Beyond The Gate - Book 2 of the Golden Queen Series

by David Farland

  Gallen reached the far end of town and began circling back along a hill, at which point even Fermoth wondered what the quarry was up to, and Gallen began to wonder if Zell'a Cree was Inhuman after all.

  Yet it was obvious that Gallen's quarry was failing. Perhaps he was no longer thinking clearly. The droplets of blood were getting brighter, warmer. The man was slowing, weakening, until Gallen felt sure he was near, and that he would be weak, and dying, when Gallen found him.

  Gallen felt confused. He was beginning to understand the servants of the Inhuman. Indeed, he thought that they might be friends, or that at least they thought themselves good. None of the voices inside Gallen were evil. They had just been people who were concerned with living their own lives, people who wanted to continue living. And though Zell'a Cree had killed Fenorah and was an Inhuman, he was also someone like Gallen who had become infected against his will. Gallen recalled the Bock's warning, in which he told Gallen that at times he would have to choose whether to kill an Inhuman or spare it. And as he hunted, Gallen's resolve to kill Zell'a Cree weakened.

  Yet Fenorah had also been innocent, had not deserved to die, Gallen reminded himself. And Gallen could not understand how it was that basically good people could do this to each other.

  After nearly twenty minutes, he reached an alley behind a store.

  Blood was smeared on a white stucco wall in the moonlight, and Gallen could see droplets on the dusty road. He heard the sound of coughing ahead.

  He rounded a corner, and a beefy man was there in the moonlight, lying on his side in the alley, his pale eyes looking almost white. Zell'a Cree. He held his wound and lay gasping, bubbles of blood dribbling down his chin.

  Gallen held his sword point forward, carefully stalked up to the man, to the Inhuman, he reminded himself, and he stared into the man's face. We share so many memories, Gallen thought, looking into Zell'a Cree's eyes. The Inhuman struggled to run, moved his legs about feebly, and stared forward into the dust, his eyes blind. He breathed furiously, and small puffs of dust rose up near his chin. His face contorted in a grimace, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

  "Boots. Boots are inside building," Zell'a Cree whispered to Gallen, as if it were terribly urgent, and Gallen could smell the tanned leather scraps outside the back door of the bootmaker's shop. Indeed, Zell'a Cree's right boot was tied together with a scrap of cloth. And Gallen suddenly realized that this man had circled back to town to get some new boots.

  Now that Gallen had caught him, he considered stabbing him again, but didn't have the heart. Gallen shared the memories of twenty lives with this man, and all of those people had lived extraordinary lives. They were not small-minded killers.

  "Damn you," Gallen said. "Why did you have to stab Fenorah?"

  Zell'a Cree didn't answer. Gallen suspected that Zell'a Cree had taken a mortal wound. Yet Gallen could not afford mercy. His friends' lives might still be at stake. Gallen stuck his sword at Zell'a Cree's throat, demanded, "How many of you are stalking us? Where are your men camped?"

  Zell'a Cree did not answer, merely turned his head up at the sound of Gallen's voice. Gallen put the sword to his chin, and asked again, "How many more are you?" Zell'a Cree said nothing, and Gallen wondered if he were past talking.

  ''Join us," Zell'a Cree breathed, "and we will stalk you no more."

  So Zell'a Cree still felt himself at war and would give up no information. Gallen respected that. He studied the creature. Zell'a Cree looked human, simply a beefy man with pale eyes that were much like Ceravanne's. He could have been a baker or an innkeeper in any town that Gallen had ever visited, and Gallen felt ashamed at wanting him dead.

  "What did you do, before the Inhuman converted you?" Gallen asked.

  "I . . . farmed," the big man panted. "Apples. I make, uh, cider."

  "I think you're going to die," Gallen admitted softly. ''There's little that you or I or anyone else can do to stop it now. I can let you die slowly, in your own time, or I can take you quickly." He let the tone of his voice ask the question.

  "Slowly," Zell'a Cree asked. "Life is sweet. Savor it."

  Gallen was dismayed by the answer. How could life be so sweet that you looked forward to coughing up your own blood for five minutes? But the voices of the dead within him bubbled up, all of them clamoring, "Yes, yes, life is sweet." They craved it, even a miserable few moments of pain.

  Gallen looked back toward where he imagined the inn might be. He was tempted to leave Zell'a Cree on the road, head back to check on the others, but he was acutely aware that Zell'a Cree had lost his life at least twice: once when the Inhuman had converted him against his will, and once when Gallen had plunged a sword into his lung.

  So Gallen sat down in the dust, prepared to wait with Zell'a Cree, stay with him to the end.

  "Forgive me," Zell'a Cree asked, grunting, his words raising small puffs of dust. "I never wanted to hurt you . . . anyone."

  Gallen wasn't sure what to answer, but settled for "I know."

  The voices of the Inhuman rose within Gallen, crying out across the centuries. "Join with us."

  Gallen felt torn. For several minutes Zell'a Cree only lay breathing, gasping at an ever more frenzied pace, droplets of sweat rolling down his face into the dust. At first, Gallen feared the man, but Zell'a Cree made no move against him, seemed less and less capable of moving at all. He wheezed for a bit, and coughed until fresh blood began foaming from his mouth.

  Zell'a Cree closed his eyes and began weeping, concentrated on breathing.

  "Let me take you now, friend," Gallen said. "There's nothing left to savor."

  "Please . . ." Zell'a Cree mumbled after a long moment, "water. A drink first. Then kill me."

  Gallen looked about. His own water skin was back in the wagon, but there was a rain barrel under the eaves of the shoemaker's roof. Gallen went to the barrel, found that it was nearly full. He sheathed his sword, cupped some water in his hands, and went back to the dying Zell'a Cree, put his hands down under Zell'a Cree's lips.

  The dying man didn't take the water. Just lay there breathing heavily, lapsing into sleep.

  "Wake up," Gallen said. "I brought your water."

  "Unh," Zell'a Cree grunted, twisted his head to try to get his lips to the water. Gallen held his hands down lower, and to his surprise, Zell'a Cree tried to sit up to drink, put a hand on Gallen's shoulder as he steadied himself.

  Gallen held his hands to the man's mouth, let him drink it for a moment, and Zell'a Cree leaned back against the wall, his eyes focusing on Gallen. He seemed only a bluish shadow in the moonlight, all colors washed from his face, as if he were already fading into dust.

  The cicadas and crickets began singing in the still night, and a little breeze whipped through the streets, raising the hair on Gallen's back.

  Zell'a Cree smiled weakly, stared up at the sky, and Gallen thought he would die now. "Thank you," Zell'a Cree whispered as if addressing the universe, and then he looked into Gallen's eyes. "It has been so long . . . so long since I have heard the voice of the Inhuman . . . but now, I know what it wants me to do."

  Gallen leaned closer, curious, and looked into Zell'a Cree's eyes. "What does it want from you?"

  Zell'a Cree reached up quickly, and there was the jingle of metal rings as he pulled at Gallen's mantle. Gallen grabbed at the Tosken's wrist, but like the Tekkar he was immensely strong—so their struggle lasted only a brief second, then the knowledge tokens flashed in the moonlight as Zell'a Cree ripped Gallen's mantle free.

  It went sailing through the air and clanked against the wall of the bootmaker's shop, and Gallen gasped and drove his sword into Zell'a Cree's neck.

  For one moment, Gallen still could not feel the Inhuman's presence. He was not lost in strangers' memories, and for a brief few seconds he dared hope that the Inhuman would spare him, and he lurched toward his mantle in the moonlight.

  And then there was a surging in Gallen's ears, dozens of voices clamoring, as if a tide were s
welling from a distant shore. His arms and legs fell out beneath him, and Gallen could almost imagine that someone had reached into his body and pulled his spirit free. He felt disconnected—the sounds of crickets and cicadas suddenly ceased. Gallen crumpled to the ground, barely conscious of the fact that his head bounced off the dirt street.

  And he felt them come leaping and tumbling after him, the hosts of the Inhuman, the ghosts with their iron will. Until now, they had taken him gently, slowly, but now he could feel something akin to desperation emanating from the machine, the desire to crush him before he could resist.

  Far away he heard a desperate shriek, a harrowing wail that shook him and demanded aid, but Gallen hardly recognized that it was his own voice.

  It had been thirty minutes since Gallen jumped up and rushed from the inn. Maggie and the others had gone down to the stables where they found poor Fenorah lying in a pool of blood.

  Ceravanne was still beside his body, weeping, while Maggie tried to comfort her. Orick had headed south along the outskirts of town with Tallea, sniffing Gallen's trail.

  At last Maggie went and stood outside the bam, hoping to see Gallen's shadow against the white stucco walls in the moonlight.

  A maid from the kitchens was up at the inn, beckoning to her, urging Maggie to "Come back indoors, where it's safe!"

  Then Maggie heard Gallen's bloodcurdling scream.

  Gallen's voice rang out over the small town, echoing from the hilltops and from the buildings so that she couldn't be sure where it came from. Almost, it seemed to rise from the earth itself, but she thought it might have come from a ridge to the west.

  Maggie's heart began pounding, and she looked about frantically. She wondered if it really had been Gallen's voice—it had been blurred and distant, after all—but she knew that it was. It sounded like a death cry, as if he'd taken a mortal wound in the back, as Fenorah had done. She raced toward the sound for a moment, looked about hysterically, realized that anyone who could have killed Gallen could also kill her.

  And yet it didn't matter. If Gallen was dead, she didn't really care to live anymore.

  So she ran uphill, west toward the ridge, and began searching. For an hour she wandered through town, investigating every street, until she met Orick and Tallea coming up from the south of town.

  "Maggie, girl, what are you doing out here?" Orick demanded.

  "I heard Gallen scream," she said.

  Orick and Tallea looked at each other. "We heard a shout some time back," Orick said, "but I couldn't say it was Gallen's. It sounded to us as if it came from the north."

  "No sign of Gallen?" Maggie asked.

  "Whoever he was chasing," Orick said, "knew how to cover his scent. He ran me in circles, and his scent didn't stick to the dust. And Gallen's wearing that damned cloak of his, which hides all smell. So we've lost their trail." Maggie filed that information away. She hadn't known that a Lord Protector's cloak masked his scent.

  "Maybe Gallen went back to inn," Tallea said, and Maggie realized that she had been gone for over an hour. If Gallen were hurt, he'd have gone back to the inn, if he could.

  And it seemed her last hope. So they went back to the inn, down to the stables. A maid from the inn had brought a lantern down, and Fenorah had been washed and turned on his back. A clean quilt was stretched out over him, but it was too short for the giant, so that it covered his feet, but not his face.

  Shivering from a chill wind that was beginning to blow down the high mountain passes, the companions sat in the stable, waiting for Gallen's return for several more minutes, until at last Ceravanne said in her clear voice, "All things pass away. It is time, my friends, to consider the possibility that Gallen is gone, and what that means to the quest." She stood above Fenorah, and the lantern's sharp light reflected from her angular face. She seemed somehow washed out, unreal under such light.

  "Are you saying we should leave without him?" Orick grumbled, rising to his hind feet. He sniffed the air once again, as was his habit when he felt nervous.

  "I hesitate to say it," the Tharrin answered. "Gallen has not returned, and almost two hours have passed. I doubt he would stay away so long, if he were able to return to us."

  "And if he's dead, killer waiting for us," Tallea muttered, resting her unsheathed sword by letting its tip settle into the floorboards under the straw.

  "And that means we have little choice but to press on as quickly as possible," Ceravanne whispered. "But there is something else we must consider. If Gallen is dead, then his killer may have taken Gallen's mantle. We will have someone with the powers of a Lord Protector hunting us, and he will have access to all of Gallen's memories. He will know where we plan to go, what we plan to do."

  "So you want us to stay and see if we can find Gallen's body," Maggie asked, "just to make sure we get his mantle?" And she knew Ceravanne was right. Knowledge is power, and the Lord Protector's mantle would be a powerful weapon if it fell into the hands of the Inhuman.

  "I think," Orick said, "you're all worried for nothing. If Gallen is dead and his enemies took his weapons, why haven't they come after us? He had his mantle, that fancy sword, and his incendiary rifle."

  Maggie clung to his words, knowing they made some sense, hoping he was right. "Gallen may still be hunting," she said at last. "He's thorough when it comes to blackguards. He wouldn't let one give him the slip."

  "Aye, that's possible," Orick grumbled. "Down in County Toorary, Gallen tracked a cutthroat for three weeks, chased him two hundred miles."

  Ceravanne licked her lips, looked out the open door southward. "Perhaps we should wait," she said. "But there is something just as portentous that could have happened. Gallen has been very . . . deep in thought these past two days. We all know that his loyalties are wavering, hanging in the balance. He may have joined the Inhuman, or he may have gone in search of solitude while he considers his future course."

  Maggie wanted to deny this, wanted to slap Ceravanne for even bringing up the possibility, but this too seemed very likely. "I don't think he'd leave me," Maggie said, her voice small in the close darkness of the stable.

  "I would hope not," Ceravanne offered, and she took Maggie's hand in hers to offer comfort. "But he is under great pressure. You must remember that he is living with many other voices inside him, rich recollections of other loves. Those who become infected by the Word, they sometimes become lost in the . . . history that the Inhuman offers. Their small voices are drowned out by the bitterness and despair of the Inhuman. And I fear that Gallen may be susceptible to this. Those who are most susceptible are those who are weak of purpose, or weak of mind, and those who are simply inexperienced—the young. Gallen is neither weak of purpose nor stupid, but he is young."

  "You forget," Gallen said loudly from the far end of the room, "the others who are equally susceptible to the Inhuman's domination." Maggie turned, and Gallen stood in the front doorway to the stable, all draped in the black robes of a Lord Protector. Yet there was something terribly wrong. The way he stood—with a certain swaggering confidence as he leaned casually against the doorpost—was nothing like Gallen. Indeed, a terrible light seemed to blaze from his pale blue eyes, and he wore the mask of Fale. Yet strangest of all was his voice. It sounded deeper, and it resonated more, and all of his accent was gone. Where a few weeks ago he'd been a charming boy from County Morgan, now an older and wearier man stood. It seemed to Maggie suddenly that a stranger was wearing Gallen's body, and that Gallen stood smiling, mocking their fears for him.

  "What others are susceptible to the Inhuman?" Ceravanne asked. Gallen waved his hand at her. "The trusting," he spat, then waved to Orick. "The naive. And those who are actively evil."

  Gallen reached into the pocket of his robe, pulled out his mantle, and its black rings and silver stones glimmered in the moonlight. He draped it over his head.

  "So, you are Inhuman now," Ceravanne whispered, and Maggie found her heart pounding within her. "But you have never been any of those—naive, trusting
, or evil."

  Gallen straightened, and he seemed taller and more menacing to Maggie as he crossed the stable, gazed out to the south, over the wide valley below with its shroud of fog that glowed like gauze in the moonlight.

  "Yes," Gallen said, staring to the south. "The Inhuman has tried to claim me as its own." For a brief moment it looked as if he would collapse, and he held to the door frame as he struggled for control. Maggie could see the old Gallen. "And, my friends, itis good for us all that the Inhuman has finished its task-else I would not have suspected its plans, and we would have walked into a trap.

  "Maggie, come here."

  Maggie went to his side and followed his eye. He took off his mantle, placed it on her head. "Listen to the radio frequencies on the higher end of the spectrum," he said, "and look south to Bern's Pass, beneath that far mountain, four hundred kilometers from here."

  Four hundred kilometers? she wondered. She couldn't imagine seeing that far. But Maggie concentrated, and the mantle brought a faint sound to her ears, bursts of radio signals squealing undiscernible messages. It was a code.

  She looked to their source, beneath the far mountains that suddenly appeared in her mind as she gazed, and Gallen's mantle magnified the distant image. Something vast and black was crawling down a mountainside.

  "Dmnon hive cities," Maggie realized, "crawling toward us."

  "Yes," Gallen said. "They are far away, but they're coming. Part of the memories the Inhuman gave me came from a dronon technician. All those who join the Inhuman know how to use dronon technologies, and now that the dronon have been forced to abandon this world, leaving the hive cities behind, the Inhuman hosts have taken them up. With these they will march against Northland, for the hive cities can also swim across the oceans, and here in Babel their guns are not dismantled.

  "So the dronon who abandoned this world betrayed it, leaving behind weapons for the Inhuman to use." Gallen breathed deeply. "Ceravanne, your people are in far graver danger from the invaders than even you had imagined!"