Beyond The Gate - Book 2 of the Golden Queen Series

by David Farland

  Ceravanne frowned, and Maggie could see that this news dismayed her. "Maggie, I think he loves you more than you give him credit for." Something in the way that she said it, something in the way that her voice quavered, made Maggie curious. "Why do you say that?"

  Ceravanne took a deep breath. "I have something I must confess: twice now, I've asked Gallen to give me his heart. I wanted him to give himself to me completely, just in case this happened. I wanted him to bond with me more strongly than he might with the Inhuman."

  Maggie looked at the Tharrin and knew that Ceravanne was talking about more than just some mental bonding. The Tharrin was admitting that she had sought Gallen's complete love and devotion. She'd tried to seduce him. "But," Ceravanne continued, "Gallen has already given his heart to you. You're the reason he fights the Inhuman now. But if he isn't seeking you out, if he isn't touching you, you need to go to mm. In his mind, he's been separated from you for a hundred lifetimes. The dronon have tried to put an incredible amount of emotional distance between you. He needs to fall in love with you all over again. You need to remind him why he loved you in the first place."

  Maggie bit her lip, looked around the cave desperately. Tears came to her eyes, and Tallea went to her side, put her hand on Maggie's shoulder.

  "Why cry?" Tallea asked.

  Maggie shook her head. "That's not Gallen anymore. That's not the man I married. He doesn't talk like Gallen, or move like him. He's six thousand years old." Maggie did not dare say what she was thinking. Ceravanne had more to offer Gallen than she did. Ceravanne was more beautiful than Maggie, and the lure of her pheromones could undermine a man's resolve. Ceravanne, like Gallen, had apparently lived for thousands of years. On the face of it, she was a better match for him, and something in Maggie made her wonder if Ceravanne hadn't tried to seduce him based upon such cold reasoning. .

  "Why did you do it?" Maggie said bitterly. "Why did you try to make Gallen love you if you knew that he already loved me?"

  Ceravanne sat across the fire and licked her lips as she considered her response. "The first time it happened was when the Bock brought him to me. I didn't know then that he loved you."

  "And the second time?"

  She took a deep breath. "Was three nights ago." Maggie considered the depth of the betrayal. She had a strong desire to pull a knife and gut the Tharrin right at the moment, but by telling Maggie of her betrayal, Ceravanne was also promising never to do it again. Still, a month earlier, the Lady Everynne had lured Gallen into her bed, and now Ceravanne was trying to do the same. Maggie wondered if all Tharrin were inherently untrustworthy that way. "Why did you do it?" Maggie asked. "Why do you Tharrin do this?"

  Ceravanne was breathing hard, and she looked away, but she knew that she owed Maggie an answer. "I could tell you that it is because of Belorian, because Gallen looks like Belorian, and I love him still. It was dark, and I was frightened and lonely, as frightened and lonely as I have felt in five hundred years, and out of the goodness of his heart, Gallen was trying to comfort me. That was temptation enough for what I did.

  "But . . ." Ceravanne gasped as if the truth were being physically wrung out of her. "If we Tharrin have a weakness, it is one that our human makers designed into us. Maggie, you know that we exude pheromones that attract you humans to us. You know that we are constantly aware of how we look, of a thousand tiny ways that our expressions and actions can manipulate you. But there is something else about us that you must know: as much as humans desire to serve us, we also desire to be served. I . . . crave devotion, as you crave air. I sometimes wish that I could be different, that I could be free of this, that I could be dead."

  And suddenly, for Maggie it all made sense. The Tharrin had been formed to be leaders. They'd been given wisdom, beauty, an innate ability to sway others. But all of that would have been worthless if they didn't also, to some degree, crave power.

  "We are our bodies," Ceravanne whispered. "We are all imprisoned in a cage of flesh, doomed to sometimes think and act in ways we would prefer not to. You, I, Gallen, the Inhuman. Maggie, I hate myself for what I tried to do, and I am grateful to Gallen for resisting me. I won't let this happen again."

  Maggie took her fists and rubbed her eyes with them. It was so late, and she was confused. She wanted to be angry, and it might have been that she was tired, or it might have had more to do with Ceravanne's ability to manipulate her, or it might have been that it was just the right thing to do. In any case, Maggie just shook her head. "All right, then," she said, and she went over to Gallen and lay beside her husband.

  My husband, she thought. Mine. And I won't let any damned Tharrin or any damned Inhuman take him away from me.

  She slept soundly that night, with no disturbing visitors. And such was Gallen's woodsmanship that for the next day, they saw no sign of pursuit. The only evidence that someone might live in this region came when they passed a small stream, and enormous footprints could be seen in the mud. Tallea was driving the team, and Orick sat beside her, but when Orick asked what made the tracks, she only urged the horses faster and said, "You don't want to know."

  Maggie was sitting in the back of the wagon, and she'd been holding Gallen's hand, and she squeezed it as they passed the muddy tracks, and Gallen squeezed her hand back. He sat watching her for a bit as the wagon rolled away, and at last he bent forward and kissed her, experimentally, as if it were the first time.

  On the evening of the third day out from High Home, Gallen left the ancient highway, taking the wagon up a narrow pass, beside ruins so ancient that no single building still stood.

  For the first time, Ceravanne seemed uncertain of his direction. "Where are we going?" she asked. "Are you heading to Ophat? The Nigangi Pass is down below to the east."

  "And it may be closed to us," Gallen said. "So we're heading to Ophat. I need to get some height, and from this peak, I should be able to see all of the way from here to Moree."

  Thus he led them up an ever steeper trail, past ancient ruins above the tree line. Long the travelbeast climbed, until it was exhausted, foam dripping from its mouth. Often the road was ruined, and portions had dropped from the sides of the treacherous cliff to the chasms beneath.

  Still, the road wound on, up through cold ruins where bitter winds blew among the rocks until at last they reached one sheltered niche between two arms of the mountain. There, some ancient hallways still stood, carved back under recesses of stone, a hundred meters in from the treacherous road. There was a great pillared hall, and beside each of its massive doors was a carved image of a somber giant in breastplates, carrying heavy spears in one hand, a gem in the other. Ancient cobblestones littered a broad courtyard, empty of all but the sparest dead grasses.

  The stonework here was cracked and old, far older, Maggie guessed, than anything that she had seen before.

  "The travelbeast can safely climb no higher," Gallen said, "and forage is scarce enough here as it is. You can camp inside the hallway, and may even build a small fire. No scouts will trouble you here tonight."

  "Why is that?" Orick asked.

  "We have been climbing for the past four days, and now we are at nearly three thousand meters on this peak. The scouts' wings give them little purchase in such thin air. Though they could walk up the road as we do, they are not likely to bother. Besides, we are on the far side of the mountain from where they will be searching."

  So Gallen had them unload the wagon and let the travel beast graze in the courtyard. Huge cisterns in the courtyard were full of water, though a green moss had built up all along the basins. Still it seemed drinkable.

  Maggie went inside the ancient palace and found that some passages led to caves that delved deep under the mountain. Some Derrit dung littered the great hall, but it was old, dry dung that could have been there for years. Still, Gallen insisted on securing a defensible room, and he left Tallea in charge.

  "I have much scouting to do on my own tonight," Gallen said rather formally, "and I will be climbing the road h
igher. You should be all right."

  "I'm coming with you," Maggie said.

  "That isn't necessary," Gallen said, and he looked into her eyes with some relief, as if he'd wanted to beg her to come, but was somehow afraid that she wouldn't. "It will be bitter cold up on the mountaintop, and I'm not even sure if there's a shelter."

  "I'm not going because it's necessary. I'm going because it's desirable," Maggie said. She took his arm in hers. "And I'll just have to trust you to keep me warm."

  Before they left, Maggie kissed Orick 'on the snout, and Gallen patted his head, and then they were gone, heading out the doorway to the tower atop the mountain.

  Something about the formality of their departure bothered Orick. It was as if they were newlyweds, scurrying off for their honeymoon. In a way, they were formally bidding the rest of the world good-bye. Orick felt a ponderous emptiness in his chest, for Gallen had been his closest friend, and now Orick felt somehow deserted. He went and curled up on the floor feeling empty and barren.

  Ceravanne must have sensed his mood, for she came to him after a while, put her thin arms around him.

  "Why do you think he did that, went off without me?" Orick asked.

  "It may have been my influence," Ceravanne whispered. "I strengthened Maggie's bond to him when I let him touch my skin. The Inhuman tried to break that bond in him, but I think Maggie has reawakened it. It is a terrible thing to be alone when you become so deeply bonded. Gallen needs her now, as he needs water or air. And I suspect that she has needed him as badly all along. We should rejoice that they have each other."

  Orick listened to the words, but found little comfort in them.

  "And maybe it is also the fear of battle," Ceravanne said at last. "We are about to cross the Telgood Mountains, into the desert of Moree. None of us can be sure what our future holds. So he seeks to show his love for her, in case he dies."

  Orick just grunted, and Ceravanne went back beside the fire. A burning cold was seeping through the stone walls, though Orick hardly minded. But a minute later, Tallea came and knelt beside him.

  "When I young, I live in creche," Tallea whispered into his ear. "My sister slept with me, fought beside me, for many years. When grow, she go to marriage, I go to war. It hurt, when she slept with another."

  Orick didn't answer, but Tallea went on. "Someday, you find bear woman to sleep with?" She said it half in comfort, half as question.

  "No," Orick whispered. "Bear women don't love the way that human women do."

  "Oh, very sad," Tallea said, and to Orick's surprise, she lay down beside him, curled up against his thick fur. And she just held him, like a friend/until he fell asleep.

  or his part, Gallen took Maggie up an ancient stair, and on his back he car

  ried firewood and some blankets. There, at the peak of the mountain, the memories newly downloaded in his head told him an ancient race with powerful vision had once built a tower to keep watch over the valleys below.

  Indeed, he found the tower as legend said, though it was but a small, cylindrical shack carved from stone, stuck between a crevice in the rocks. Still, it contained two large beds carved into stone, and a dome-shaped fire chamber with a tiny chimney. Gallen built a good fire, and soon the room was surprisingly warm.

  And there by the fire, wrapped in blankets, he made love to his wife and lay with her, holding her tenderly long after she fell asleep.

  Once, just before she closed her eyes, she asked, "When the Inhuman finished downloading, and you came back to the stable at the inn, how long did it take you to decide to stay with us?"

  "I decided when I saw how you feared me," he whispered honestly. "Until then I was unsure who I would keep allegiance with. But I could not stand to see you fear me."

  "Oh," Maggie whispered, and she fell asleep, never guessing what a truly difficult decision that had been for him to make. At times, the sea of voices, the memories, still threatened to overwhelm him. But always there seemed to be one bright comer in his mind where he could retreat, and in that place his memories were clear, and he could recall what the dronon had done on his home world and on other worlds, and in this way he could bear witness against it.

  And somehow, that helped. One by one, the voices in his head were going silent, like candle flames snuffed out under his finger. Over the past few days, his thoughts had begun to clear.

  And yet he was afraid that somehow he would slip back into that dark place in his mind. He feared it, and he needed Maggie to help him remain strong.

  So Gallen lay and thought for a long time, recalling the dronon's atrocities, planning for the days ahead. He still had the Harvester to contend with, and if he guessed right, it was an ancient killing machine. So he let his mantle read out the files on its weaponry and defense systems.

  Afterward, in the cold night, he wrapped his black robes around him, and took his mantle, and went out under the stars. It was bitter cold, and he softly spoke to his robe, asking it to reflect all heat back to his body.

  He climbed to the top of the small tower, and there he sat upon a simple stone dais. And if anyone had seen him there, wrapped in dark robes, gazing out over the land, they would have thought him only to be an image carved in stone, so little did he move, for he closed his eyes and let his mantle gaze for him.

  The sky was clear of clouds below him, and for a long while he sat, letting his sensors pick up sights and feed the magnified images to his mind. Letting the mantle scan radio frequencies, so that he could listen to the Inhuman's distant communications.

  What he saw and heard disturbed him. Down in the Nigangi Pass, only forty kilometers to the west, three hive cities scoured the land, calling to one another, searching for him, and all along the valley floor he could see the scouts, flapping on swift wings as they fluttered from ruins, to cave, to crowded inn.

  To the south, in the deserts of Moree, he spotted seventeen more of the hive cities, crawling like great spiders across the land, heading north to war through the desert. He could see the glowing lights of their plasma engines, red in the night, and could see tiny figures of men running about the upper war decks.

  He'd never imagined that the dronon had left such fearsome arsenals.

  Yet far more disturbing than either of these were the armies. The whole south of Babel must have been coming northward, for warriors swarmed across the desert. He could see great armed encampments of giants in bloodred robes, sleeping in the open beside huge bonfires. And beyond that were tent cities of the blue-skinned Adare warriors, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Vast armies of Tekkar marched through the night, running northward in their fluid gait, all swathed in black robes. And all of them were heading to the north and east, out to ports where they could cross the seas.

  And their movements were stirring things up in the wilds. Twelve kilometers below, at the foot of the mountain, tribes of wild giant Derrits had gathered, apparently to defend themselves from the sudden encroachments of others. The giant Derrits were said to be solitary creatures, seldom traveling in more than small family groups. But Gallen spotted at least a hundred of the creatures in one great war band.

  And down a curve of the mountain trail, a glowing figure walked. Gallen watched it, a scout with wings folded, scurrying up the road in small lunges, stopping every few meters to sniff. Indeed, as it studied the fresh wagon tracks, it seemed both hopeful and apprehensive. Gallen wondered why the creature had not spotted him-it was only six kilometers down the road until he recalled that he'd asked his robe to reflect all of his body heat inward. Obviously, it cut down his infrared signature to the point that the scout could not detect him.

  But most disturbing of all to Gallen was the great city of Moree, eight hundred kilometers distant. At such a great span, his mantle could make out little. Water vapors in the air, oxygen itself, formed a barrier.

  Yet the images his mantle accumulated showed him one thing-five huge silver domes spread out equidistantly around the city. Gallen had seen such domes before, when
he was on Fale, and so he recognized them.

  The Inhuman was building starships.

  Gallen sighed, and slipped from the tower, heading down to kill the scout.

  Chapter 25

  I don't like it," Ceravanne said the next morning, in the great hall. "The Tower Road is our best chance," Gallen urged, standing over the corpse of a dead scout. "The servants of the Inhuman have little knowledge of it. I remember it as a dark and dangerous track, a place of terror—one I would not willingly brave again. I was lost in the tunnels under the city of Indallian once, for many days—and so I think that the servants of the Inhuman will avoid the place. But you, Ceravanne, must have used the road. You were the queen of this land."

  "That was five hundred years ago," Ceravanne said. "Even then, the road through the Hollow Hills was a maze. Few dared the tunnels without guides. And now, who knows what might live there? Derrits at the least would lurk in those caves, but many another folk are accustomed to the dark. What if the Tekkar have established an outpost? And even when the road lies aboveground, one must beware of wingmen. They've a strong taste for blood."

  "Yet the valleys of Moree are awash with the armies of the Inhuman," Gallen said. "The word has gone out that a Lord Protector seeks Moree. Scouts by the hundreds are scouring the land for us, and by our poor chance, great armies are moving through the night. We cannot go over the open roads. Already, one scout has found our wagon tracks. We must get through to Moree."

  "And you think that it is better to face a hidden danger than a known one?"

  "When the known danger is overwhelming, yes," Gallen said.

  "I don't understand," Orick said. "What are you two arguing about?" Gallen had done a bit of scouting last night, and had decided to use an old trail, the Tower Road, to get closer to Moree. The rest of the group was willing to follow him blindly, but Ceravanne had blown up at the news.

  She said, "The Tower Road is an old road that united Ophat with the underground city of Indallian, which lies west of here, under the Hollow Hills. From there, the road leads farther west, through the Telgood Mountains to the very edge of Moree itself."