Gatefather

by Orson Scott Card

  “So she was, like, a succubus,” said Wheeler.

  “You don’t get pregnant from that,” said Xena.

  “A succubus is a female demon that comes and has sex with you in the night,” said Hal. “According to ancient lore. The male equivalent is ‘incubus.’”

  “Sounds like a medieval attempt to explain wet dreams,” said Wheeler.

  “And single girls’ babies,” said Hal.

  “Well, she wasn’t mythical,” said Pat. “She undressed him the rest of the way and she was all over him before he even woke up.”

  “How much did she tell you?” asked Stone. “Was she trying to cause you pain?”

  “No,” said Pat. “She was apologizing. She was explaining. Because it wasn’t really her.”

  They all looked at her blankly.

  “OK, then why is she pregnant?” asked Laurette.

  Stone knew. He was looking at the floor instead of at her.

  “It wasn’t her making the decisions,” said Pat. “That’s the whole reason we’re having this meeting. Nicki has never heard Danny talk about the Belgod and how he possesses people, and how he can jump from one person to another and live forever and all that. But what she tells me, out of the blue, is that she was controlled, her body was controlled by something else. It would sometimes talk to her, using her own voice. And it would make her do things, strange things, stupid things. Then let her have control of her body for hours. Then make her do something bizarre again.”

  “Wheeler does that and he isn’t possessed,” said Xena.

  Stone impatiently held up a hand to signal Xena to stop talking.

  “Then right at the moment when Danny … got her pregnant…”

  “Orgasmed. Ejaculated,” said Laurette. “Come on, we all had sex education.”

  Pat shuddered, as she had when Nicki told her. “The thing left her body and went into his. Then it used his voice to talk to her. But no, I’m telling it out of order. Just before the … transfer … it used her mouth to say to him, ‘You want me inside you.’”

  “And he said yes,” whispered Stone. His face looked like a portrait of despair.

  “Yes,” said Pat. “Only she told me it made no sense, because she wasn’t inside him, it was the other way around. It only makes sense if you think of it as the Belgod asking Danny to let him in. To invite him.”

  “And he did,” said Stone.

  “So this is true?” asked Hal. “Because I was thinking it was all just a lie Nicki told to explain being pregnant.”

  “It might be exactly that,” said Stone, “but then she certainly knows a lot of details that she shouldn’t know.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Pat. “That’s why I thought this was important. Because ever since that night, Danny’s been different. Not himself.”

  “In what way?” asked Stone. He was asking Pat, but looking at each of the other kids in turn, as if for confirmation.

  “He came on to me,” said Pat. “Which would have been fine, only he was weird about it. Came up behind me and cupped my butt with his hand. Right by my locker, with people around.”

  “Who cares?” said Xena. “I thought you two were in love.”

  “We are,” said Pat. “Were, anyway. But he knows I don’t like people to just … touch me. Out of the blue. He knows that. And the way he talked. He called me ‘baby girl.’ Guys who talk like that make me sick.”

  “Me too,” said Wheeler.

  Stone was nodding, though. “Not Danny’s style.”

  “Danny knows better than to treat me like that, talk to me like that. He was crude. Like the only thing on his mind was sex. Like he thought he owned me. Like I see other guys act with girls, and they get all fluttery, but not me, and Danny knows that. Knew that.”

  “What did you do?” asked Stone.

  “Pulled away from him,” said Pat. “And told him it wasn’t happening. He kept trying for a minute, and then he gives me a little shove and a tiny slap on the cheek and says, ‘Your loss, baby girl,’ and that was it. Walked away.”

  Laurette sighed. “You told him no? What else is he going to do?”

  “Danny wouldn’t have asked. Not that way. Not like he had the right. It wasn’t Danny, and you all know it.”

  “What’s your name?” Stone asked Pat. She told him.

  “Pat,” he said, “you did right. Not to tell him what you were thinking.”

  “I didn’t know what the Belmage would do, if he was really in possession of Danny, and I told him I knew he was there.”

  “Good thinking,” said Stone. “What about the rest of you? Anybody else notice a change?”

  “Yes,” said Hal. “He hardly talks to me and Wheeler anymore. Walks along the corridor at school smiling at people and saying hi to them.”

  “He’s friendly,” said Laurette.

  “Especially girls,” said Wheeler.

  “I didn’t notice that it was especially girls,” said Hal.

  “But it was.”

  “I’m not arguing,” said Hal, “I’m just saying what I saw. It’s like we could hang around if we wanted, but Danny didn’t care, and maybe he was even a little annoyed to have us there.”

  “Maybe?” said Wheeler. “What about when he told us to get lost while he talked to Rosann?”

  “Rosann?” asked Hal.

  “You know, Rosann the queen of the universe—”

  “I know who Rosann is,” said Hal. “I just don’t remember Danny talking to her and—”

  “Oh, right,” said Wheeler. “It was after lunch and you had already peeled off to go to—”

  Stone interrupted them. “Has anybody seen Danny use a gate?”

  “Like, constantly,” said Xena.

  “That’s just not true,” said Pat. “He hardly ever uses gates these days. He’s trying not to clutter up the world with gates, remember?”

  “I mean specifically since he took you through the Great Gate to Westil,” said Stone. “It’s been more than a month. In that time, has he ever?”

  They were silent.

  “This is kind of impossible,” said Sin. “How can we remember what didn’t happen since a certain day?”

  “Since we went through a gate to another planet?” said Pat. “No, Stone, I haven’t seen him use a gate since then. Not even to come up to our place.”

  “Place?” asked Stone.

  “Where the emergency gate is,” said Wheeler.

  “Any of the rest of you seen him use a gate since then?” asked Stone.

  Nobody could remember it if he did.

  “The reason I’m asking is, a Gatefather like Danny knows when people pass through his gates. He can feel it. So when you all gathered at your place and then all came here, he would know that.”

  Pat understood. “Why isn’t he here?”

  “Exactly,” said Stone. “All his friends are having a meeting, using his gates to get there. A meeting with me. Shouldn’t he be curious? And if he’s curious, why not come find out what’s going on?”

  “So you’re saying the Belmage is keeping him from coming?” asked Xena.

  “The Belmage would be even more curious why we’re gathered here,” said Stone. “Hard to think why he wouldn’t come to see if we pose some kind of danger to him.”

  “So it’s a good thing that Danny isn’t here?”

  “Maybe,” said Stone. “I mean, he might also just be busy or he might respect your privacy. All kinds of reasons. But it might also mean that somehow Danny is keeping the Belmage from getting access to his gates.”

  “I thought when the Belmage gets you, you’re, like, gotten,” said Sin. “Possessed. Owned.”

  “Exactly,” said Stone. “So if Danny found a way to keep the Belmage away from his gates—”

  “Then he’s beating the devil,” said Wheeler. “Cool.”

  “Semi-cool,” said Stone. “It’s excellent because otherwise, the Belmage could just whip up a new Great Gate and go to Westil and that’s it, he tak
es all his followers, the Sutahites, and Westil is lost. They won’t even know what hit them.”

  “And we do?” said Laurette.

  “The human race at least knows what possession is,” said Stone. “Or movies like The Exorcist would never have been made.”

  “So does that work?” asked Wheeler. “Exorcism? Do we need to find a priest and—”

  “No,” said Stone.

  “But how do you know that?” asked Wheeler. “Maybe some exorcists actually know what they’re doing, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only with demons.”

  “Shut up, Wheeler,” said Hal.

  “If exorcism never works, then why are there exorcists?” asked Wheeler.

  “Bleeding never worked and yet doctors carried leeches around for centuries,” said Hal. “And Stone knows.”

  “Thank you,” said Stone. “Exorcism might work or it might not, against the lesser Belmages, the Sutahites. But we’re talking about the Belmage. Set himself. And there’s only one way to get him out of a person if he doesn’t want to go.”

  “So whatever it is, let’s do it,” said Wheeler.

  “Let’s not,” said Pat.

  “If Danny’s being controlled by this Belmage guy, I’m pretty sure he wants him gone,” said Wheeler.

  “Wheeler,” said Sin, “get a brain. The only way to get rid of this Set guy is to kill the host.”

  “Stone?” asked Wheeler.

  “Not the host of this party—which doesn’t even have refreshments,” said Xena. “The host body where the Belmage is living.”

  “We’re not killing Danny,” said Laurette.

  “Danny told us more than once,” said Stone, “that if he was ever possessed, we should kill him without a qualm, if that’s what it took to stop Set from using a Great Gate.”

  “Never,” said Hal.

  “So you’d leave him a slave forever?” asked Laurette.

  “It’s about saving the world,” said Pat.

  “I thought you said you loved him,” said Xena.

  “If it was necessary,” said Stone, “then we couldn’t do it anyway. Gatemages are hard to kill, and Gatefathers are the hardest. They don’t stay put long enough to die.”

  “In his sleep?” asked Hal. “I mean, if Nicki could get his clothes off without—”

  “Danny was undoubtedly under the influence of Sutahites,” said Stone. “They can influence dreams. Make dreams that explain what’s happening to your body. So if somebody slipped Danny a drug, maybe he could be killed in his sleep. But you’re not thinking. We only need to kill Danny to save the world. The worlds. But if Danny is somehow keeping the Belmage from getting access to his gates, that means he’d be easy to kill, but we also don’t need to, because the Belmage isn’t dangerous.”

  “So let’s stop talking about killing Danny, please,” said Pat.

  “No,” said Stone. “Because if Danny’s keeping Set away from the gates, then Set is seriously angry. He’s not nice, you know. He didn’t get a reputation as Satan or the devil or whatever because he was generous and merciful.”

  “You think he’s going to punish Danny?” asked Pat.

  “How?” asked Hal. “He’s inside Danny’s body, too. Whatever happens to Danny, happens to him.”

  “Until he leaves,” said Stone.

  “So he could, like, make Danny cut his own throat,” said Wheeler, “and while he’s bleeding to death, the Belmage leaves and goes into somebody else’s body?”

  “When Set leaves Danny,” said Stone, “he’s not going to be nice about it. He’s going to cause Danny maximum pain, if he’s angry at him. But you’re right about Set feeling whatever Danny’s body feels. So he’s likely to do something much worse than just killing Danny.”

  “What’s worse than that?” asked Wheeler.

  Stone made a sweeping gesture, indicating all of Danny’s friends.

  “Oh, shit,” said Hal.

  “Exactly my point,” said Stone.

  “What?” said Xena. “What did you all get that I’m not getting?”

  “Pretty much everything all the time,” said Hal. “Let’s say the Belmage wants to punish Danny. So he makes Danny murder one of us in a public place, lots of witnesses, and then jumps out of Danny’s body into somebody else’s and goes on his merry way.”

  “They couldn’t arrest Danny,” said Wheeler. “He could gate away.”

  “But the one of us that he killed would still be dead,” said Hal.

  “It would probably be Pat,” said Stone. “And he’d probably make Danny do it with his bare hands. Danny would have an indelible memory of doing that murder. So yes, that’s a possibility. But he could also cause Danny to cut off a hand. I’m not sure passing through a gate can heal damage like that. Or make Danny a mass murderer, like shooting up a kindergarten. Or all of the above. Don’t underestimate the creativity and malice of pure evil.”

  “So we should stay away from Danny?” asked Xena.

  “I don’t know what you should do,” said Stone.

  “Then why are we here?” asked Laurette.

  “I didn’t invite you,” said Stone, “you just came. But I’m glad you did. Because I can talk to some people who might know what to do about it.”

  “Danny would rather that we kill him,” said Pat, “than let his body be used to hurt other people.”

  “Every time I hear people talk about what somebody else ‘would want,’” said Hal, “it’s always pretty much the opposite of what they’d really want.”

  “You’re a perceptive young man,” said Stone, “but in this case, Pat has a point. Danny North is a good man. Not perfect, because gatemages are all pranksters and brats, but he wouldn’t want his body used to harm other people. So here’s my hope: If he still has enough control to keep the Belmage from getting the use of his gates, then maybe he can stop him from doing other things, too.”

  Pat noticed that the other three girls all reacted to that idea. Laurette with a little nod, Sin by resting her head on her hands, Xena by staring off into space as if remembering something. As if the idea of Danny stopping the Belmage from using his body to do harm meant something to each of them.

  Don’t read too much into body language, Pat told herself. You’re a windmage, not a mind reader.

  But maybe Stone noticed it, too. Maybe it really was something.

  “I think Xena asked the right question,” said Hal. “Should we avoid Danny? Or would that just tell the Belmage that we’re on to him, and put Danny in worse danger?”

  “You think this Set guy might possess one of us?” asked Sin.

  “He’d prefer a mage,” said Stone.

  Pat appreciated the fact that he didn’t look at her when he said it.

  “But in a pinch, any body will do. And I mean it that way—not ‘anybody’ but ‘any … body.’ He could go into a dog or a horse or—”

  “Pigs,” said Sin. “The Gadarene swine.”

  “Anybody who comes near Danny is a potential target,” said Stone.

  “How near?” asked Wheeler. “Do you have to be touching him? I mean, Nicki was, like…”

  “We know what Nicki was doing,” said Stone, “and no, there doesn’t have to be physical contact. Some people have more resistance than others, though. I think Danny is particularly strong, and that’s why the Belmage set up a situation where he could trick Danny into inviting him in. That gives Set way more access than if he jumps in out of the blue. There are stories of how it can sometimes take a long time to worm in and take full control. Since this subject first came up, Veevee’s been doing a lot of research and trying to work up a sort of biography of Set. Though it’s hard to distinguish what’s done by Set himself and what’s really the work of the Sutahites.”

  “So it wouldn’t really make any difference, whether we’re close by or not,” said Hal.

  “If he wants one of you, he’ll find a way to get close enough.”

  “So we should act like nothing’s different?” asked Xena.


  “For the time being,” said Stone.

  “Except Danny felt us all come here,” said Xena, “so he’ll know we did something without him and he’ll ask us.”

  “Field trip to our nation’s capital?” suggested Sin.

  “Oh, right,” said Wheeler.

  “I was being ironic,” said Sin.

  “Just tell him you’re planning a surprise Christmas present,” said Stone. “But don’t volunteer it. Make him pry it out of you.”

  “And if he really pushes, tell him we couldn’t think of anything,” said Pat.

  “Yeah,” said Xena. “What do you get for somebody who can shoplift anything he wants without ever getting caught?”

  “Danny doesn’t steal,” said Pat.

  “Unless he needs to,” said Stone. “Don’t impose your moral values on Danny. He’s trying to overcome it, but he was raised in one of the Families, and to them, stealing from drowthers isn’t really stealing. It’s like snacking.”

  “Ah,” said Xena. Snacking she understood.

  “So Danny’s living in hell right now,” said Hal, “and we can’t do anything at all to help him. We just have to pretend that everything’s normal? Doesn’t sound very loyal to me.”

  “Just until I can talk it over with the others,” said Stone.

  “What others?” demanded Pat.

  “The others,” said Stone. “Marion and Leslie. Veevee.”

  Pat waited.

  “Oh, I see,” said Stone. “No, not Hermia. That treacherous little … not her. And not Danny’s family. The last thing we want anyone to know is that Danny’s under somebody else’s control. Half the Families would try to kill him, and the other half would try to bargain with the Belgod to get some kind of advantage.”

  “Even Danny’s own family?” asked Laurette mournfully.

  “It’s about power,” said Stone. “Most people respond to power by trying to control it, to get the use of it. And if they can’t own it, then they try to destroy it.”

  “The more you say about how bad the Families are,” said Hal, “the more they sound like normal humans.”