by Sharon Lee
He’d used my information, coated in butterscotch, to open the Gate. Technically, then, the Keeper, or at least, the Keeper’s jikinap, had opened the Gate; nothing to see here, move on…
I took a careful breath.
“There has been no illicit use of the Gate,” I said firmly.
“The Gate was opened.”
I shrugged, stalling; hoping to annoy her into giving me a clue regarding her purpose.
“I had a customer.”
“Where did you send this…customer?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Check the logbook, why not?”
Snow and wind struck my cheek, and I realized that the first slap had been on the order of a lovetap. I staggered, keeping my feet only because the land wouldn’t let me fall.
“Impertinence will be rewarded appropriately,” the Wise One told me.
Right. And as it turned out, she’d done me a favor. The blow had shaken loose a potentially useful thought.
Guilty conscience aside, how did I know which Gate opening had caught this particular Wise One’s attention? Time runs differently across the Six Worlds, and the way between. And God Himself knows how—or if—it operates wherever it is that the Wise keep household. Frosty here could’ve gotten her snowflakes in a twist over some piece of business that had happened a hundred local years ago, though the temporal drift wasn’t, I thought, quite that extreme.
I did a quick calculation. Gran had been in the Land of the Flowers for six months, Changing Land time. Which had roughly equaled two Sempeki weeks.
When she’d run for home, pursued by demons, I’d opened the Gate to let her through. Eleven weeks ago, that had been.
I took a careful breath.
This particular Wise One…was plenty arrogant, and more than willing to take offense. Still, a request for information wasn’t…necessarily…impertinence.
“Look,” I said, raising my hands so she could see how defenseless I was. “Look, I need some more information. When did this so-called illicit use take place?”
The Wise One drew herself up, and a dozen new ice flowers bloomed on the floor at her hem.
“Okay, that’s a tough one. How about location? Where did the Gate open to?”
Her long nose wrinkled, as if she’d detected a bad odor, and I thought she was going to take another swing at me.
Instead, and to my considerable surprise, she answered.
“The Gate to Sempeki was opened, illicitly.”
“Well, not necessarily. I did open the Gate to Sempeki recently. But I didn’t send anybody through; I let a traveler in.”
“That is illicit.” This time the smack was hard enough I saw stars mixed in with the snowflakes.
I shook my head to clear it, which was a mistake; Frosty had clipped me good and proper. Then I realized that the land had caught me before I’d collapsed; my mouth was tingling with the green effect of healing. I tasted blood, too—which was washed away by a sudden infusion of cool, salty energy. I recognized the signature—Felsic’s “home brew.”
I took a breath and centered myself, letting the power of the land fold right around me as I met the Wise One’s eyes again.
“That use was not illicit,” I said, impressed to hear that my voice was steady. “The Gate was opened, properly, by the Gatekeeper, and the traveler passed through in good order.”
“That traveler was a criminal.”
“Not my job to check warrants. If Sempeki didn’t want them to cross, Sempeki should’ve stopped them.”
This time, the smack hit the land’s protection; I saw the flare when it bounced. Frosty didn’t seem to notice.
“We will not argue semantics,” she announced. “Be it heard that you, the Gatekeeper, and this, the World of Change, are put on notice by the InterWorld Council of Wisdom. The World of Change has long been a nexus of irregularity, disorder, and inconvenience. This will no longer be permitted. Should there be any more such irregularities as have been noted in the past, the Gate will be closed, and the World of Change will be allowed to wither and die. This by order and decree of the Wise, and the seal set upon it by Isiborg of the Council.”
She moved for the first time, opening her arms, blizzards falling from her jagged fingers.
“It is done.”
The light went out.
“Dammit!”
I raised my hand, fingers curled around the little ball of feylight, strode to the circuit box and threw the switch.
Ordinary electric light flooded the enclosure. I turned first to the carousel, which seemed very little the worse for our visitor’s chilly nature. There were no icicles dangling dangerously from the canopy; the animals glowed like new-painted, but appeared to be dry. I looked down. The floor was dry, and innocent of frost flowers.
“What did that mean, about cutting us off?” Felsic asked.
“Well, on a sliding scale from Nothing Much to We’re All Gonna Die…” I shook my head. “It depends on who you ask. According to a recent history lesson, it seems to me that cutting us out of the loop is much worse for the rest of the loop than it is for us. Unless I’m missing something. Which is possible. But one thing’s for certain…”
I paused, feeling a nagging something in the hindbrain. Something to do with the light…
“What’s certain?” Felsic asked, derailing my train of thought.
“Oh. We’re definitely going to be taken out of the loop, just as soon as my next transgression comes up on the Wise’s roster, which—best guess—will be just about Labor Day.”
“What did you do?”
“How much do you know about the carousel?”
“I know there’s been something wrong about the carousel for a long time,” Felsic said, matter-of-factly. “And it wasn’t making the Lady happy at all.”
“That’ll do. As to what I did—I made the Lady happy. At least, I made Mr. Ignat’ happy; Gran’s still in-tree. My assumption is that they’re in it—whatever it is—together, though.”
“That’d be the safe bet.” Felsic looked around. “Anything else to do tonight?”
“No…hell no. You better go on and see that’s Peggy’s all right. Thanks for getting my back.”
“No worries,” Felsic said. “Mind walking up with me?”
“Not at all. Let me get the light.”
I snapped off the light and followed Felsic to the door, feylight illuminating our path. It wasn’t until I’d pulled it shut that I realized I didn’t have the lock.
“Must’ve dropped it when our visitor blew in,” I said, extending a request to the land for its assistance. “Can’t have gone far.”
“In fact, my liege,” a man’s voice came out of the dark service alley, “it fell not so far. I have it here, safe.”
* * * * *
The waters delivered her to the shore, and she rose to her full height. Heeding the lesson learned from the Borgan, her robes were modest, and her hair was loose.
She was not here to overawe, but to call upon a woman of power, as she was herself a woman of power. The goblins had revered Nerazi the Seal Woman as an elder; she would therefore respect an elder, and not assume that role for herself.
The Rock she descried at once, shining silver under the gaze of the moon. She crossed the sand to it as a simple woman might, and came around the leeward side of the Rock.
There, seated on a sealskin, was a queen of a woman, full-bodied and voluptuous. Her face was like the moon, round and a-glow with power. Her eyes were bottomless black pools, rubies glinting in their depths.
“Mother.” Quite without meaning to, she bowed, her respect unfeigned. Small wonder the goblins had feared and revered this person. There was power here, and wisdom; knowledge and mercy. She might well have been a goddess—perhaps, by the rules of this strange land, she was a goddess.
It was well, then, to be prudent.
“Daughter,” Seal Woman said. “It were better done, had you sought me sooner.”
“I see this
is truth,” she admitted. “I can offer nothing in defense of my foolishness, save that I was offered asylum elsewhere, and knew no better than to accept it.”
“The customs of a strange land are often confusing, I am told. One may make mistakes of naivety, and be forgiven. Other mistakes, I fear, Daughter, are not so easily forgiven.”
Such was the power of this elder that she felt a chill. Had she made so grievous an error as that?
“Sit,” Seal Woman said.
Obediently, she sank to her knees in the sand, and sat, straight-backed, over her heels.
“That is well. Now, tell me what you have done with the ronstibles, who named themselves Olida and Daphne.”
“Mother, I have taken them,” she said baldly. “They sought to use me against the Borgan, and I would not have it.”
“You interest me. Why not simply refuse them? You were granted twenty days of the water’s full grace.”
She must be careful here, and resist the elder’s power—not fight it, not that. But, truth must seem to flow naturally from her, parting around her necessities as softly as possible, as water moving around a rock. It was a risk—almost, she laughed, for had she not already accepted risk, by seeking this power out?
“Twenty days of the water’s grace,” she repeated, softly. “Yes, Mother; I was granted that, most generously. But the rest of the Borgan’s geas was that I must, at the end of that time, return to the Land whence I came.”
“And that, you did not wish to do? If you remain here, Daughter, you will change. You will perhaps change in ways that will not please you, and which may become dangerous to these waters.”
“I am not,” she said, with perhaps more bravado than truth, “afraid of change.”
“Now, that is courage, indeed. But, tell me, why not simply refuse the ronstibles? Borgan would have protected you, had it been necessary.”
“But I do not want his protection, Mother.” She drew herself a little straighter, as might any maiden about to declare anything so bold.
“I want his love.”
Nerazi the Seal Woman seemed amused, though she was gracious enough not to smile.
“I see that you have, indeed, been informed by the waters. Once your strength is more fully returned, you will recall that love is between equals.”
“Mother, I know that,” she said firmly. “It is precisely why I took the goblins—the ronstibles. I have less than twenty days to recover myself fully, to learn all of this sea that I may, and show him that I am worthy.”
Nerazi said nothing.
“I see clearly,” she said, insisting upon her point. “Recall that the goblins hated him.”
Seal Woman’s face grew thoughtful.
“So they did. Well, perhaps you have chosen a good tonic; I cannot say for certain because it has not, to my knowledge, been done before. However that may be, I fear that this step—this taking of the ronstibles—will not further your suit. Indeed, we must suppose it a severe setback for your ambition.”
She frowned. “By my measure, I have given him a wedding gift fitting to a god. I have rid him of those who wished him only ill, who posed a constant danger to him and to the performance of his duty; who would never be won over, nor brought into alliance with him. Surely, my position is stronger, for having done this thing that honor would not allow him to do for himself.”
“What a strange world must Cheobaug be,” Seal Woman mused, then paused, and inclined her head courteously. “Your pardon, Daughter; I perhaps make an unworthy assumption. Are you of Cheobaug?”
“The Land of Wave and Water bore me, yes. But I do not understand you, Mother. Surely the art of alliance is not so different, between this Land which I hope to make my own, and that Land which repudiates me.”
“Perhaps you are correct. But I believe you have acted without first obtaining full knowledge of your…potential ally. I, who have known him intimately for many years, believe that Borgan will consider that he is diminished by this loss you have given him. He did not love the ronstibles, but the sea loved them, and for that reason alone, he would have preserved them.”
That chilled her, indeed, and for a moment—a moment only!—she allowed herself to wonder if she had made an error, and a grievous one.
The moment passed. Done was done, and the goblins beyond recall. She would continue as she had begun. He would see her as worthy, and accept all that she offered.
He would.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday, July 10
“And just who the hell are you?” I asked, but the land was already reporting the twice-familiar weight upon it, while helpfully augmenting my night-sight.
The man who was down on one knee before me, holding the storm gate’s padlock out in a slim hand…was not trenvay—no trenvay you’ll ever meet will admit to having any such thing as a liege—nor was he an Ozali. He possessed a dollop of jikinap—I could see it glowing at the base of his spine—enough for basic work and defense, but nothing near the level of a serious power-monger.
His head was bent, so I couldn’t see his face. His hair was cut so close to his head it looked like he was wearing a brown velvet cap; the bowed neck was brown, and not particularly familiar, but then I don’t have a great memory for the backs of necks.
“Name?” I suggested again, making no move to take the lock.
“I am Cael, called the Wolf,” he said, promptly. His voice was in the midrange, but with a peculiar growly texture to it.
Well, that was letter of the law. I couldn’t fault the man for not volunteering beyond what he was asked, but I really wasn’t in the mood for Twenty Questions.
“Your affiliation?”
He took a breath deep enough to lift his shoulders, but answered steadily enough.
“House Aeronymous.”
I had, I thought, been afraid he was going to say that.
“How came you here, Cael of Aeronymous?”
“I was carried here, my lady, and bound against my will and that of my lord. The arrival and the binding, those things I recall, but nothing else until I was freed into the midst of a storm.” He hesitated. “I ran away.”
“Good call. Now what you want to do is go back to the Land of the Flowers.”
He raised his head, lowering the hand holding the lock. His eyes were golden brown, his nose short and broad, his mouth slightly protuberant.
“I went to Sempeki, and to the House of Aeronymous, whose man I had been all my life,” he said, his voice significantly more growly. “The House was empty, and the gate hung broken on its hinges. I searched the grounds, and found Aleun tending the gardens, and Tioli, on the walls. All of the House were dead, they told me, taken by the Ozali Ramendysis.” The golden brown eyes sparkled, as if with tears.
“All of the House, taken,” he repeated, his whisper raw with agony, “save Prince Nathan’s child, who was now Aeronymous. It was for her that they kept garden and wall, and a vigilant watch against the return of the Ozali Ramendysis.”
Aleun the gardener, I recalled, a stick of a woman with very nearly a dryad’s understanding of growing things. Tioli…was a less certain memory. My grandfather had seen his walls patrolled by solid professionals, in addition to the layers of spellcraft meant to hold the House secure. I might have passed Tioli a hundred times and never known her name.
I looked down into tired eyes and shook my head, slowly.
“When I was sent from Sempeki to this land, I took up new duties, with a pledge of my life. I did this knowing, as you know, that the House was broken, all were taken, and there was no hope of recover.”
He made a small sound in the back of his throat. I paused, but he didn’t make the sound into words.
“The duty I now hold will not marry well with the duties of Aeronymous. I have lain that down, and I will not return.”
“You will desert us?” I think he’d meant it to sound harsh, but he only managed exhausted.
“Cael the Wolf, you have yourself seen. What would you ha
ve me do?”
He swallowed, and drew a breath; let it out in a long sigh.
“At this moment, in all truth, I would have you take my oath, and allow me to serve you in this new duty. My liege.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I wanted neither oaths nor subjects, but something in the eyes gave me pause, or maybe an old, all-but-buried memory of my grandfather talking to me about loyalty, and how the loyalty of those Lower kept the House and the High secure. He had even touched, briefly, on the means available to the High, in order to ensure loyalty, before breaking off and promising me that I would be taught those things thoroughly, when I came of an age.
I blinked into Side-Sight, and looked at Cael, called the Wolf, seeing at once the unmistakeable shine of jikinap, twisted in compact triquetra, and anchored near his—no.
My stomach damn’ near flipped over; I swallowed, hard.
There was no geas upon him, as I might lay an order to avoid me upon an importunate drunk.
Cael the Wolf…the geas was woven into the structure and function of his heart, a vital part of a vital organ. As I watched, the knots of jikinap flickered, and paled. I heard the man before me, very softly, groan.
I looked more closely, into the warp and the weft of the working. The geas was dependent upon a living oath to Aeronymous. My grandfather was dead; thus the oath required renewal. In a kinder and gentler Sempeki, where Ramendysis hadn’t swallowed us whole, Cael and all of our household would have renewed their oaths with my father, upon grandfather’s passing. If the oath was not renewed, the knot would unravel; Cael’s heart would stop—or burst.
It served no purpose to ask Cael if he knew this. I was betting he did. And that left the outcome of this squarely in my hands, as the last survivor of our House, Aeronymous by default.
I blinked out of Side-Sight. Cael still knelt before me, so deeply dignified that the eye slid past the tremors in his limbs. Possibly he’d be able to stand, if I ordered him up.
Probably not.
I spared a hard thought for my grandfather.
Then, I met Cael’s eyes, and extended my hand.
Cael raised his, the lock still held in his fingers.
“Felsic,” I said, without turning my head, “would you please take the lock from this gentleman and finish with the door?”