The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

  Aviel had just perched on her stool when Shand popped into visibility in the corner where her crates were stacked. She jumped, spilling hot tea on her knees. “What are you up to?” she snapped.

  He selected a small hand pump, a piece of rubber tubing, and a flask and stopper. “Collecting.”

  “What?”

  “An exhalation from the ancient past, rising from deep in the bowels of the earth,” he said, quoting what he had said previously.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The bitumen seeps of Grund, like the great tar pits of Snizort further west, have welled up from a source deep underground, all that remains of ancient lake life that died and decayed in the mud aeons ago.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know!” he said forbiddingly, and vanished.

  She hurried out, trying to see where he had gone. Invisible people could still leave footprints. Osseion fell in beside her. “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Umm,” said Aviel, looking for tracks but not seeing any.

  “My job is to guard you, day and night,” he rumbled. “From dangers seen and unseen.”

  Heat rose up her face. Did he know about Shand? She looked away, not knowing what to do or say.

  Osseion chuckled. “I guarded Mendark for many years,” he said quietly. “Nothing about the doings of mancers can surprise me, even them turning invisible.”

  “But Shand is accused of betraying us to the enemy. Are you going to turn him in?” And me?

  “I haven’t set eyes on Shand, and my full-time job is guarding you. Besides, I’ve known him for a long time. I trust him—as mancers go.”

  “Unwittingly betraying us. What if the magiz’s link is still in him?”

  “If you believed it was, would you be aiding him?”

  “How do you—? What makes you think I am?”

  Osseion’s enormous shoulders heaved in silent mirth. “I watch, I listen, I add things up.”

  “Does everyone know then?” she said, dismayed.

  “Nimil is totally absorbed in crafting the diamond phial, and Earnis sleeps like the dead. But less gets past Hublees than you might think. Be careful, Aviel.”

  31

  WE CAME TO YOU IN FRIENDSHIP

  Only one lyrinx was still alive: the huge male, Ghyll. He wore body armour, and the Whelm’s poisoned missiles had not been able to touch him, while with hammer and enchanted flail he had struck down at least ten of them.

  Sulien, shocked by the Whelm’s savagery to the injured lyrinx, kept low and looked for a hiding place. But there were too many Whelm; they would soon find her here. Outside was a frozen wilderness where she would be lucky to survive an hour, yet it was better than here. She ran for the exit but three Whelm raced to cut her off.

  “Ghyll!” she shrieked. “Help!”

  He sought her out among the illusions and looked into her eyes. “We came to you in friendship, and your people slaughtered us from ambush.”

  “They’re not my people!” she cried. “They’re Whelm!”

  “They’re old human, child, just as you are.”

  She reached out to him. “But they’re hunting me.”

  “Your kind won’t get the chance to betray us twice.” His voice grated like rock being ground to paste under the weight of a glacier. “One day, when we have the numbers and we finally emerge from our hiding places, Santhenar will endure a war to end all wars. We will grind you down; we will crush you and smash you and put an end to the most treacherous species that ever lived.”

  He whirled, swinging his flail, and green lightning seared out from each of its seven spiky tips, hurling Whelm to left and right, as dead as stones. He gave Sulien a last contemptuous stare, then ran into one of the tunnels and disappeared.

  “Suliennnnn?”

  Sulien whirled, staring around her. “Mummy?”

  No reply. She was sure it had been Karan’s voice but it was hard to make anything out through the thick layer of smoke that hung low above the floor. People were shouting, screaming and groaning, and to her left a chunk of the roof fell with an almighty crash that shook the floor and hurled shattered rock everywhere. She caught a fleeting glimpse of tall old Yggur, racing across the cavern sword in hand, and yelled his name but he did not hear.

  Had he and Karan come alone? The Whelm would butcher them, just like the lyrinx. She was creeping around in the smoke, trying to find them, when a crook-nosed Whelm grabbed her.

  “Got her!” he yelled. “Retreat, retreat!”

  Sulien kneed him in the belly. His arm crushed her chest until she could not breathe, he ran a few steps then, thud. His blood sprayed her; it was unnaturally cool and had a rank tang, and he fell half on top of her. Sulien prised herself from his dead grip.

  “Mummy?” she screamed, looking around frantically. “Yggur?”

  There he was. “Yggur! Yggur!”

  She could see him searching for her in the smoke, but as she ran his way another Whelm cut in diagonally and grabbed her. It was Yetchah, the Whelm who had saved Sulien’s life the day she was born. Yetchah, who had always been kind to her. Yetchah who now planned to betray her.

  “You have no honour!” cried Sulien. “Everything you ever said to me was a stinking lie!” She struck at Yetchah with her fists.

  “The master comes first, always!” Yetchah hissed.

  She held Sulien out at arm’s length in one hand, backhanded her hard across the face with the other then bolted into a dark tunnel, where she jerked a sacking bag over Sulien’s head and chest and pulled a cord tight around it at waist level, binding her arms to her side. Sulien kicked her. Yetchah struck Sulien in the belly and she doubled over, gasping, her last hope gone.

  More Whelm joined Yetchah though no one spoke. All Sulien could hear was their panting and the rustle of soft soles on stone as they raced down the tunnel. They were not wearing their iron-soled boots and would be difficult to track—if anyone lived to track them.

  The bag must have been used to store root vegetables—she could smell starch and dusty earth. The coarse sacking rasped at her cheeks and nose with every movement. Suddenly the warmth of the underground was replaced by biting cold—they were outside and, she deduced, hurrying down a mountain path.

  They had already been running for an hour but did not stop for a moment’s rest. Yetchah handed Sulien to another Whelm, a male whose dry skin rustled as he moved. An hour or two later he gave her to a third Whelm. Later still, after they had been heading down for many hours, she was passed back to Yetchah.

  Why are they in such a hurry? Sulien wondered. Could Yggur and Karan be hunting them? She prayed for it as she had never prayed before.

  Yetchah ran with Sulien for another half-hour, then staggered and nearly fell. “Can’t … go … on,” she gasped.

  “If we’re to gain our master the sacrifice must be today,” grated a man’s voice. “We cannot stop.”

  Sulien plunged into despair. The Whelm weren’t running from anyone—they were running towards their future master.

  Yetchah set off again, stumbling. “I’ll take the sacrifice,” said the man.

  “No!” said Yetchah.

  She bent down and threw up, then ran on. Sulien, who had barely slept in days, sank into an uneasy doze troubled by nightmares about the triplets. It now felt as though Yetchah had been climbing an enormous staircase for hours. She was gasping and so were the Whelm behind her.

  Yetchah scrambled up a rough, winding path and across a broad ridge top, then onto something smooth, a wooden bridge that quivered underfoot. She ran along it and onto a solid structure exposed to the cold wind. She dropped Sulien onto boards, untied the cords around the sacking and heaved it over her head. Sulien’s ears and the tip of her nose stung; the rough sacking had rasped skin off.

  It was still night, though she had no idea of the hour, and it was raining gently—it was always raining in Salliban. She was on a vast wooden platform, high in the air, with branches rising up here and
there through it. The platform was fixed to the upper trunk of an enormous tree. No, to five enormous trees. Wind swayed their tops and shook the platform, making its beams squeal and groan.

  Yetchah threw up again, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Ready?” she called hoarsely.

  Voices shouted assent from the edges of the platform and with a series of whooshes five pairs of columns, each twenty feet high and thickly coated with pitch or tar, were lit. Flames ran from three feet above the base of each column to the top, lighting the treetops with a wavering yellow glow.

  The platform, which was hexagonal and maybe sixty yards across, stood above a slot-like gorge which lay in darkness. Wooden bridges—the one Yetchah had carried her across and another just like it on the far side—linked the platform to the rocky landscape on either side of the gorge.

  “Hurry!” said a sallow-faced, pea-eyed Whelm.

  Yetchah picked Sulien up by the waist and raised her high so the yellow light from the flares shone on her face and her red hair.

  “Make a link!” said Yetchah.

  And the moment she linked to the triplets, or to Gergrig, he would order her killed. “Can’t,” said Sulien. “Losing my gift.”

  “Liar! Your psychic gift has grown tremendously—that’s how the winged beast found you.”

  Resistance was bound to be painful but it was all Sulien could do. She shook her head.

  “We hold your mother. Make the link or she dies.”

  Her knees gave. They could well have caught Karan, and if they did they would kill her to force Sulien to link. What was she supposed to do? She knew what Karan would say—Don’t link!—but that would condemn her and how could Sulien do that?

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, her voice squeaky.

  Yetchah gestured to the pea-eyed Whelm. “Bring the man who caught Karan.”

  He darted away, shortly returning with a stocky Whelm whose face was blistered and burned, the skin weeping and his swollen, bloodshot eyes streaming.

  “Dipl,” said Yetchah, “tell Sulien how you caught her mother in the caverns.”

  “The tall sorcerer was attacking us,” said Dipl in a slow, crackling voice, as if he had breathed in the fire that had burned his face. “We took his sword but he blasted fire at us. Azyl burned …” His awful eyes flicked to the blazing columns. “Burned like a candle. Her screams still ring in my ears.”

  “Dipl!” Yetchah said sharply.

  “Most of the sorcerous fire missed me. I fell down and pretended to be dying, and when he turned to attack the others I shot him with a poisoned bolt, right through the ear.”

  Sulien’s heart turned upside-down. Yggur, dead?

  “And Karan?” said Yetchah.

  “All the fight went out of her when I killed him. She whined and whimpered and put her hands up, and we took her.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Sulien said scornfully. “Mummy never whines, and never gives up. She …” If Karan had surrendered, it would be with a plan in mind and she, Sulien, must not do anything to arouse their suspicions. “Where is she, then?”

  Yetchah stared at her, but Sulien could not read anything in the Whelm’s black eyes.

  “Make the link,” said Yetchah, “or I’ll give the order for Karan to be killed.”

  Sulien could feel the pressure of their combined wills; they were trying to force her to obey. She had to resist them. “I’m not making a link until I see that Mummy is all right.”

  “Dipl, go to the place where Karan has been hidden. She is to be killed at once.” Her eyes met Sulien’s in challenge.

  Sulien cracked. “Wait!”

  Yetchah held up a hand, and Dipl stopped.

  “I’ll make a link,” said Sulien. “But … it takes a lot of preparation.” Whatever Karan’s plan was—if she had one—Sulien had to give her every chance.

  “A link can be made in an instant,” said Yetchah.

  “Some links are really hard. It took Mummy days to make a link to Malien, to get her to come—”

  Yetchah’s head shot round. “The Aachim are coming?” she hissed.

  Had Sulien just revealed something that should have been kept secret? Too late now. “Hundreds and hundreds of them,” she lied. She knew that the Whelm and the Aachim had been enemies for ever.

  Yetchah’s gaunt face went hard. “Then our quest is all the more urgent. Make the link!” She met Dipl’s eyes. He was waiting for the order to kill Karan.

  Sulien dared not delay any longer. “All right,” she said dully, as though they had broken her. She put a whining tone into her voice. “Please don’t hurt Mummy.”

  Was there a way to cheat them? The Merdrun had already invaded Santhenar so how could she make things worse by putting the Whelm in touch with them? It could not be long before the Whelm located the Merdrun anyway, and then they could contact them by skeet, a huge carrier bird, within days.

  However a link would reveal her to Gergrig, who wanted her dead to protect the Merdrun’s secret. She had no idea what the secret was because she could not recover the nightmare in which it had been revealed. Could she convince him of that?

  And why would he take the risk when her death would solve the problem?

  32

  YOUR EDUCATION HAS BEEN DEFICIENT

  Karan was trying to locate Yetchah when Yggur came running. “To the exit, now!”

  She was still carrying the crossbow. She snatched up a bag of bolts from a dead Whelm. “Yetchah’s got Sulien. They must have gone out that tunnel.” She pointed. “We’ve got to follow them.”

  “No, there’s too many of them. If they fired salvoes of poisoned bolts back up the tunnel they’d be bound to hit us.”

  “Then how will we know where they’ve taken her?”

  “We can’t talk about it here.”

  He ran lightly down the tunnel by which they had entered. Karan followed, sick with fear. The Whelm had been too violent, too focused. Clearly they had a plan and it could not be far from completion.

  “Hingis?” Yggur said softly.

  “Here!”

  “Damn fine illusion—while it lasted.” Yggur clapped him on the shoulder. “Get moving; there are more Whelm and they’ll come after us. I’m going to bring the tunnel down behind us or we’ll never get out.”

  He thrust a small lightglass into Karan’s hand. “I may be a while. Go!”

  Karan felt numb. The Whelm would force Sulien to link to the Merdrun and then they would kill her. It might be over before they even got back to the glacier. She trudged down the tunnel.

  “You didn’t find her?” said Hingis.

  She told him what had happened.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must be unbearable.”

  Why, after all it had taken to find Sulien, had Karan hesitated to shoot Yetchah? Had she doomed Sulien? Gergrig was a cruel and vindictive man who had no compunction about killing children—in the Merdrun’s attacks on Cinnabar he had tortured every prisoner, old and young, before killing them. He would want Sulien to suffer before the mad triplets drank her life.

  She plodded down the tunnel, sinking deeper into despair. Sulien lost, Llian probably dead, Gothryme abandoned, Santhenar soon to be conquered and everyone put to the sword; what was left to live for?

  A series of thunderous crashes shook the tunnel then a wind-blast drove her to her knees. She dropped the lightglass and the light went out. Hingis groaned. Karan groped for the lightglass and shook it until it began to glow again. Hingis was crumpled against the wall, his ugly face even more warped than usual.

  “It’s nothing,” he muttered. “Wrenched my back again.”

  He seemed more like his old self. Had his contribution to the rescue attempt highlighted his own worth? She helped him up, feeling a surge of affection for the twisted little man.

  Yggur came running, carrying a Whelm crossbow. He was coated in dust and sweat had carved runnels through it down his face.

  “Rock’s a bit unstable,” he said wi
th a shaky laugh. “Brought down ten times as much as I’d planned. Maybe too much.”

  “How do you mean?” said Hingis.

  “Might have opened up a new path for the Whelm. Let’s get going.”

  “This is the end,” said Karan in a dead voice. “They’ll force Sulien to link to the Merdrun any minute, and—”

  “Not here!” Yggur said roughly. He thrust her down the tunnel. “Move!”

  She hurried on. He fell in beside her and Hingis lurched along behind them.

  “Why not here?” she said.

  “The armoured lyrinx who got away may come back with reinforcements, burning for revenge,” said Yggur. “Besides, Gergrig will want to interrogate Sulien.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s a clever child and she’s met many of our great leaders. She could reveal information of great strategic importance.”

  “But—”

  “To defeat your enemy, first you must know them, but the Merdrun know little about us. Besides, taking a new master is the culmination of a great yearning for the Whelm—they’ll want to do so at a place of special significance to them.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “They served me for centuries; I know more about them than anyone alive. They’ll be heading to a special place, close by.”

  “They might be taking Sulien halfway across Shazabba for all you know.”

  “Their most special places are in the forests and mountains of Salliban. They’ll make for the closest one, then force Sulien to make the link at once. Hurry!”

  Two exhausting hours later, during which time Karan’s sensitive’s gift had explored every possible disaster, they reached the sky ship without further sign of either Whelm or lyrinx. It was still dark. Yggur climbed to a high altitude then cut the rotors and allowed the vessel to drift south with the wind. Karan scanned the shadowy peaks and forests below with a pair of night glasses.

  “Nothing,” she said dully. “But we could be looking in the wrong place.”

  “From this height we can see every place they can reach within three days’ march.”