apprentice, or a bridegroom?’

She quailed and accused together. ‘Well, you’re wearing the hawk, and you’ve got the scar. Oh, this is always my luck, it is! Look, don’t be angry! If you haven’t got a wedding night to go to, stay here, and I’ll make you think you’ve had one. Only don’t hit me and break up my things! Please!’ Tears welled, exposing the child, and Vandien was disarmed.

‘That’s all right,’ he assured her, backing away. ‘It was just a mistake. Don’t do anything so damn foolish again. Didn’t you wonder what kind of a man would set you up to bear the brunt of another’s anger?’

‘He gave me three times what I asked,’ she said defensively, and Vandien saw it was useless.

‘I’m going,’ he replied, quite unnecessarily. He limped from the room, his leg still bending strangely whenever he put weight on it.

The darkened stairs were a challenge he nearly didn’t meet. At the bottom he stopped to catch his breath and get his bearings. His head was as hazy as a drunkard’s. He would find his way back to the market, and then to the tavern. Ki was going to be annoyed at waiting so long for him; until he told his story. Then she would be amused. Neither appealed.

A horse snorted in the darkness. Vandien froze, letting his eyes adjust. His horse. Still saddled, and tied to a bush outside this seedy building.

He tried to make sense of it. Someone had made a very thorough mistake in identifying him. Not likely. Ki had set it up as a prank, complete with hawk necklace. It was more likely that Ki would hire an assassin. So. Your head is fuzzy and you won’t find any answers here in the dark. Get you to a tavern.

He mounted with difficulty. He had to grab the knee of his bad leg to get it properly placed. Once he was up, it was better than walking. Ki had chosen this animal for him. It was taller than one he would have picked, and uglier. But she had assured him that once she was finished with it, he would be able to trade it for whatever he wished. He had been skeptical. But now that she had wormed it, and her oil and herb mixture was improving its coat, it was a decent-looking mount. He was just lucky it hadn’t been stolen while it was tied there. That was another thing Ki would never have done: she would never have left a valuable animal and saddle standing in the dark. No, it wasn’t Ki.

Her wagon wasn’t under the sign of the Contented Duck, and she wasn’t inside. Cursing the strange turn of his luck, Vandien limped to a table and sat down to think. He ordered Alys to clear the thick taste from his mouth, and sat rubbing at his tingling leg. The dead spot in the center of his hip still bothered him. He could not resist tapping a finger against it. Nothing. His finger could feel the outline of the small wound, but his hip didn’t know it. He wondered how long before that would pass.

A dark and sullen boy brought Vandien his Alys. Vandien held up the coin to pay him, but did not release his grip on it. The boy glowered at him.

‘I need to ask you a question. I’m looking for a woman, a little shorter than I am, green eyes …’

‘I know a man named Sidrathio; he can get you any kind of woman you fancy, short ones, tall ones, ones that …’

‘No.’ Vandien broke the boy’s litany. ‘I am looking for a particular woman; I think she was here earlier. Green eyes, brown hair worn loose, a yellow blouse …’

‘The tavern has been very busy. I could have seen her and not noticed.’

Vandien’s hand went to his coin purse and the boy’s eyes darted after it. Vandien set the money for the Alys on the table, and a second small coin atop it. ‘Yellow blouse and a blue skirt and boots.’

The coins vanished. ‘Sidrathio’s women will dress any way to please you, and know skills that …’

‘Go!’ Vandien waved him off in disgust. ‘I wonder,’ he mused softly to himself, ‘if the age of a city has anything to do with how much rot runs through it. Or do I look so salacious and deprived …?’ Even as he spoke, Vandien realized he was still rubbing his leg under the table. He broke off with a woeful laugh.

Despite the serving boy’s claim, the tavern was not busy. It was past the hour for casual drinking. Only determined drinkers and local sots filled the chairs. Vandien raised his glass for more Alys and wondered which group he belonged with. He forced his muzzy brain to think. If Ki had not been here, or if she had gone, it all came to the same thing. Either she had left without him in a fit of pique at his tardiness, or she had been rousted out of town. Where would she go? If rousted, probably to whatever Gate was closest; if she were allowed to choose. His mind balked away from the thought of her in trouble. If she had chosen her own direction, which way would she go? Perhaps to the southwest, with its rumors of spices and rare woods to haul? For a moment Vandien’s fancy galloped down strange roads in pursuit of her, through foreign landscapes and cities of strange folk and customs. Then he reined it in, and with a sigh he knew she would go back north, to her regular routes, where she knew the quirks of the roads and merchants were eager to hire her. So he had best ride out the North Gate tonight. Unless she had been rousted and forced out on another road; unless she were in danger even now.

Vandien growled softly in frustration. His serving boy stared at him speculatively. Vandien traded him a glare. If Ki had been rousted from here, then surely someone had seen or heard of it. Again his eyes roved the tables. None of the patrons looked likely to volunteer information. The innmaster himself was a leering brute of aggressive hairiness. The other serving boy … perhaps. He had been polishing the same spot of table for a full five minutes, with his eyes more on the door than on his work. He was a slight and pale youth, his thin shoulders bowed forward in a permanent cower. Vandien flipped up a small coin and let it fall ringing on his tabletop. The boy didn’t turn to the sound of it. So strange a behavior was this for a serving boy that Vandien wondered if he were deaf. Hastily he tossed down the rest of his Alys and held up the glass.

‘Lad?’ he called.

The boy flinched and turned at the same instant. He came to Vandien’s table as reluctantly as a kicked dog. Vandien liked Jojorum less and less with each passing moment.

‘I’m looking for a friend,’ Vandien began gently. The boy’s eyes went wide, his pupils filling them with blackness. ‘If you haven’t seen her, tell me so. I won’t be angry. She is slender, a bit shorter than myself, green eyes and brown hair, wearing a yellow blouse.’

Already the boy was shaking his head in a terrified manner, so that his fine pale hair stood out around his face like a halo. His eyes whipped back to the door, but his danger came from another direction.

‘Wretch! Don’t shake your head, fill his glass! He didn’t come here to look at it empty, and I don’t feed you to deny the customers. About your work, or do I take a fist to you?’

The boy’s whole body jerked in apprehension, his face crumpling into tears even as the promised blow fell. There was a solid smack of flesh against flesh, and a loud grunt of surprise from the innmaster. Vandien’s capable fingers tightened on his soft white wrist until the flesh stood out between them in red bulges.

‘Child beatings always detract from the pleasures of drinking. Do not you agree?’ His tone was conversational, but Vandien’s fingers continued to tighten until the innmaster made a sound, half grunt, half gasp, of agreement. The boy was white, sagging against the table, his shock at being defended almost as stunning as a blow.

Vandien rose without releasing the innmaster’s wrist. The man still stood half a head taller than Vandien, but Vandien was road hard and whiplash limber. For the space of three breaths the innmaster’s eyes met his. Then they dropped before his black stare, to dart about the table legs.

‘The little snake has always been trouble to me. Don’t let his sweet looks deceive you. I give him a bed, clothes to his back; he repays me with lies and trouble.’

Vandien picked up his empty glass. He held it before the innmaster’s nose. ‘Innmaster, my glass is empty. See to its refilling. And bring a glass of red wine for my friend.’

The innmaster wanted to snarl at the boy, but he was stopped by the coins in Vandien’s free hand. Vandien kicked out a free chair and nodded the boy into it. Seating himself again, he dropped his landlord’s wrist as if it were a piece of fresh offal. For a merest blink the man stood still, rubbing at his smarting flesh and eyeing Vandien. But Vandien smiled back at him affably. It was late at night; none of his regular patrons were willing or sober enough to aid him. To summon the city guard at this hour would require a bigger bribe than the innmaster was willing to pay. He turned and strode back to his kitchen, trying not to hurry. Moments later, the other serving boy appeared at the table, filling Vandien’s glass and bringing a goblet of red wine as well. He picked up Vandien’s coins and then stepped well away from the table.

‘Begging your pardon,’ he said softly. His lips trembled, but he glanced at the kitchen door and went on. ‘My master bids me to tell you this. If you want the boy, he has to be paid for, same as anything else in this tavern.’

Vandien gave him a level stare, and a wolf’s smile. ‘Actually, it’s your master I lust for. Tell him I bid him to come to my table, so I can pay him what he’s worth.’

The boy nodded stiffly, and scurried away. Vandien turned his eyes to his white-faced companion. The lad was on the edge of his chair, nearly slipping away.

‘Sit down,’ Vandien told him. ‘And drink that down. It may give you some color. Now. Before we were interrupted, we were talking. I was telling you I was looking for a friend.’

Again the boy’s eyes went wide, and Vandien saw his error. ‘No. Nothing like that. There is a woman I travel with, a Romni woman I was to meet here. But she seems to have left without me. She has green eyes and brown hair …’

The child put his head down on his arms and began to sob softly. Vandien looked at him, sighed, and swallowed half his Alys. ‘Well, we can talk about my friend later, perhaps. Don’t be upset, now. Listen. Have you ever heard the story of the woman who walked to the moon by following its shining path across a lake?’ The boy did not stir. His sobs were only slightly less. Vandien drew his story-string out of his pouch. ‘I’ll show it to you. See, here is the moon …’ The string looped and settled on his fingers, forming his people’s sign for moon. Vandien began telling his story softly to himself.

Four stories passed. The boy’s head was still pillowed on his arms, but he looked about, and Vandien had talked half the wine into him. He seemed calmer. Vandien began another story, but his voice dragged. He kept losing his place in it. His story-string tangled on his fingers. He picked at the knot, trying to remember what story he had been telling. He could no longer taste the Alys he quaffed. That numbweed was potent stuff indeed. It mattered little now if his hip were numb or not. He wouldn’t have felt a dozen small jabs. He continued to work at the knot.

His forehead bumped the table. He jerked himself upright and forced his sandy eyes open. The boy regarded him gravely from across the table. ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ he ventured to ask.

‘It’s either too much to drink or not enough sleep,’ Vandien told him fuzzily. He couldn’t tell if the boy heard his reply or not. His grey eyes had strayed back to the door. ‘Now it’s my turn to ask,’ Vandien ventured. ‘Who is supposed to come in that door soon?’

‘My mother.’ The boy’s voice went flat and dull. His eyes were beyond pain as he turned them to Vandien. ‘That’s what she promised me. The blue woman said that if I told her to go through the Gate, my mother would be able to come in and find me. So I did. She was looking for you, and I sent her through the Gate. I’m sorry.’

‘What?’

The story came slowly, in bits and tatters. Vandien felt his jaws tighten. He forced himself to nod and tried to keep his fears from the boy. The boy’s description made the blue woman a Windsinger. Ki had been sent through a Gate on a ruse. Into what? Rousters? Windsinger’s magic? Or simple death in the dark?

‘Tell me again about the Gate,’ Vandien urged. ‘Why didn’t you just run home to your mother?’

‘The Keeper wouldn’t let me. And my mother couldn’t get through the Gate either. I tried once. I crept away from here once and ran down to the Limbreth Gate. My mother saw me and ran to meet me. But we couldn’t get through. We couldn’t even get into the Gate. Then the terrible light came, and my mother told me to run away, back to shelter.’

Vandien straightened himself, alarm horns blaring in his mind. This was no nightly ritual of waiting for his mother, nor a question of Rousters keeping his mother out of the city. His sleepiness drained away; a touch of sobriety rebuked him.

‘My mother even offered to trade herself for me. She told the Keeper that she would come in the Gate, if he would let me go out. To keep the balance. But the Keeper wouldn’t let her. He was afraid folk on this side would believe my mother’s words. They pay no heed to one such as I.’

‘What could she tell us that would so upset the Keeper?’

The child leaned forward to whisper the great secret. ‘The Jewels of the Limbreth are not for this world. Only for ours. One of your kind cannot seize the Jewels and bring them back here as a treasure. For your kind, the Jewels seize.’

‘My kind seize the Jewels?’ Vandien was wishing desperately that his head was not so fumed with Alys and the drug dart. Into what had Ki been sent?

‘No! No, the Jewels seize them,’ the boy said, as if reciting a well-known story. ‘They have no moderation. They do not bask in the peace and revelation of the Jewels. The Limbreth smiles upon them, and the Jewels seize them. But it is not an unpleasant thing for them. They are then inspired to do some great work. It may be wrought in metal or worked in stone. It may be the making of songs of far places the Limbreth has never seen. Their work is a joy to the Limbreth. But those who touch the Jewels of the Limbreth never return to this side of the Gate.’

Vandien shook his head as if clearing his ears of water. He picked up the empty Alys goblet, and then slammed it back to the table. His mind was fuzzed enough. He had listened, and now he had best act.

A sudden gust of cool night air flowed into the tavern. Vandien turned stinging eyes gratefully, seeking the source of the welcome draft. The door was open, and a woman was framed in it as she held the slats to one side. Her eyes glowed pale grey, and her green garment clung to her like fog on a morning hillside.

‘Mother!’ The boy collapsed under the table and scuttled past Vandien’s tall boots. He immersed himself in his mother’s long skirts.

Vandien pushed free of the table, tossing down a few coins for payment. If she were here, then Ki had gone through. His heart began to hammer, and his head to spin when he stood too rapidly. When he regained himself, the woman and boy were gone. He limped to the doorway and stood there, steadying himself on its splintery framework. The streets were dark and empty. His quick ears caught the sound of a light and hurried tread.

‘Wait, woman!’ he called into the night. ‘I must speak to you!’ The patter of feet paused, then resumed more rapidly. Vandien cursed to himself. He stumbled slightly over the doorstep and then went after them.

The darkness closed over him like a cupped hand. The thick dust of the street cloaked the sound of their fleeing footfalls. Vandien hurried after them, swinging one leg stiffly. Once he slipped in fresh slops, windmilling his arms for balance. He trotted on, his own thudding boots obscuring the sounds he tried to follow. A crossroads opened before him and he halted. A fool’s errand. He would get lost in the city and never find this peculiar Limbreth Gate. The thing to do was return to the tavern, get his horse, and make a swift round of the walls. But then he heard the boy’s voice, lifted querulously. Someone sternly shushed him. Vandien turned softly toward the sounds.

This was a poorer section of Jojorum, the mud brick houses built on the crumbled foundations of older, nobler buildings. The smaller dwellings were ready to tumble down; the narrow alleys between them were clogged with debris. Vandien’s fogged brain cleared as his wariness reasserted itself. This would be a fine place for an ambush. There was a whisper of fabric and Vandien spun to it.

‘He’s only the man from the tavern, Mother.’ Mother and son emerged from the shadow they crouched in.

Vandien’s shoulders sank and he let out a short breath as his arms unclenched. ‘That’s right,’ he said softly. ‘It’s only the man from the tavern.’

The woman had a low voice like wind over a meadow. ‘My son tells me you were kind to him, sir. It seems it was the first kindness he was freely given since he so foolishly left my cottage. I did not mean to leave you unthanked. But my time is fleeing. I must return to the Gate before your light comes.’

Vandien took the boy’s hand. ‘Then we have the same errand. I, too, must pass that Gate tonight. As I do not know the way, would you guide me there? And I would ask, rudely perhaps, how a child as young as this comes to be working alone in a tavern such as that.’

The pale gown of the mother was a blur before Vandien as he followed her down the narrow street. ‘Chess is a willful boy. He is not one to stay at home around my feet as I do the chores and work the land. Always he is off by the stream, or up in the trees on the hillside, or loitering by the Limbreth’s road. I did not worry when he was late for our meal. I saved up the scolding I had for him. But the time for second meal came, and he did not come, I went seeking him. A neighbor told me he had seen Chess speaking to a Gate Keeper. The Keepers are deceitful, honorless ones. I knew no good could one wish my Chess. I hastened to the new Gate. But even before I got to the Gate, I saw a stranger coming up the road, attired as one from this world. I knew she could not come in unless one had gone out. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked her. She gave me a cold look and no reply as she rode past on her black beast. Then I knew she came seeking to steal away the Jewels of the Limbreth. I hurried to the Gate. But the time was past, and the Gate led to hot deadly light. Too late to pass now, even if there had been one willing to change places with me. The Keeper vowed he had never seen my child. I knew he lied. He stood safe within his Gate and lied to me.

‘I have haunted the Gate and waited. Once Chess came, but we could not pass. So I had to wait. Until now, when a woman drove animals and a cart through the Gate and the Keeper let me through to balance her. Our chance of returning to our side is slight. But I have regained my Chess. Whatever we face, we face now together.’

‘She went on without me,’ Vandien muttered dully. His abused mind could not absorb the full import of her words. ‘What has she been lured into?’

‘She seemed not at all like others who have come through,’ the woman commiserated. ‘Yet I fear the Jewels will seize her nonetheless. It’s a pity. She seemed to have her heart in this world. Yet she went off down the road that leads to one end without a backward glance, a fool like the rest. Still, I shall not speak ill of one who let me through to my Chess.’

‘I will,’ grumbled Vandien. ‘She chooses her companions recklessly, and takes foolish advice. She makes more haste than sense.’

The darkened streets were deceptive in their turnings. Vandien was not sure if it were darkness or Alys that made the way so tricky for him. The game leg did not help. The mother and son preceded him, her pale garments and hair floating before him in the blackness. They seemed to find the way clear and familiar, stepping past the potholes that Vandien stumbled in, and turning at crossroads down streets that led only to darkness. Vandien followed them like a led beast. Once he found Ki, he’d fumble his way back to the tavern and his horse. For now he had to get through the Gate and catch her before she went too far. The moon grew paler in the sky.

They turned an abrupt corner, Vandien stumbling hastily after them. He stepped on the hem of her garment, for she had halted before him. He pulled himself up and looked past her. The Limbreth Gate glowed before them.

It struck Vandien as no more than a rectangular hole in the city walls. It was difficult for him to make out the country beyond it, and yet the Gate itself was strangely clear to his eyes. It was as if the darkness itself had been pressed back to make a space for this red Gate. No bars or portcullis hampered the way. Only an old gatekeeper in grey robes. Vandien put a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder to urge her forward. Even intoxicated, he felt sure he could handle the old wretch. But under his hand her muscles were tight as a hunting cat’s.

‘So you have returned, have you?’ the Keeper charged her. ‘What will you do? Haunt me from that side now? By now you know I am beyond your reach. How can two of you ever expect to enter? No two will ever wish to leave, and the Limbreth has told me to let the Gate close. Folly. You should have returned to your farm, woman, and mourned the child as dead.’

Vandien tightened his grip on her clenched shoulder muscles. With a courtliness that was only partially the Alys, he stepped past and in front of them, placing them in the shelter of his body.

‘Why do you seek to bar these two from returning to their home?’ His tone was of reasonable curiosity. His fingers did not even venture to the worn hilt of his belt knife. There was nothing in his stance to suggest a threat, but every muscle in the set of his face promised it. It was a disparity that Vandien cultivated. He smiled hard, letting his scar pull his left eye into a sinister squint.

But the Keeper was not daunted. Instead he seemed to be staring past Vandien, considering the skyline. He smiled blindly and nodded toward it in a superior way. After a moment, Vandien’s eyes unwillingly followed his gaze. There was nothing to be seen. Only that the moon was a little paler in a sky that was venturing toward dawn.

‘What is it?’ the woman behind him whispered in awe.

‘Nothing!’ snorted Vandien. ‘It’s an old trick, supposed to unnerve us by implying he has comrades behind us. Pay no attention.’

He glanced back at the Gate Keeper. The Gate was harder to see in the growing light. Its red glow had paled and faded to match the stones of the wall. Vandien heard the boy whispering to his mother.

‘The world is going away. It does that here, Mother. A great heat and whiteness descends. If you remain out in it, as once I did, you are blinded and burned. We must seek shelter from it now. It may be hard to believe, but it becomes much worse than this. This is only the beginning, what they call “dawn.”’

‘Tavern man! Where can we go?’ Vandien turned to that piteous plea. Chess had hidden his face in his mother’s gown, and the woman had thrown her arm across her eyes. They wilted like daffodils in a drought.

‘You must let them through!’ Vandien cried, understanding only vaguely what was happening. But the Gate that had been before them a moment ago now eluded him, first winking wide, then showing only as a narrow rift in the wall. It hid in the growing light. He glimpsed the Keeper’s toothless grin. As Vandien sprang forward angrily to seize the mocking creature, his outstretched hands met a forgiving resistance, as if he pressed against the air bladder in a fish. He pushed against it, ignoring a stinging tingle like nettles. So far would his hands go, and no farther. The Keeper’s laughter did not reach their ears, but Vandien had a glimpse of his mirth as he battled with the evasive Gate.

Behind him he heard cries as the first rays of sunlight touched the city. At the same time, his fist scraped the old stone of the city walls. He pulled back his hands and stared at the coarse stone of the solid wall before him. Gate and Keeper were gone like mist in the sunlight. He spent a few futile seconds pushing against this and that stone of the wall, seeking some hidden catch or loose stone. The carved figures smiled down at him condescendingly. He pressed his hands against the wall, weaving his hand from side to side like a blind thing. The Gate would glimmer for an instant, and be gone before he could see it. Vandien cursed, clawing mindlessly at the stone. Then he felt a fumbling at his cloak.

The woman had sunk to her knees, her face huddled across her crossed arms. Chess had crept across to him, to tug at him piteously. He crouched, whimpering wordlessly before Vandien. The morning sun colored his hair between blond and grey. It fell forward over his bowed shoulders, baring a slender neck as brown as wild honey. Vandien looked at the solid wall and shook his head in bewilderment. His brain rattled sharply inside his skull; the first stabs of an Alys-inspired headache jabbed him.

He eased himself down to untangle Chess from his cloak. Any sudden movement or violent activity would trigger a truly memorable headache. He knew he should turn his efforts to finding Ki. But he couldn’t just leave these two here. ‘We’ll go to the next Gate and circle around,’ he promised them.

As he unhooked each of Chess’s small hands, they fell unresisting to the dusty street. He continued to whimper as if he wished to cling to Vandien but found the effort beyond his strength. His high-pitched keening and the deeper sobs of his mother pierced Vandien’s brain like arrows. ‘What has happened to the Gate? Will they open it again?’ he asked them gently. There was only the rising and falling of the boy’s wailing as a reply. Vandien felt needles at the back of his eyeballs. ‘Chess, stop that, please. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.’

More keening. Vandien reached for the thin shoulders, repressed just in time a violent urge to shake the child into silence. He looked down in pain and consternation at the small head bowed before him. His eyes widened and his own throbbing head was forgotten.

Small watery pink blisters were rising on the back of his exposed neck, popping up even as Vandien watched. His belly tightened and he started to back away from whatever unsuspected disease this was. Where the hair parted on the boy’s skull, more blisters were popping up in a neat row like seedlings after a rain. Chess’s eyes were screwed tight shut in pain as he raised his face to Vandien. The skin of his small brown face was pure still, but as soon as the morning sunlight touched it, the blisters began to swell.

‘The light! The hot light!’ Vandien looked at the mother struggling to rise. ‘How can it be endured? We shall die here!’

She lifted her once proud head and staggered a few steps closer to Vandien. Her eyes were squinted to slits. He saw the blisters rise on her nose and high cheeks as she groped toward him. She fell to her knees, her hands seeking blindly before her. The green of her airy garments began to brown and crumple in the morning light like leaves seared in a desert wind. Pink blisters popped on her exposed hands and arms.

He did not understand why, but he comprehended the need. With a sudden movement that brought demons to dance in his skull, he whipped the cloak from his own back and floated it down over the woman. It covered most of her, and as soon as she sensed its protection she drew her arms and legs neath its shelter. ‘Chess!’ Her agonized moan came from beneath the garment.

The child at his feet whimpered in reply but didn’t move. The brown ragged garment from the inn covered most of his body. He had the sense to crouch with his arms and legs drawn up beneath him and his face averted from the sky. The cloak would not cover both of them. Vandien was tugging off his shirt when he heard the scuff of a footstep behind him.

He twirled, wincing at the pain this cost him. A portly man, the worse for his night’s revelry, regarded the group with a carefully uncurious eye. As Vandien rounded on him, he became even more disinterested; his careful walk proclaimed that the woman huddled under the cloak and the child that whimpered and scrabbled at Vandien were invisible. A true city dweller, he gave them only an oblique glance that never reached Vandien’s eyes.

Vandien knew the courtesy of the city forbade him to look at the stranger or express any need, but his splitting headache and the peril of the young boy before him banished politeness. He dragged himself free of Chess, to clutch at the man’s sleeve. ‘I need your cloak, man! The child is burning up!’

The man opened his bloodshot eyes a trifle wider. He belched, and pulled his arm free of Vandien’s frantic grip, even though the tug nearly cost him his balance. He staggered a few steps sideways, drew himself up gravely, and shot Vandien a haughty and disdainful look. But as he shrugged his cloak back even about himself, his eyes took in the blisters on the child’s exposed arms. With a speed surprising in one so large, he ripped the cloak from his back and dashed it down into the street.

‘My thanks for your mercies.’ Vandien stooped to take up the cloak.

The man’s mouth opened wider than Vandien supposed it could. His eyes were distended and suddenly sober. ‘Pox!’ The word blared from his mouth like a blast from a hunting horn. ‘Pox bringers!’ he screeched again.

Vandien flung the cloak about Chess as aroused citizens began to stir. A door slammed somewhere. Heads began to pop out of doors in the side street. A young woman stepped from a door near the corner. She halted at the sight of Vandien with the bundled child in his arms and the body huddled under a cloak beside him.

‘Pox bringers!’ She took up the cry lustily and the man made it a chorus. Stooping to the street, she grabbed a loose stone. Vandien flung up his arm to shield his face, but the fist-sized rock bounced instead off the woman. It brought a sharper cry from under the cloak. The streets were filling with people awakened by the cries of ‘Pox bringers!’ Head and heart pounding, Vandien stooped beneath his burden of the child to seize the mother by her arm and drag her erect. The cloak fell away from her face as she came up; the stone throwing woman gave a shriek of horror. The blisters were rupturing. A watery flow shone on the woman’s face and dripped from her chin. Screaming with pain, she dragged the cloak over her face again.

And then they were running, with stones skipping and bouncing past them. Vandien received a solid thunk from one that hit between his shoulders, but no more flew true after that. Mentally, he cursed the gods for his luck, and in the same breath thanked them that his pursuers were city bred and poor in the skills of aiming and throwing.

Chess jolted in his arms as he tried to keep a hand free to guide the woman along. The cloak blinded her and the pain crippled her. Their run was little more than a hurried hobble; they had no chance of outdistancing their pursuers. His rapier was in the wagon with Ki; but he had no hand free to draw it in any case. He had only his belt knife against a fear-crazed crowd.

He glanced back to check their numbers. But though they shook fists and hurled stones, they had given up the chase. Perhaps they only wished to harry the pox bringers out of their area; perhaps they feared getting closer and becoming contaminated. Vandien realized now why the man had parted with the cloak. And he had thanked him.

‘I cannot go much farther.’ Chess’s mother panted from under the cloak. Vandien cast about for shelter. But no inn would take in two marked with oozing blisters, even if Vandien had possessed sufficient coin. It was early yet, and few folk were about; but they could not rely on that for long. As soon as they were seen, they would be stoned again. He steered them down an alley.

He half dragged them past the windowless backs of squat mud brick dwellings. He was staggering under his double burden, uncertain of what type of shelter he was seeking.

They scuttled across a street that interrupted the alley, and back into the shelter of the next alley. This one appeared a little more run down. Dry yellow grass grew against the backs of the houses, new green sprouts pushing up in their shade. Another street was crossed, and Vandien found himself in an alley where the weeds and trash choked the footpath. He gave the woman what trodden surface there was, himself hopping over the tufty grasses, bits of broken furnishings and crumbling piles of rain-melted mud bricks. Chess was silent and limp in his arms.

A wooden porch jutted into the alley, clinging haplessly to the crumbling wall of a fallen-in house. But as Vandien cautiously skirted it, he realized it was not a porch. Chicken feathers and dung crushed the floor. A splintered wooden door hung crookedly on sagging leather hinges. There were no windows nor any door into the abandoned house it clung to. The dung cracked dryly under his feet as he dragged his charges into this dubious shelter. As soon as he halted, the woman sank down onto the floor. Mercifully, she became silent. He deposited his motionless bundle beside her and turned back to the door. It looked as if few folk passed this way, but it would be a bad place to be cornered. It couldn’t be helped. He dragged at the door and it scraped toward him, to wedge tight half a handspan from being closed. It could not be tugged farther. His stubborn efforts only wrenched the doorframe and threatened to pull it loose entirely. It would have to do. Vandien sat down wearily on the filthy floor. The dryness of dust, old dung and chicken feathers tortured his mouth and throat. He lowered his throbbing head into his hands, and wondered unhappily how yesterday’s pleasures had gone so wrong. Dust motes danced in the narrow wedge of light that slipped through the door’s crack. The random sounds of an awakening city came distantly to his ears.

He lifted a corner of the cloak that covered Chess. The boy’s breath was light and shallow, his eyes still squeezed shut. His face was not as badly blistered as his arms. But when Vandien lifted the cloth higher for a better look, Chess cried out and scrabbled deeper within its cover. At the sound, his mother stirred and crept closer to him. ‘Hush, Chess. Hush.’ She raised a corner of her cloak to peer out, but dropped it as soon as the dim sunlight reached her. ‘Are we safe here?’

‘For now. What manner of Humans are you, that cannot bear the light of day?’

‘Day.’ There was wonder and dread in the muffled voice. ‘It is more fearsome than any legend warned. I thought it only a myth, a tale to warn adventuresome fools who could not satisfy themselves within our own world. Each Gate, they say, has a terror beyond it. Some murmur that the Limbreth should not open Gates. But who are we to question the Limbreth?’

Vandien’s pounding head ground small sense from her words. She implied the Gate was more than a passage through the wall. Well, he had heard of stranger things, and seen a few of them proved true. He made a futile effort to cough without jarring his head.

‘Will you feel safe here if I go to fetch water? And some food, perhaps, if I can manage it. Your blisters might be calmed by cool water. And I’ve a thirst that this chicken dust only torments.’

‘We will be fine here, man from the tavern. You are very kind not just to leave us. You seem different from the other folk of your world. Do you belong here?’

‘I wonder?’ he mused bitterly. ‘Vandien,’ he offered her then. ‘My name is Vandien. And I am not all that different. The folk who stoned us were terrified; they thought we had brought pestilence into the city. Fear breeds cruelty. And I can’t let you think I am so unselfish. If I am to catch up with my partner, I need to pass through your Gate. Doing that may require your assistance. It is like no Gate I have ever encountered.’

Beneath the cloak he saw the motion of a shaking head. ‘It cannot be passed. Not unless a like number of folk were willing to come out. The Keeper calls it the balance. But I will try to recall all I have ever heard of the Limbreth’s Gates. It will not be much. I was content in my land, tending my own farm, and didn’t listen to foolish tales of the Gates. Not until Chess was lured through one.’

‘I will be back as swiftly as I can. Keep silent while I am gone.’

‘Jace.’

‘What was that?’ Vandien paused with his hand on the crooked door.

‘My name is Jace, Vandien. We shall be silent until you return.’

The splintery door scraped earth and sod as he forced it open and then shoved it closed behind him. He dusted the dirt and feathers from his clothing and stretched. His eyes blinked and watered in the bright sunlight that stabbed his eyes. The day would be hot. Day, he mused to himself, and started back to the inn and his horse.

When he returned, the sun was reaching for noon. The alley was still empty. Vandien led his horse down to the chicken coop and tethered it to a scraggly bush. He slipped off the worn bridle so the horse could graze. The saddle he left in place. It was small burden to his horse. If the tethered animal did attract curious folk, Vandien intended to be ready to retreat with Chess and Jace.

He took the still cold and dripping waterskin from the saddle. The new pouch was empty now. But he had found two small loaves of bread at an early baker’s stall and flat slabs of red salt fish at a fly-buzzing fishmonger’s. These purchases he balanced awkwardly in the crook of one arm. He kicked lightly at the door of the chicken coop. There was no stirring within, no reply of any kind.

Vandien set down the waterskin to jerk the door open. Then there were sounds, gasps of pain and a quickly smothered cry from Chess as they dove under the cloak covers again. Vandien entered hastily, dragging the door shut behind him. But the small shaft of sunlight still squeezed in the door, and neither Jace nor Chess emerged.

‘Just for one moment,’ Vandien promised as he took up the corner of Jace’s cloak. She gasped in fear as he whisked it from her and stuffed it into the gap left by the faulty door. The portly man’s cloak was a fine one, its weave heavy and costly. The bright fibers shut out the sun. Vandien had plunged himself into a hot and dusty darkness. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

‘That’s so much better,’ breathed Jace. Vandien heard her sit up in the darkness beside him.

‘I can’t see a thing,’ he complained, but as his eyes adjusted, he found that was not strictly true. The pale green of Jace’s gown almost glowed, and there was a sheen to her hair and eyes that even the darkness could not quench. Chess at last unrolled from the cloak and ventured out. Vandien distinguished his pale eyes and fine hair in the darkness. He proffered the waterskin to Jace and she seized it gratefully.

Chess drank first, taking in long gasping gulps. Vandien moved his tongue inside his mouth. He had drunk his fill of cold water at the public well when he filled the skin, but the fine dust and feathers sucked the moisture from his mouth. Sweat trickled down his back in the closeness and heat, but he said nothing. He watched Jace drink, more quietly than the unabashed boy, but with equal eagerness and relief. She then damped the corner of Vandien’s cloak and soothed the blisters that had begun to break and run on Chess’s face and arms.

‘I never saw a people so affected by the sun,’ Vandien observed.

Jace damped the corner again and began easing the sores on her own face. ‘And I never saw a man so blind, and yet so easy in his movements. When the hot light came, neither you nor the folk of your city cried out or were burned.’

‘Where does that Gate go?’ Vandien asked the question that gnawed him, thinking of Ki who had gone ahead.

‘To my home,’ Jace replied with childish inadequacy. ‘I wish I could tell you more. There is only this. When the worlds are in alignment, the Limbreth can make a Gate. The Gate can be used as a passage, as long as the balance is kept. Through the Gate the Limbreth calls folk to bring it new ideas and joys. Out of the Gate pass those discontented in our own world. Those who come in walk the road that leads to the Limbreth, to be blessed by the Jewels.’

‘Your legends leave little hope for us to get through the Gate.’

‘Legends do not always tell all there is to know.’

‘The innmaster’s cellar was cooler than this place.’ Chess broke the conversation. ‘I liked being down there during the day. Usually he left me alone down there for all the hot light time. I wish I were there now.’

‘Hush!’ Jace rebuked him. ‘At least we’re together now. And we have a friend.’

The silence that followed weighed awkwardly on Vandien. He fumbled in the darkness, found the loaves of bread and the dried fish. ‘I brought food,’ he announced in a falsely hearty voice. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’

Chess immediately reached for a loaf and broke an end off. He was already nibbling at it while Jace took a piece of salt fish from Vandien’s hand. He heard her sniff at it cautiously.

‘What is this made from? I do not mean to seem ungrateful, but it smells spoiled.’

‘Let me see it.’ Vandien nibbled a piece off, swallowed it. Immediately his drink-soured stomach offered it back to him, but he managed to keep his throat closed. After a moment’s struggle, ‘It’s fine,’ he managed. ‘Smoked a little heavily for my taste, but good river fish. This spring’s catch, or so the monger claimed.’

‘You ate a fish?’ It was Chess’s shocked voice coming in the brooding silence. ‘You ate a moving, alive thing?’ There was horror in the voice, and hurt.

‘Such is our custom.’ It sounded stiff, even to Vandien. But how could he have known that there were Humans who ate like Dene, refusing all food that didn’t grow from a root? Vandien heard a scuffling as Chess crept to his mother’s side.

‘He’s as horrid as the rest of them,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘As bad as the innmaster … who sometimes did not leave me alone in the cellar.’

To Vandien the stuffy little coop was suddenly as cold and dank as some evil well. ‘I …’ he choked. ‘Among our people, it is not a custom … not acceptable to force … never a child …’ He could find no words of defense and his own bile rose at what Chess had implied. Soured Alys and acid scorched the back of his throat. He wished he could be sick, alone somewhere. But he could not open the door and let light fall on them. He breathed deep, his lips and eyes tight. He heard Jace whispering words of comfort to her son, but for his own soul there was no comfort. He got up, paced two steps and flung himself into the far corner of the coop. ‘I am sorry.’ Empty words. ‘There will always be those who prey on the defenseless. There will always be the occasional one who is twisted, a disgrace to the whole species.’

‘Not in my world.’ Jace’s voice was firm now, but Vandien sensed the thinness of her control. ‘Not in my land. I hunger so for its peace now. This is horror and evil beyond my wildest fears. My Chess will have much to forget. If he can. I know I cannot.’