The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

“So he could make a powerful dark scent potion, but he was lying to me all along, and now he’s stolen the bottle of Archeus, and without it I can’t make any more nivol. I’m really, really sorry, sir.”

  She swayed on her feet, unable to meet his eyes. She lowered her head, half expecting him to fly into a rage, draw the sword and cut off her head. She had heard stories about generals who did that kind of thing.

  Osseion stiffened then took hold of her left shoulder, steadying her. Or making sure she did not run for it.

  “When did he steal the Archeus?” said Janck, his voice very low.

  “I think just before we left the Plains of Folc. But I only discovered it was gone a few minutes ago.”

  “Did Shand come to Zile in the sky ship?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Janck sat down with a thump and drank the rest of the green spirit. He wrote several lines on a piece of paper, folded it three times and sealed it with wax, then wrote a name Aviel could not read on the outside. “Guard!” he shouted.

  The enormous guard ran in. “Take this to Captain Jutt, on the double,” snapped Janck.

  The guard took the paper, saluted and ran out. Janck followed him to the doors and Aviel heard the key turn in the lock. He came back and sat down again, filling his glass and taking another gulp. “Sit! And that’s an order.”

  Aviel sat. Osseion remained standing, still gripping her shoulder.

  “How did Shand make you collaborate?” he said in a steely voice.

  “I owe him a great debt, sir. Had he not saved me I would have been an indentured slave in Magsie Murg’s tannery in Casyme, starved and flogged and worked to death.”

  “Then he didn’t force you to collaborate. You chose to collaborate with a known traitor because of your obligation to him, despite knowing that collaborating with Shand was treachery, punishable by death.”

  There was no point making excuses or trying to mitigate her crime. Besides, she had always been painfully honest and could not change, even if she was about to be executed.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I chose to collaborate with him.”

  “Tell me the story, briefly. Leave out nothing of importance.”

  “The moment I arrived in Sith, weeks ago, Shand hauled me into an empty room, locked the door and reminded me of my debt to him. He was furious—”

  “Why would he be furious with you, after all you’ve done for us?”

  “I … I took his scent potion grimoire while he was in Chanthed, a couple of months ago. That’s how I located the summon stone, sir.”

  He waved a hand to indicate he knew that story. “So you’re a thief as well as an enemy collaborator?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said faintly.

  “Go on.”

  “He said I owed him and I had to pay.”

  “But when you agreed to aid him, surely you weren’t aware that he was a condemned traitor?”

  Aviel could not meet his eyes. She felt sick with shame. “Yes, he told me.”

  “And you still agreed?”

  “You don’t know what it was like,” she said, then realised how feeble that sounded.

  “I’m trying to. Tell me exactly what he said.”

  “I am a traitor! he said. The magiz got to me when I was weak and vulnerable, and embedded a secret link in me, and via that link I unwittingly betrayed our plans to her. How could I have allowed it to happen? How did I not realise? The shame is unbearable! I have to restore my good name.”

  “Shand still believes he has a good name?” said Janck incredulously. “Extraordinary fellow! What’s he up to?”

  “He’s got Unick’s Identity device,” said Aviel. “And he took the remains of the Origin device I used to poison the summon stone.”

  Janck leaned forward, and there was a light in his eyes. “Why did he take it?”

  “He never said. But he told me I had to repay him by letting him use my workshop to make one of the Great Potions in his grimoire; one of the seven forbidden scent potions.”

  “Name?” he rapped.

  “The Afflatus Effluvium.”

  “Purpose?”

  “He said, If it works I’ll be able to recover brilliant spells, long lost, and make them even more powerful.”

  “Why did Shand want to do that?”

  “He didn’t say,” said Aviel.

  “But you gained an impression. An idea?”

  “I think he was hoping to make a … a master device, like Unick’s Command device, only better.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “I don’t know. Though he often talked about making up for his unwitting betrayal.”

  Janck gave a dubious sniff. “Did you believe him?”

  “Yes. He’s a good man.”

  “Whatever he was, Shand is now a traitor and a thief whose theft may have ruined our best hope. Did he succeed with his scent potion?”

  “I think so. Just before we left our last campsite he blended the twenty smells and took a very careful sniff of the scent potion, then said, Yes! He sounded … triumphant. Then Hublees yelled that we had to go and Shand vanished; I haven’t seen him since.”

  “I’ll have the sky ship searched. If he did come back …” He scowled, then looked into her eyes again. “Anything else you want to confess while you have the chance?”

  Did he mean before she was executed? “Yes,” whispered Aviel.

  She told him about the parchment Shand had slipped in among the others, containing the simpler and quicker method that required Archeus of Eidolon. And how betrayed and used she had felt when she discovered, only hours ago, that he had risked everyone’s lives, and caused Earnis’s death, because he needed the Archeus for his scent potion.

  “Why didn’t Shand take the grimoire?” said Janck.

  “There wasn’t time. He’d just finished making the scent potion when he heard Osseion coming to the tent.”

  Aviel could not get over his betrayal. What could have changed him so radically? She could only think of one thing—that he was still under the influence of the Merdrun, or even that they were controlling him. And she had helped him!

  The blood drained from Janck’s face. “Are you telling me that the drop of nivol, which cost a sizeable part of our war chest to make, could be useless?”

  “No, it’s good.”

  “How do you know? There isn’t enough to test it.”

  She explained about the eaten-away jar, platinum and golden tweezers.

  Janck heaved his bulky body out of the chair, sat on the bed and pulled his boots on. “This has come at a very bad time; we were about to send—” Whatever he had been going to say, he thought better of it. “I’ve got to be sure. Come!”

  He went out in his boots and dressing gown. Aviel followed with Osseion. In the workshop Janck checked the jar of sintered platinum and the golden tweezers, grunted, then said, “Show me the method he used in the grimoire.”

  Aviel drew its case across from the back of the bench and flipped up the lid. The box was empty. She stared at it, felt around inside, then her knees gave. Osseion caught her as she fell, lifted her onto a stool and held her upright.

  She felt faint, hot and cold and shivery. “I put it in this box half an hour ago,” she whispered. “I closed the lid and went out and locked the door. Osseion was outside with the two guards. How could it be gone?”

  “That bloody bastard Shand!” Janck said savagely. “He must be in the library!”

  He strode to the door, dressing gown flapping around his hairless calves, and gave swift orders to one of the guards outside, who sped off. They all left the room. Janck locked the door with Aviel’s key, pocketed it and turned to the remaining guard.

  “You useless, incompetent prick!” He thumped the guard in the chest. “I should have you hanged.”

  “Sir?” said the guard, his face turning chalk white.

  “Someone got in!”

  “But we’ve been here all the time. We would have seen—”

&nbs
p; “The bastard’s invisible! Stand here with your back to the door and don’t allow anyone in. Don’t move for any reason—not even if you have to piss your trews.”

  “Yes, Commander,” whispered the guard.

  “Come!” Janck said to Aviel. “You too, Sergeant,” he said to Osseion.

  They returned to Janck’s quarters and he sat at the table. Despite the agony in her ankle, Aviel remained on her feet. Whatever her fate was to be, she would face it standing up.

  “Is there anything else you want to confess?” said Janck. “Before I deal with you.”

  “Yes?”

  “What?”

  “Grand Master Tule is dead.” The guilt was sickening. “And it’s my fault.”

  “You’d been away for a fortnight when he died,” said Janck.

  “But I’m responsible.”

  “You’d better explain.”

  She gabbled it out. “Master Tule refused to teach me anything about alchemy; he wouldn’t even explain what the words and symbols meant. He just kept calling me a little bastard and a twist-foot, and telling me to wash all the equipment again and again and again, and hitting me and holding my head under hot water!”

  She ran out of air, took a couple of gasping breaths and continued. “Everyone kept saying that I had to find a way to deal with him, so I made a mild little scent potion, Essence of Ague, to defend myself … just in case. Master Tule came back and flew into a rage and knocked me down and he was going to stamp on my face, so I hurled the potion at him and it went up his nose and in his mouth, a much stronger dose than I’d planned.” She paused, but it had to be said. “And it killed him. I killed him.”

  Janck’s eyes slid sideways and up, to Osseion. “Have you something to say on the matter, Sergeant?”

  “I saw how he beat her,” said Osseion, “and I told her she was entitled to defend herself.” He paused, frowning as if trying to recall something to mind, then added, “I also said that our survival relied on Aviel’s work and she had to find the best and quickest way to get it done. I told her that nothing else mattered—not the law, nor friendship, nor loyalty. Just the work.”

  “Did you now?” said Janck. “You take a lot on yourself, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Janck steepled his pudgy hands in front of him and stared at Aviel. “I told you what a difficult man your master was and advised you to find a way to work with him.”

  Chills swept over her head and back. This was it—he was going to condemn her. An odd thought struck her: how her sisters would crow. They would tell everyone in Casyme that they had always known she was rotten and would come to a bad end, and now she had got the punishment she deserved. It hurt, for she had always tried to treat people the way she wanted to be treated.

  “However, it’s clear to me that your way was the only way,” Janck added deliberately. “You disabled Torsion Tule so you could do the work we needed urgently, but you did not kill him. He was old and ailing, a choleric man quite unable to restrain his passions, and that’s what brought about his end.”

  Aviel realised that she had been holding her breath. Now she let it out with a little sigh, though her trial was not over yet. Far from it. Janck looked up sharply, then slowly rose, staring at her.

  “Aviel Foyl,” he said in a cold and formal voice, “you have admitted that you willingly and without coercion assisted the condemned traitor known as Shand, Golias and the Recorder to make a forbidden and possibly sorcerous scent potion, for purposes unknown but very likely inimical to the war effort. You have also admitted that you failed to inform on him, despite many opportunities to do so, thus allowing him to remain at liberty and continue his betrayals. You have also admitted that your culpability in this matter allowed him to steal a priceless bottle of Archeus of Eidolon that is essential to our defence against the enemy.” He looked directly into her eyes, and his were as hard and cold as frozen agate. “Do you deny any of these admissions?”

  “No,” she croaked.

  “Each of these offences carries the death penalty,” said Janck. “To be carried out publicly by cruel and barbarous means, as a lesson to all.”

  She looked down at the floor. There was nothing to say.

  “Had you attained the age of sixteen,” he went on, “I would not have had the slightest hesitation in sending you for public execution in the forecourt of the Great Library, at dawn. However, as you are not—”

  “But I am sixteen,” she gasped. “I turned—”

  “How dare you interrupt me! Be silent!” He scowled at her. “Since you are not of age, I cannot accept anything you say on this matter.” He looked up. “Sergeant Osseion, you know this girl. What age is she?”

  “Not yet sixteen,” Osseion said at once. “Possibly only fourteen.”

  “Fourteen,” Janck said ruminatively. “Could I execute a girl of fourteen, Sergeant? There are precedents, certainly, in cases of the most diabolical treachery. But a small girl of fourteen? A girl who has not once, but twice, despite her handicap, proved to be of the greatest courage and ingenuity. A girl to whom we owe our freedom, if not our lives?”

  “In this war of all wars we need heroes to look up to and heroes to inspire us, Commander Janck.”

  “If I execute the girl it will be disastrous for morale; people will believe that no one is safe from the enemy’s corruptions, and they will despair. While if the tale of Aviel’s heroism at Rogues Render is—in due course—added to the other stories about her, people will be inspired.”

  “Also,” said Osseion, “once Shand is captured and the Archeus regained, her gifts will be needed again.”

  “Indeed,” said Janck and again looked into Aviel’s eyes. “Aviel Foyl, because you are not of age the charges against you are dismissed, with this warning: by using you so shabbily and involving you in his own treacherous conspiracies, Shand has cancelled your debt to him. You owe him nothing now, and if you ever assist him again your life is immediately forfeit.”

  All the strength drained from Aviel’s limbs and she had to sit down. “Thank you,” she said in a tiny voice. “Thank you.”

  Janck stood up. “Sergeant Osseion, did this discussion ever take place?”

  “No, Commander,” said Osseion.

  “Aviel Foyl, you have not seen or heard or spoken to Shand in months. Have you?”

  “No, Commander,” said Aviel. The lie hardly counted beside all her other crimes.

  “You are dismissed. Sergeant, escort Aviel to her room and see no one disturbs her sleep. She will have much to do the moment the traitor is found and the Archeus taken back.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Osseion.

  “I’ve given orders for my entire army here in Zile to search for the scoundrel, and I expect he’ll be found very soon. And then Shand will hang by his own entrails.”

  43

  I’VE GOT TO REDEEM MYSELF

  Zile was not completely empty. A few hundred people still dwelt in the magnificent ruins, eking out an existence by barter, or supplying the necessities of civilisation to those who still lived a largely nomadic existence in the surrounding desert lands, or catering to the needs of the Great Library, or in other less reputable pursuits.

  Shand was trudging through the sand-swept back streets to one of those places now, a bar of sorts in what had once been the reception room of a small palace. But not to drink, his all-too-frequent refuge lately. His situation was so desperate that he had sworn off alcohol.

  The bar was gloomy, the broken windows having been boarded up long ago, and sand squeaked on the scored marble tiles. There were no customers at the counter. He cocked his head at the barman, Gride, a stringy, desiccated fellow he had known on and off for more than a decade. Gride jerked his head towards a booth at the rear. Shand spotted his quarry, a dark-haired woman bent over a glass, made sure there was no one in any of the other booths and squeezed into the bench opposite her.

  Ifoli’s head jerked up and for an instant he saw fear in her eyes, u
ntil she realised who he was. “C-can I help you?” she said warily, her voice slurred by drink.

  So her famed self-control wasn’t perfect. He took a grim pleasure in the discovery, though hers was a damn sight better than his own. “We can help each other,” he said, longingly eyeing the bottle of white liquor, which was more than half empty. “You come here often, don’t you? To drink your guilt away.”

  “What’s it to you?” she snapped.

  “We have the same trouble, you and I.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. No, incredulity! What could a brilliant and beautiful young woman with the world at her feet have in common with a grizzled old fool crushed by bitterness, rejection and folly?

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Guilt, shame and the need for redemption,” said Shand.

  “Go away.” Ifoli reached for the bottle.

  “Will you allow me to unburden myself?”

  “To me? Why me?”

  “Because you’re practically a stranger,” said Shand. “It’s … less mortifying.”

  “All right.”

  “I was used by the Merdrun’s first magiz—the one Karan killed on Cinnabar. The magiz secretly embedded a mind link in me and employed it to spy on my friends and allies, then conveyed their plans to your former master, Snoat. Who used that information to attack us.”

  She put the bottle down with more care than necessary. “Go on.”

  “Snoat didn’t know the true source of the priceless intelligence he was getting. But many of our allies, and many innocent people, died because of it. The magiz used me!” he cried. “Unwittingly, I betrayed my friends, my allies and my world. Unwittingly but blindly. I was too proud; I ignored signs that should have told me what was happening and abused my friends when they tried to tell me. The shame is unbearable … and I think you know something about that.”

  Ifoli took a swig from her glass. “I thought I was being so clever,” she said softly. “serving Snoat while spying for Nadiril. But I tried too hard to be the perfect spy—I stepped over the line and collaborated with Snoat. I did shameful things in order to maintain my cover, Shand, and I allowed him to commit terrible evils.” She looked up at him, a trifle blearily. “But I don’t see—”