Night Gate

by Isobelle Carmody

  Rage blinked, confused. “A boy on the road said I could see them here,” she said quickly. In her experience, boys said all sorts of outrageous things, only some of which were true.

  “Oh, a boy,” Niadne said, looking both relieved and exasperated. “Well, it would be best if you forget what he said. Other than the river ferry, boats are only used by the blackshirts. I will not speak of the purposes to which they are put.”

  “I just wanted to see them,” Rage said, twisting her face childishly in the hope that this would cause Niadne to elaborate.

  Niadne just pressed her lips together in disapproval. “Your mother will have told you something of her own banding, but you should know that this High Keeper is very strict. He will not look tolerantly on mistakes. You must be very careful to move slowly and keep in Order with the other girls as you walk up to the Willow Seat, and do not speak to any of the other supplicants during the banding. The High Keeper does not like women to talk. He believes it is a flaw in womankind that we chatter rather than think deep thoughts. Do not speak to the High Keeper at all. And do not look into his eyes.”

  Rage was surprised at how much she resented all of the rules made by the High Keeper. Back home, rules had always made her feel safe. It had not occurred to her that there might be bad rules as well as good ones, and she had obeyed them without question. The High Keeper sounded as harsh and mean-minded as the rules he made. What would he do if I refused to obey them? Rage wondered hotly, then realized she had spoken aloud.

  Niadne regarded her gravely. “This is not a game, child Rage. The High Keeper might see your boldness as an omen. The best thing is not to be noticed. Make yourself utterly inconspicuous.”

  Or what? Rage wanted to ask, but she only said, “You can be sure I won’t speak to the High Keeper.” She had no intention of even seeing him. The more she thought about it, the more certain she felt that the River of No Return flowed into the Endless Sea. It made strange but compelling sense. She couldn’t wait to hear what Billy thought.

  Niadne was still regarding her anxiously. “Can I have something to eat now?” Rage asked.

  Her question wiped the lines of worry from the woman’s lovely face. “Children are always hungry,” she said happily. “Come.”

  A little later, eating horribly sweet porridge out of a thick earthenware bowl, Rage studied the girls seated at her table. Most were a lot younger than her. Other than being slightly subdued, they appeared content to be in Fork. Maybe they took comfort from the company of their friends. From what she could gather, they had all come from their villages in twos or in groups, having been collected by the white-faced guardians.

  The little girls Rage had seen on the road recognized her at once, and the one who had invited her to ride with them insisted she join them. Her name was Ninaka, she said, and her two friends were Sarry and Bylan.

  “Where is your friend?” Bylan had asked pertly after Rage introduced herself.

  “Friend?” Niadne asked. “There was another?”

  “A boy,” Rage said quickly. “He came to escort me, but now he has gone back.”

  Niadne seemed mollified and told Ninaka that boys did not come to this childhouse, which was a temporary refuge for those to be banded.

  “My brother is coming to Fork soon, but he will not stay in a childhouse,” another girl said. “He will go to the keeper academy. He says the villages are dead and one day Wildwood will just be another province ruled by the keepers.”

  “My brother wants to be a blackshirt,” another said.

  “My brother is a blackshirt!” yet another offered.

  “Hush,” Niadne said. “Good girls do not boast or speak loudly, even of their brothers.”

  The little girls exchanged abashed looks.

  “What do girls do?” Ninaka asked. “Can we be keepers and blackshirts, too?”

  Niadne shook her head. “Keepers and blackshirts must be strong and give orders and make rules. Girls are not good at such things.”

  Rage gritted her teeth and vowed that she would never obey another rule or voice without first deciding that it was wise.

  “Why is everything so black and dark in Fork?” Sarry asked in a mournful voice.

  All of the little girls sat cross-legged in a circle around Niadne, who folded her hands neatly in her lap. “In the beginning,” she said primly, “the wizard used his great magical power to draw Valley from time. He made it to be fruitful. He filled it with natural beasts, and he made the river to flow through it and the moon and the sun to shine on it. He brought high-minded men to keep Order, and women to be their obedient helpmates. He made the great city of Fork for them to live in. At that time, Fork was shining and filled with music and color, and there were bridges of glass and sculptures of silver and gold.”

  “Why did it become black?” Sarry asked, sounding sadder than ever.

  Niadne gave her a reproachful look. “You must not interrupt in such a rude and aggressive way, child Sarry. You must wait until I have finished speaking, and then, if no one else is speaking, you may speak.”

  “Why did it become black?” Rage repeated in the silence that followed this soft scolding.

  Niadne looked at her in disapproval, but this time she answered. “The city blackened to reflect the disappointment the wizard feels at what became of Valley.”

  “You mean, because of the magic being used up?”

  Niadne pressed her lips together for a moment, then nodded stiffly.

  “But how could Fork reflect what the wizard feels when he left Valley so long ago?” Rage asked.

  “Valley is held in place by the wizard’s magic. He knows what is happening here. That is why we must strive so hard for Order. Perhaps, in time, he will forgive us and return,” Niadne said piously. “Only then will the city grow light again.”

  She rose and directed them to rinse their plates and spoons and dry them. Another attendant summoned them to practice the banding ceremony. Rage began to follow the other girls, but Niadne asked her to remain behind.

  “The ceremony is not so very complex that you need worry about lacking practice,” she said. She led the way through a door and down a passage that brought them to a long room where women sat sewing and ironing. “Practice is needed for the little ones, since they forget things easily. But you are old enough that you need only be shown once or twice. Tonight and tomorrow morning there will be practices, and those will be sufficient. Now you must be fitted for your banding dress.”

  “Why do the little ones have to be banded so young?” Rage ventured.

  Niadne gave her a quick look. “Well, it was not always so, of course. In your mother’s time and mine, as I am sure she told you, only women who came to Fork were banded. The keepers would not have magic worked this side of the river. But when magic began to die on the other side of the river, the High Keeper announced that all girls must be banded, so that there was never any possibility of their drawing magic from the land and harming Valley.”

  “The keepers use magic in the provinces, don’t they?”

  Niadne shook her head. “They do not work magic. They channel it.”

  Rage was confused. Maybe channeling was like making a river flow to a different place, while the making of wild things and magical food was like taking the water away in buckets and drinking it or letting it evaporate. But even then water was never really used up. It was transformed into mist or moisture and eventually would return as rain.

  “I don’t understand why the witch women keep on wanting to work magic if it is destroying Valley.”

  Niadne looked aghast. “Child Rage, you must not speak of…of those women here. The High Keeper has decreed that they are not to be mentioned. You must learn to curb your tongue. There are many unpleasant punishments for women, and even children, who speak or behave in forbidden ways.”

  Rage was puzzled that mention of the witch women seemed to occasion more alarm than the possibility that Valley would be destroyed. “If the wizard comes�
�”

  “He will not come until Order is restored in Valley.”

  Rage was suddenly sick of hearing about Order. “It seems to me that Order is whatever the High Keeper decides it is. I can’t believe a wizard who made all of Valley and Fork would want all curly hair to be cut and everyone to wear gray.”

  Niadne paled. “You must not speak so, child Rage. The wizard is not here, and so the High One keeps Order in his absence. It is not for us to question the rules he imposes.”

  Not even if they are stupid, mean rules? Rage thought, but she held her tongue and kept her face meek as she was measured by two slender young women with downcast eyes. She thought darkly of how, in stories, people left in charge often ended up wanting to go on being in charge. Sometimes they even plotted to murder or imprison the true ruler, to make sure they would not return to claim their place. What if the keepers, who seemed so fond of making rules, had done something to the wizard? But the keepers would be no competition for a powerful wizard. Yet it did seem possible to her that the keepers might be glad that the wizard had gone, despite what they said.

  Rage remembered the two men she had overheard talking about the loss of magically produced power in Fork and the rumor of sickness in the provinces. A queer thought occurred to her: what if the magic on this side of the river was fading as well?

  “How does anyone know there is magic on this side of the river?” she asked without thinking.

  Niadne’s lovely face grew stern. “You will suffer the discipline of silence if you go on speaking so thoughtlessly, child Rage,” she said.

  Rage decided she had better not provoke the woman and tried to look penitent. Besides, if the magic had died on this side of the river, Valley would have gone back under its river and they would all be dead. If it had begun to fade, the keepers who looked after the provinces would have noticed.

  The two women who had measured her knelt and unrolled a bolt of gray silk. Their scissors flashed through the lengths, then they pinned the pieces together around her, their hands darting like quicksilver, their touches as light as a butterfly landing. At last they stood back and surveyed their handiwork with tilted heads. Turning her to face a mirror, they began to unbind her matted plait and comb out the snarls with fine combs and slim, gentle fingers.

  Rage stared into her own face and realized she had not seen herself since leaving her own world. Was it her imagination, or did she look different? Certainly her face was less round and her chin more pointed. Her eyes were more watchful, too. But she knew she had changed inside much more than outside. She was less frightened of things. She could hardly remember why she had been so nervous of leaving Winnoway, talking to the other children at school, or telling the Johnsons she wanted to visit Mam. Was it possible that the journey through the bramble gate had changed her, too, if not as obviously as the animals? Or was it just that she had come so far alone and had faced so many difficult decisions and dangers that many of the things that had once frightened her seemed silly?

  Like Niadne’s, the hair of the two attendants was plaited and fastened closely and sleekly about their heads so that not a single stray hair floated free. They clearly intended to do the same to Rage’s hair, but before long it stood out all around her head in a wild aureole of moonbeam-colored spirals.

  Finally one of the seamstresses murmured, “I do not think this will be tamed into Order.”

  “It will be cut tomorrow when she is being readied for the banding,” Niadne said dismissively. “It is not the sort of hair that will lie down and be still.”

  Nor will I, Rage thought. Her amber eyes flashed in the mirror.

  “As she is older, we will embroider silver and pearl beads all over the hem and here at the neckline,” one of the seamstresses told Niadne. “It will glitter and shimmer in the sun. She will be so beautiful, an offer will surely be made.”

  “The High Keeper will be pleased,” Niadne said.

  I bet he will be, Rage thought. She wanted to tear the lovely gown off and flee the cloying, perfumed air, but she made herself stand passively while they removed the dress, piece by careful piece.

  Collecting her bundle of clothes, Rage felt Mr. Walker stir, and hoped he was all right. She yawned widely and asked Niadne in her meekest voice if she could sleep.

  “Of course,” Niadne said kindly. “You may rest until supper, and then you will be fresh for the evening practice.”

  She brought Rage to a tiny, cupboard-sized room containing a single pallet bed with white sheets and gray blankets, and a bucket with a lid. Rage had expected to find herself in some sort of dormitory, and her heart sank when the door was locked from the outside. It would be impossible to escape the windowless cell at night. That meant she must risk slipping away during the evening practice or at suppertime. It would not be long before her absence was discovered and an alert sent out to the blackshirts, but there was no alternative.

  When Niadne’s footsteps had faded, Rage shook her clothes, and Mr. Walker came out, looking cross and rather ill. “That is the last time I am going in anyone’s pocket,” he announced. “It is too much.”

  Rage smoothed his disheveled fur and made soothing noises until he calmed down, then she gave him a piece of bread she had hidden in her sleeve. When he had eaten, Mr. Walker sighed and said, “We must get away before they cut your hair. Once a woman cut my fur and nipped me on the ear. Having your fur cut is a very bad thing.”

  “Having your hair cut is not quite the same thing as having your fur trimmed, though I expect the High Keeper would make sure it was a very ugly haircut. But I don’t suppose it would be the end of the world,” Rage said.

  “You never know when magic and hair might be mixed up together,” Mr. Walker said. “Hair is very odd stuff. Look at what happened to Samson when his was cut. Then there was that princess who grew into a giant when her hair was cut.”

  “Ragewinnoway whose name is also Stupid!” a voice taunted.

  Mr. Walker began to growl ferociously. Rage woke, wondering where she was. Memory flooded back, and she hissed at Mr. Walker to be quiet. “What do you want?” she asked the firecat softly.

  There was a pause full of anger, then the wall began to glow red above the bed. Mr. Walker gave a yelp of fright and launched himself into Rage’s arms.

  “It’s only the firecat,” Rage assured him.

  “Only! Only?” it mimicked furiously.

  “Yes, only,” Rage snapped, wondering why it had ever made her feel nervous. After all, other than tricking her into coming to Valley and setting them to find its master, it had done little but sneer and refuse to answer questions. Incredibly, she had hardly thought of it since coming to Fork.

  “Not taking hourglass to shore of Endless Sea!” the firecat said vehemently.

  “I am doing my best,” Rage answered.

  “Not taking. Locked in little room! Stupid, stupid Ragewinnoway!”

  “I may be locked in, but at least I know how to get to the shore of the Endless Sea,” Rage said sharply.

  Mr. Walker looked up at her. “Do you really?”

  “How getting there?” the firecat asked warily.

  Rage considered refusing to answer, but after a hesitation she said, “We have to go down the River of No Return.”

  “Ragewinnoway will go down river?” the firecat asked in such a queer, tense voice that any doubts Rage felt about whether the river would bring them to the Endless Sea vanished. But if the firecat had known this, why hadn’t it said so? She decided not to antagonize it by asking it directly.

  “I’ll go down the river if I can find a boat to carry us,” she said. “Maybe you could help us find one.”

  “Clever Rage is finding out all things on ownsome,” the firecat purred. “Doing what must be done. Good. Brave.”

  Its voice seemed to be fading, and Rage remembered she wanted to ask it about the magic in Valley. “Is magic really dying here in Valley?” she asked.

  “Of course not dying. Why such stupid thinking?
” It scoffed so firmly that Rage thought it must not know about the magic fading.

  “Can you get us out of this place?” she asked, but the glow on the wall winked out. “Wretched creature!” she muttered.

  Suddenly the key in the lock turned. Mr. Walker barely managed to dive into her coat before the cell door swung open.

  Instead of Niadne or one of the other attendants, a gray-eyed girl only a few years older than Rage entered.

  “We meet again,” she said.

  Rage was startled to recognize the voice of the youngest of the three guardians who had been in the cart that brought the little girls to Fork. Last time they met she had been masked in the white paint that made her teeth look yellow, and she had seemed much older.

  “You are…Ania?” Rage said.

  “You have a good memory, Rage Winnoway. I have come to help you escape the banding house. But we must make haste, for the blackshirts will soon arrive to check the names against their list of all who dwell here.”

  “Niadne has written down my name already, and the blackshirts have it, too.”

  Ania smiled. “I can do nothing about the blackshirt list, but names in Niadne’s book do not necessarily remain there. As long as we hurry, the blackshirts will never know you were here. Quickly, gather your belongings.”

  “You work for the keepers!” Rage accused.

  “I may work here, but I assure you that I do not serve the High Keeper or his minions.”

  Rage hesitated. The last time she had accepted an offer of help from a stranger, she had ended up in Valley. On the other hand, she would be a fool not to jump at the chance to be free of the banding house. She dragged her coat on over the gray shift and gently bundled up the rest of her clothes. Despite her care, Mr. Walker groaned. “Where are we going?” she asked quickly, to cover the noise.

  Ania was not listening. She walked over to the nearest wall and peered at the seam where it joined the floor. Glancing in both directions first, she knelt and pressed her palms flat to the floor. Rage could see no lever or button, yet there must have been one, for a section of the floor slid soundlessly aside, revealing a set of rough-hewn steps leading down into darkness.