The Bavarian Gate (the lion of farside)

by John Dalmas

  He looked tired.

  By that time Macurdy had a theory about this gate. Presumably, like the Ozark Gate, it had turned on once a month, at local midnight nearest the full moon. That's why he hadn't felt its field: he'd been asleep. Now it was activating daily, at whatever hour the moon crossed the local meridian. That would explain the daily shift in time.

  As to why: It seemed to him the Voitar had caused it with their midnight ritual at the new moon. How that could be was hard to imagine, but certainly the timing fitted.

  The next day Montag went to class in the morning as usual. After lunch, Schurz had him pack his few things in a military rucksack, then they went to class again.

  Macurdy had realized for some time that he excelled the others in creating monsters, but still they were no more than three-dimensional, solid-seeming images. Horszath seemed to see them well enough, but when he'd asked the others, they didn't see them at all. Macurdy, on the other hand, could see theirs clearly, and felt confident his were better-more "real," so to speak, more convincing. Manfred's lacked a sense of solidity and mass, and the evil with which he imbued them was more perversion and cruelty than the raw essence that Horszath wanted and that none of them succeeded in giving him.

  Montag's version departed even further; it held grief, despair, loss. Horszath found it unacceptable.

  At break time, Montag, with his rucksack, was delivered to Greszak's office. Moments later, Kurgosz, with Tsulgax in tow, took him outside with them to a waiting military VW, and its SS driver. Almost as soon as they left, Kurqosz began to look ill, though the gate had not yet turned on. When it did, partway up the ridge, the Voitu looked no worse, while Tsulgax seemed unaffected. Nearing the crest, the crown prince stopped the driver and they got out, to walk the rest of the way, Whatever had been wrong with him, it eased quickly as they hiked. On the crest, the road became rougher, more rocky, and they followed it north a short distance.

  Macurdy could feel the gate powerfully now, and wondered what the experience would be like. When he'd gated through on Injun Knob, he'd been in place before it turned on. Here he'd have to walk into it. Soon he could feel it pull on him as if by suction, more strongly as the approached, so that it was hard not to run toward it. For one arming moment, it threatened to suck him from his body, then darkness swallowed him -indigo-tinged nothingness with a bass resonance more felt than heard. For a gut-wrenching instant it was as if his body disassembled, then he was somehow spit out, arms flailing for balance, and sprawled into-straw! After a moment he got up and looked around, unsteady, shaking a bit. Kurgosz and Tsulgax were still down. Here darkness was simply night, a night much colder than the evening he'd just left. They were in a steep-roofed, ceiling-less structure-a sort of pavilion perhaps a hundred feet long, open beneath the eaves to air and moonlight. Several Voitar had been waiting with spears and lantern, and one of them called in a language Macurdy didn't know.

  Kurqosz answered, then rose unsteadily to his feet, Tsulgax rising with him, and gave orders. The Voitik men-at-arms wore bulky fur cloaks and carried others, putting them over the shoulders of the arrivals. Hands, non-threatening, helped them from the shelter, on a path shoveled through snow too deep for Macurdy to see over.

  Ahead was a building, two-storied and steep-roofed, with walls of broad overlapping planks. Its entrance was marked by something like the kerosene lamps he'd grown up with- an oil lamp with an open-topped globe of glass that shielded its flame from the wind. One of their escort raised a bar and held the door open. They went into warmth, and it was closed behind them.

  Kurqosz gave more orders. Two guards, these without spears but carrying scabbarded swords, took Macurdy down a lamplit corridor, a smell of fragrant smoke overlying the smell of wood-cedar of some kind, he thought. They stopped at a door. One of the guards opened it and gestured him in, the motion brusque but not hostile. The room was lit by another oil lamp, this one open: in one wall was a window tightly shuttered, in a comer a built-in ceramic stove, flames visible through a window that might have been isinglass. A long low bed stood by one wall. The guard, whom Macurdy judged at about seven feet, said something unintelligible-a single word-then stepped back into the corridor and closed the door, leaving him alone.

  Macurdy checked the bed. The sheets resembled flannel; the covers were fur. A small table held a washbasin, a bowl of soft soap, a large pitcher of water and a mug. A towel hung by it.

  He wondered if they always had quarters ready like this, or if someone had come through from the schloss the day before, with instructions. Meanwhile he wasn't sleepy, but it seemed he was to stay there. Someone, he hoped, was seeing to supper for him, though here it was probably nearer breakfast time. He decided he might as well wait lying down.

  He did, atop one fur blanket and beneath the other, and before he realized what was happening, fell asleep.

  27

  Rillissa

  Macurdy awoke spontaneously, feeling as if he'd slept for hours. Swinging his legs out of bed, he got up, went to the door and peer out. Two guards stood there. He pantomimed his hunger, and one of them led him down the corridor to a room with a 12 foot long table, and a floor covered with thinly spread straw. There he was seated, the guard standing behind him, Macurdy wondering how long it would be.

  Ten minutes later a female came in, her appearance almost human, more handsome than beautiful, but with Voitik hair and eyes. Macurdy wondered if that was normal for female Voitar, or if she was a mixed-blood. Sending the guard away, she sat down across from him. "You are Kurt Montag," she said carefully. "Excuse my halting German. I have practiced it only two days."

  He stared.

  "My name is Rillissa. The Crown Prince has assigned me as your companion. I am told you are hungry. Food will soon be brought for you."

  She recited her sentences as if doing a drill, but her pronunciations were quite good, and her grammar, if stiff, was correct.

  "You began to learn German only two days ago?"

  "Learn?" She frowned, then seemed to realize something. "Ah. Of course. You are not used to us. It is not necessary that I learn it, you see, only that I practice it to gain facility. Skill." She paused, then smiled. "I shall ask that you speak slowly, until I am more practiced. The Crown Prince warned me that you speak an atrocious dialect."

  She smiled as if totally unaware that her comment might offend. Macurdy realized now that the Voitik species did in fact share a hive mind, as he'd speculated, that she tapped it to speak German, and that access alone was not sufficient for fluency. "You speak German well," he said. "I will try to speak slowly. I am glad the Crown Prince sent you."

  A human servant came in, set the table for two, and left. Almost at once another entered with a tray. Breakfast was a kind of omelet, heavy on onions and what Macurdy guessed was barley, with a coarse dark molasses bread. On the side was butter, a kind of pickled fish, two large mugs, and a large pot of buttered tea with honey. While they ate, they talked hardly at all, lacking grounds for easy conversation; they'd need to concentrate to talk together.

  Over tea he said, "I do not understand why the Crown Prince sent you."

  "To help you learn well. Also, you have none of your own people here, and need a companion so you will not be lonely. Loneliness is a problem for you because you do not share mind."

  It occurred to Macurdy that he'd rarely felt lonely in his life, but he let it pass. She smiled again, and changed the subject. "When you are ready, I have something to show you."

  He swallowed the last of his tea, and she led him upstairs to a balcony. The sun had risen, and she pointed out the pavilion that housed the gate on this side. "That is where you arrived," she said. "And that"-she pointed past it, up the valley-"is the Gletscher that covered this location for a very long time, so that no one knew what was here."

  Macurdy judged the glacier's foot as about a hundred yards above the gate.

  "Seven years ago," she went on, "when the snow melted in May, a woman was found frozen, farther down
the valley. No one knew who she was, but her clothing and shoes were strange. Though it was not known then, she had pushed her way more than three kilometers through snow, which could not have been nearly so deep as now."

  Rillissa began to shiver, and they went back inside. Macurdy wondered if she lacked the talent to draw on the Web of the World, or just didn't know how.

  "And of course," she went on, "no one could guess where the woman had come from, or how. To the local authorities, who are human, she was simply a strange discovery, a mystery, and soon no one thought about her anymore."

  "Two months later, a cattle herder reported a strange couple at the site where the gate is. The woman was-" Rillissa paused, briefly uncertain of the word "-was in a coma, and the man who crouched beside her was raving. The woman soon died, and the man, who never recovered his sanity, died a few weeks later. It was supposed they were connected to the woman who had frozen-their clothing and shoes had similar peculiarities- but the mystery remained a local matter."

  "Until a month later, when the same herd-girl found three dead men just where the couple had been found. They wore strange uniforms, and what were thought might be weapons, though how they worked was unknown. This brought the mystery to the attention of the imperial police."

  The two events that could be dated had occurred when the moon was full, Rillissa went on, so a month later the imperial police had officers waiting, just in case. At midday they'd felt a physical pressure-somewhat like a strong wind-and three more strange humans had appeared suddenly, flailing and sprawling. The two in uniform soon died. The other recovered, after suffering what seemed to be the flu. He was a German psychic, who identified the frozen woman as a reputed witch, based on a reported disappearance, false teeth, and her clothing.

  "Meanwhile, one of the imperial police had pushed against the repelling pressure, and after a brief darkness found himself in a strange place on top of a ridge. And not in midday sunlight, but the middle of night! Afraid he might not find the place again, and demoralized by isolation from the hive mind, he'd stayed there till daylight. Then men in uniform arrived, and arrested him." Rillissa shrugged. "And from that unintended exchange, a German psychic for an imperial police sergeant, has grown a relationship between our government and yours, and further exchanges."

  "Then there are other Germans here besides me?"

  "Others have been sent, partly to learn more about it. Only three survived, psychics, young women, who arrived early this winter. They were sick only briefly. We are trying to teach them to share mind, but unsuccessfully so far." She shrugged. "You are the first to arrive without at least being ill."

  "Is that why I was brought through? To learn to share mind?"

  "No. You are to be taught other skills. My father says you show more promise than others of your people."

  "Your father? Who is he?"

  "Crown Prince Kurqosz."

  "You are a princess then?"

  She laughed. "Me? A princess? To be a princess, my mother would have to be Voitik as well." Taking him by surprise, she leaned forward and kissed him. "No, I am a slave. But of royal blood; I have slaves of my own."

  They donned furs and skis then, to explore the neighborhood, explorations that proved quite limited. Macurdy had never been on skis before, and floundered at first, Rillissa laughing and helping him. Afterward she took him to a hot tub, and began to undress. When he didn't at once follow her example, she ordered him to, then helped him. Before they left, she'd had him on a bench. What would the Crown Prince do if he found out? Montag asked her. She told him her father had instructed her to lie with him; he suspected Montag might have traits useful to the bloodline.

  That confused as much as clarified. If Rillissa was a slave, how would her offspring by a foreigner become part of the royal bloodline? Or-perhaps the bloodline Kurqosz referred to was more like that of the family livestock.

  28

  The Palace

  They left the next morning in four horse-drawn sleighs: Kurqosz and Montag with Tsulgax and Rillissa, plus guards and personal slaves. Macurdy didn't know it, but sleighs were almost the only land conveyance that the Voitik species, the "Voitusotar," rode in. Meanwhile they'd dressed him as prosperous humans dressed in Hithmearc, his cloak and cap of dark lustrous fur. He strutted a little in them, as a peasant boy might.

  Dusk was settling when they reached a town, on the shore of a sizeable river, the Jugnal. There the snow was much less, and the river unfrozen. One wing of an inn had been prepared for the crown prince and his entourage-Montag and Rillissa shared a large feather bed-and in the morning the whole party started downstream on a pair of luxurious barges.

  For four days and four nights they floated, the first day on the Jugnal, then on the mighty Rovenstarn, through sunshine, drizzle, and snow showers, carried by the current and the slow strong strokes of burly human oarsmen, past bluffs, towns, the mouths of tributaries, and the overlooking ruins of castles. Castles knocked down, according to Rillissa, by Kurqosz's barbarian ancestors after they'd conquered these lands. Of other traffic there was little, beyond barges piled high with fuelwood, but of those there were plenty, for long peace had brought burgeoning populations. The fuelwood cutters had stripped the country increasingly bare of woods, and fuel was brought from farther and farther away, from rugged hills and mountains.

  Late each day the royal barges stopped, just long enough to take on provisions and new oarsmen, then pull away again. Rillissa's appetite for sex was remarkable. Fortunately she was aware of male limitations, and between bouts in bed, they spent breaks bundled on deck, watching the banks pass, and talking. Her German flowed more and more easily, and she recounted for Macurdy the history of the Voitusotar. They'd originated far to the north, in a land of plateaus, mountains, ice fields and fjords, a murky country wet with rain and snow, mists and fogs. The valley dwellers had herded goats and sheep, the highlanders reindeer.

  Then an epizootic had nearly wiped out their reindeer, and the highland clans had migrated eastward across a vast, neararctic wilderness they called "the neck." In all other directions the sea had blocked them, and on the sea the Voitusotar were so gripped by violent nausea, they died. River boats were the extent of their travel on water.

  Nor did this tall and slender people ride animals or carriages. They became ill from the motion, though not so badly as on ships. Mostly they traveled afoot, and no human could begin to run with them. This people who'd long herded goats and reindeer in moccasins and on skis, who'd hiked a thousand leagues in their migrations, could run for days on end if need be. An ordinary Voitik male could easily outsprint a human champion. Running was bred into them, and pride in it instilled from infancy. In war they were cavalry without horses.

  Compared to those they'd conquered, the Voitusotar were not a numerous people, despite intrinsically long lifespans and an indisposition to illness. For they were not very fertile, even among themselves, and they culled their offspring. But they were shrewd and ruthless warriors and potent sorcerers, whose hive mind enabled them to plan and coordinate in battle to a degree inconceivable to humans.

  She also began to teach him the language of the land, Hithmearcisc. It was not, she said, the language the Voitusotar had brought with them, but in time it became the one they used. Voitik was used primarily for naming and spells.

  He found himself recognizing occasional words he'd learned in Yuulith. Hithmearcisc and Yuultal seemed to be of the same world, sister tongues, apparently with an ocean somehow in between. This sparked his interest, and as he began to develop an ear for Hithmearcish, he recognized more and more cognates.

  He avoided mentioning Yuultal, and Rillissa commented on how rapidly he learned. Probably she mentioned it to Kurqosz as well.

  Just after daybreak on the fifth day, the barges came to a city known as Voitazosz, gray with old and dirty snow, and murky with drizzle. By that time, to Rillissa's annoyance, her sexual demands had debilitated Macurdy. Fortunately he'd gotten her pregnant; that was cl
ear to him from her aura. And to her from the hive mind: The embryo was already plugged into it, so to speak, a minute and primitive animal presence that shared life force with all her father's race, and with some mixed-bloods like herself.

  The only person Macurdy wanted to sire children on was Mary, who was in another world. Meanwhile, Rillissa's pregnancy had taken the pressure off him.

  At Voitazosz, the River Quarm flowed into the Rovenstarn, and their steersmen turned up it. Two miles above the city was the imperial palace, extensive as a town-mighty fortress walls with towers and domes looming above them. As a farmboy from Washington County, Indiana, warlord of Yuulith's Rude Lands, undersheriff of Nehtaka County, and an American G.I. in England, nothing he'd ever seen had struck him as so impressive or so foreign.

  There were stone docks outside the walls, and a slip for landing important people. It was there they tied up and disembarked. Human dockers handled the lines and unloaded the baggage. Without being conspicuous about it, they eyed Macurdy curiously, a human of seeming consequence in the Crown Prince's entourage.

  He discovered that inside the walls, buildings occupied less than half the ground. As a group they were not attractive. Individually some were, but they went together poorly, like Tudor and Bauhaus. Not that Macurdy analyzed the situation, but he sensed it. Of the ground unbuilt upon, much was paved with flagstone, while such gardens and lawns as there were, were drab with winter. The overall impact was aesthetically poor, as if the Voitusotar, or at least the imperial family, were imperceptive or didn't care.