The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien)

by Martha Wells

  Aras had also volunteered to go with Gerard, dubiously eyeing the pistol Tremaine intended to take. “Tremaine is a crack shot,” Gerard had told him firmly, forestalling her offer to prove it by shooting off the Capidaran man’s ear.

  “But you don’t need to go, there’s—” Ilias started again.

  “But it doesn’t matter if I’m the only woman left in my house or not,” Tremaine interrupted impatiently. “We don’t have a house left standing in Ile-Rien, and if I die, it’s not going to affect Nicholas one bit.”

  Ilias stared at her a moment, then pressed his lips together and looked away. Oh, great, Tremaine thought, watching his whole body stiffen with annoyance, more mad at herself than him. “What?” she demanded. He didn’t answer, but she could sense him fuming as clearly as if she could actually see it in the cold air. Gerard, Aras and Meretrisa had finished their tour of the room and gathered around the circle they meant to try. Gerard was taking the sphere out of its bag. “Come on, we’re nearly ready to go, tell me what I did wrong.”

  Ilias took a sharp breath and looked at her, saying deliberately, “Nicholas is not the only man in your family now.”

  Oh. She pushed a hand through her hair wearily. Yes, that is your foot in your mouth; the taste should be familiar by now. “You don’t need me to take care of you, in case you haven’t noticed. You’ve taken care of yourself and Giliead for years with no help from me.” Giliead, standing almost in earshot and hearing his name, gave them a distracted look.

  Ilias shook his head, but he looked more confused than angry now, which Tremaine considered a factor in her favor. “That’s not …the point.”

  Gerard called her name and Tremaine turned to go. Ilias caught her arm, pulled her back and kissed her.

  Gerard gave Tremaine a repressive look as she joined him in the circle. “What?” she demanded, taking her pistol out of her pocket and checking that it was loaded, even though she already knew it was. I am not blushing. I am too old to blush.

  He shook his head wearily. “Nothing. Are you ready?”

  “Sure.” It wasn’t the going there, wherever there was, that made Tremaine’s stomach tighten with tension. It was the coming-back part. If this circle behaved the way the one in the upper chamber did and suddenly and inexplicably refused to work, it would strand them and leave the others without a sphere. The other one won’t work because Nicholas destroyed the circle in the house and Niles hasn’t had time to make a new one, Tremaine told herself, gritting her teeth. It’s the logical reason. Unfortunately she had never considered herself a logical person.

  Gerard turned his attention to the sphere and Tremaine braced herself. And nothing happened. After a tense moment, Gerard contemplated the stone ceiling in pure irritation, shaking his head, swearing under his breath. “Oh, you’re joking,” Tremaine said in disbelief.

  “Yes, I thought a little humor would lighten the mood,” Gerard snapped. “This circle isn’t working either.”

  Giliead put his face in his hands and Ilias ran a hand through his hair, looking hopeless. Meretrisa stared in disbelief and Aras frowned. “But what does this mean?” Vervane asked helplessly.

  “It’s anyone’s guess, at this point,” Gerard answered, his voice showing the strain of trying not to bite the older woman’s head off. “I assume the circle this one was meant to connect with no longer exists.” He told Tremaine briskly, “Let’s try another.”

  Tremaine followed him to the next circle, frowning. “You don’t think it’s the sphere, do you?”

  Gerard threw her a dark look and she said, “Oh.” So he thought of that already. But nothing had happened to it. This sphere hadn’t been dropped or banged around, and no one had had any opportunity to tamper with it, not with the Syprians watching Balin and guarding the corridor while Gerard was asleep. And it still worked for other spells. “This is just great,” she said under her breath.

  “Right, brace yourself.” With deliberate optimism, Gerard lifted the sphere. Prepared for another dud, Tremaine was caught completely by surprise by the sudden flush of vertigo.

  The world went white and the next breath she took was icy cold.

  Tremaine pivoted, staring, as Gerard made a startled exclamation. They were in a gray stone building, one wall tumbled down and covered with ice and snow. Through the gap she could see a cloudy gray sky and ruins spread out across an icy plain. Much of it was buried under white drifts, but Tremaine could see fallen pillars, tumbled blocks of stone, the remains of colonnades and avenues and elegantly proportioned buildings that seemed to go on forever. Icicles clung to half-collapsed pediments and the bases of broken statues, giving the whole scene a silver glitter.

  This structure had a high ceiling and lofty dimensions, its walls covered with faded shapes of carved figures nearly worn away by time and weather. Tremaine could just discern the outline of a woman, lifting her arms toward a sun-disk shape, and a herd of antlered animals leaping a chasm. Her breath misting in the cold, she looked out again over the city. There were mountains in the misty distance, far past the ruins, huge and rugged as the ramparts of a castle, capped with white. “Why do we never think to bring a camera?” she said in frustration. Studying the faded carvings, Gerard shook his head mutely.

  Nothing moved but the falling snow, so Tremaine slipped her pistol into her pocket, then left her hand there. Her fingers were already starting to go numb. She took a step forward, shivering in her heavy coat, and felt the floor crack under her boot. Startled, she looked down to see it was covered with a solid sheet of blue-tinged ice. The symbols of the circle must be down there somewhere, but they were concealed under what had to be at least a foot of ice.

  Tremaine exchanged a look with Gerard. He nodded grimly, saying, “It’s good to know the factors in the spell that prevent materializing into a solid object actually work.”

  “That would have hurt,” Tremaine agreed, her teeth chattering. In fact it hurt now. The cold was so intense it made her chest ache and taking a breath was difficult, even though the remains of the thick stone walls sheltered them from the wind somewhat. “If we need another ruined city, or snow, we know where to get it now. Can we go back?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, and she thought his nose was actually starting to turn blue. “An excellent thought.”

  He lifted the sphere and Tremaine closed her eyes, thinking, Please work. She felt the lurch, then her feet hit solid stone. She stumbled and caught herself on Gerard’s arm, swearing in relief at the familiar sight of the firelit cave.

  Ilias was beside her suddenly, brushing at her hair with a bemused expression. “Snow?” Brows lifted, Giliead studied the melting flakes scattered around them on the stone.

  “Hold still,” she told Ilias, and pushed her freezing hands under his shirt. He made a strangled noise but didn’t protest, folding his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. Even huddled against his warm body, she felt like an icicle.

  The others were clamoring with questions and Gerard was saying, his voice still rough from the cold, “A ruined city, buried under ice and snow. The circle itself was under a sheet of ice. If there are more circles there, I don’t see how we could find them, or even survive the cold long enough to search.”

  “And we wouldn’t want to get trapped there,” Giliead added with unexpected firmness, glancing at Tremaine. She must look frozen.

  Gerard nodded. “We have to keep looking.” He took a breath which turned into a coughing fit. Clearing his throat as Aras pounded him on the back, he managed to say, “Though I think we have time to stop for a cup of tea first.”

  Ilias demanded, and got, his turn to accompany Gerard next. The wizard had wanted a rest first and had actually fallen asleep again for a time. They had been careful not to wake him. It made Ilias wonder just what the near-constant use of a sphere without a god, as well as using his other curses, was doing to Gerard. He had never known any wizards long enough to see if the use of curses took a physical toll on them or not. Noticing that
Gerard, a lean man to begin with, looked thinner, with an unhealthy cast to his skin, and the flesh just under his eyes beginning to sink, Ilias thought that the answer was definitely yes, at least for Rienish wizards. And they still hadn’t been able to discover if either of the two Capidaran women were spies, or if they had been innocently swept along on this journey.

  He knew he hadn’t been right to object to Tremaine taking turns at the curse circles with them. When it came down to it, she had been doing this longer than he or Giliead. It wasn’t as if this was a marriage of anything but political convenience, as if they had a pile of children and unmarried relatives at home to worry about. But he didn’t particularly want Giliead to try the curse circles either. He sighed to himself in frustration. I think I’m an idiot. Giliead just kept giving him looks that suggested he agreed with that assessment.

  At least Ilias knew he had been right to take over the cooking today. He thought Cletia might be playing “I have to be matriarch and take care of you all” and he wanted to put a stop to that immediately. He wasn’t going to have Cletia brooking Tremaine’s authority in ways Tremaine might not realize.

  After Gerard woke again, startled that he had slept so long, he quickly began to check through the papers he kept in the scroll’s bag. Mostly to himself, Gerard muttered, “It can’t hurt to have a second copy of the circle with us. Just in case.”

  “It would be nice to have another sorcerer, just in case,” Tremaine added in Syrnaic, not looking at Meretrisa.

  Gerard gave Tremaine a glare from under lowered brows, pointing out repressively, “She is a sorceress.”

  There was a faint snort from Giliead. As they all looked at him, he said, “She’s afraid to do anything.” Ilias, bouncing with impatience to be off, threw him an odd look and Giliead shook his head, gazing up in appeal to the dusty ceiling overhead. “I never thought I’d say that about a wizard.”

  “I wouldn’t say she’s afraid,” Gerard protested. It was his turn to be stared at. He admitted, “Very well. She is very… tentative.”

  As the others started down the stairs, Giliead stopped Ilias, regarding him with a knit brow. “It’ll be all right,” Ilias told him lightly, not wanting to act as if he was going off to the outer reaches of nowhere, never to be seen again. Especially if it was true. “It’s always been all right before.”

  Giliead’s mouth twisted ruefully and he gave Ilias an affectionate hug that turned into a shove. “Just make sure it is.”

  Ilias went back down to the lower chamber, Giliead remaining in the upper to take his turn guarding Balin. Cletia and Cimarus climbed down the stairs with them, taking a couple of the bows to try hunting in the forest. Ilias began to wish they had brought more arrows. Cletia actually paused to look curiously around the circle chamber, Cimarus reluctantly trailing after her.

  The Capidarans had come down with them as well, the older woman beginning to build up the fire again to help take the chill off the chamber, adding wood from the pile they had collected this morning. Ilias busied himself replenishing the torches that had burned out while Gerard looked through his papers and Tremaine waited, rocking back and forth on her heels. He lit the last one from the fire and got it wedged into a pile of rocks near the circle they meant to try next. Turning around, he found Cletia right behind him. The bow she was holding was one of his older ones, from when he was a boy; its lighter pull would be easier for Cletia’s arm and its shorter length made it better for forest hunting. He thought she had some comment to make about the weapon, but she asked, “The first one took you to a world of snow and ice?”

  “It wasn’t a different world,” he answered impatiently. “It was this one, just further into the cold country.”

  “Oh.” Her brows drew together and she studied the ground at his feet, her blond hair falling forward to shield her expression. “It’s… brave of you to do this, to go with the wizard.”

  Ilias stared at her, his mouth twisting in amusement. She must be desperate, whatever it was. “Tremaine went first,” he corrected her. “What do you want?”

  She looked up, frowning at him. “Nothing. I just—” Her gaze went to Tremaine, who was now watching them with a fixed expression Ilias couldn’t fathom either. “Nothing,” Cletia added sharply. Shouldering the bow, she turned and strode briskly toward the outer cave. Ilias saw Cimarus shake his head at the ceiling as he followed her.

  Ilias snorted. Whatever that was. Turning to see Gerard tucking his papers away, Ilias moved to join him in the circle. Tremaine intercepted him halfway there. “What was that?” she asked, jerking her head toward Cletia.

  “I have no idea.”

  Tremaine looked after Cletia, frowning. “I don’t get her.”

  Ilias shook his head. He didn’t understand Cletia now either. “Before she was trying to make herself into a duplicate of Pasima, now… I don’t know.” And he didn’t care at the moment. “I wanted to tell you—” He took Tremaine’s hand, shaking his head. “Our sister—Gil’s sister Irissa—she wanted to travel with us, see new places, new people. She wanted to be a ship’s captain and trade and explore. But because she was the heir to Andrien, she couldn’t be risked and she had to stay at home for the sake of the land, and she never got to do any damn thing she wanted. And then she was killed in her own house.”

  Tremaine nodded, looking away a little, but her expression had turned rueful. “That’s the point I was trying to make, I just did a bad job of it.”

  After that, there was nothing more to do except say what Ilias hoped was a temporary good-bye and go.

  Ilias stepped into the circle as Gerard took out the sphere, rubbing a spot of damp off it with his coat sleeve. He asked Ilias, “Shall we?”

  Ilias checked the set of his sword. “Yes.”

  Gerard regarded the sphere, and Ilias felt the world change.

  He blinked and it was utterly black. There was no more light than if they had been suddenly transported to the belly of a leviathan. His startled intake of breath turned into a gasp and he realized the air was hot and dense and there was barely any of it to be had. Beside him he heard Gerard make a strangled noise. Ilias reached for him and caught his arm, keeping the older man upright. He was almost glad he couldn’t see; this place had to be at least as bad as the red world Florian had accidentally taken them to. But the darkness pressed in and with each short harsh breath his head started to swim, prickles of pain in both temples. Something sparked blue in the darkness and the next instant he sucked in a breath of pure cold air, tinged only with woodsmoke.

  Ilias and Gerard both collapsed at the same moment, slumping into sitting positions on the floor. Ilias had to fight to stay even that upright; the urge to lie facedown and rest against that cool stone was hard to resist.

  Aras swore in alarm and started forward, holding out a hand to Gerard. Tremaine sat on her heels beside Ilias, looking him over to make sure he was all right. She lifted a brow. “I take it we’re crossing this one off the list too?”

  “Indeed.” Gerard accepted Aras’s hand up with a resigned expression. Once on his feet he shook his head wearily. “It was… disturbing.”

  “There wasn’t any air,” Ilias elaborated, climbing to his feet with Tremaine’s help and stepping out of the circle. He rubbed his forehead, glad to feel the pain receding with each full breath. He bit his lip, trying to remember what he could of the experience. He frowned at Gerard. “Were we underground?”

  Gerard nodded. “I believe so. Wherever we were, I don’t think it’s worth returning to.”

  Ilias had no intention of arguing with that.

  Florian ended up pacing the Promenade, wandering in and out of the main hall, and up and down the passenger stairs, fuming. He’s wrong, she thought, remembering Nicholas’s words. A battle between Niles and Ixion—especially if Niles lost—couldn’t do us any good. And she was supposed to be helping Niles, and couldn’t they have their damn meeting after Tremaine and the others were found? The fact that Niles had admitted their ef
forts to make the circle work had come to a dead end earlier didn’t matter; the meeting was an annoying interruption.

  She was on the Promenade, tapping her fingers impatiently on the rail, not seeing the brilliant blue sky or the limitless sea, when she realized the person standing nearby was Pasima. Florian blinked at her, startled. The Syprian woman stood stiffly, her mouth set in a thin line, dressed in a dark blue shirt over doeskin pants and boots. Before Florian could open her mouth, she said abruptly, “Have you found our people yet?”

  Florian was fairly sure those were the first words Pasima had ever spoken to her, despite her being one of only a few Rienish speakers of Syrnaic. “No, not yet. I’m sorry, it’s not working the way we thought—”

  Pasima inclined her head, her eyes bitter. “So it always is,” she said, turning away abruptly and walking up the Promenade.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Florian muttered, watching the other woman’s retreat. “It usually works right, except—” When it doesn’t. She rubbed her eyes wearily. There had to be an answer.

  She heard a mild commotion from the open doors behind her and turned to see Lord Chandre’s party, with Ixion, his guards and the Capidaran sorcerer Kressein, crossing the main hall toward the forward stairs. “Finally,” Florian breathed, and hurried into the hall and back down the corridor to the First Class smoking room.

  As she reached the doorway, Colonel Averi brushed past her, his face set. Florian stared after him, frowning, then cautiously looked into the room. Niles was seated at the table, his head in his hands.

  Florian stepped inside, watching him worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

  Niles glanced up at her, his face pale and grim. “Ixion has offered them the spell he used to create his new body. As a show of good faith, he’s going to…grow, I suppose, is the term, a body for the woman who is trapped in the Gardier crystal Tremaine and the others brought back from Maton-devara. Supposedly, if we can successfully free the woman from the crystal and transfer her consciousness to the new body, the spell will be used to free any other crystal-imprisoned sorcerers we encounter. I say ‘supposedly,’ because I remain skeptical, as you may have guessed.”