The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

  The whole camp had fallen silent, though Llian could imagine the despair of his own people, and the joy of the enemy.

  The triplets stood there, gazing down at the camp for a few seconds, then went inside, humming in unison. Were they singing the life out of Karan? Or had they done so and were about to start on Sulien?

  His heart was beating so wildly that he felt dizzy, and sweat was running down his back and chest. He drew the sword and crept along the ledge. How was he to take on three mancers with a sword that did not even have a point? It was hopeless but he had no choice. He had to save Sulien and Karan, and stop the triplets completing the gate.

  He reached the left side of the cave mouth. The heat gushing out was incredible; the cave must be like the inside of a stove. What were they doing in there? He peered in.

  The triplets were capering around a tall brazier made from bluish metal. They were humming, and every so often one of them fed the fire with a handful of black powder from a bag. Iron dust, he assumed.

  He knew about metal-fuelled fires; the Aachim sometimes used them. The powder was hard to set alight but once it caught it burned twice as hot as ordinary fuel—hot enough to burn through rock.

  He leaned forward and saw Karan and Sulien on the floor, shaded from the glare of the fire and laid out side by side. Karan’s bare middle was covered in red-brown, flaking blood that had dried in the heat. Her belly was swollen, and there was a small patch of fresh red blood on the right side. Her eyes were open, glassy. She looked dead.

  A pang of unbearable loss tore through him, but he had to put it aside because Sulien was still alive. She lay a couple of feet away, her hands and feet tied. Her jaw was set, her fingers moving in patterns, though he could not guess what she was trying to do.

  The humming rose in pitch; the triplets held the blood torus high, licking it ecstatically, then the one with the blank face flexed her fleshy fingers and said eagerly, “Is it strangling time?”

  “It’s slow strangling time,” said another, and they continued to hum while the blank-faced triplet headed for Sulien.

  Llian let out a great roaring battle cry, reinforced with his teller’s voice to make him seem far more fearsome than he could ever be, and leapt into the cave, swinging the notched sword at the blank-faced triplet.

  She did not move; she wasn’t the least bit afraid. Before he came within two yards of her the other two triplets moved in from either side. A massive fist struck him in the right temple and another over the left ear, which felt as though it had burst like a squashed peach. He collapsed, his head ringing and his vision going in and out of focus.

  The blank-faced triplet kicked him in the ribs.

  “The chronicler and teller,” said the triplet with the most mobile face. “His creative life force will be very strong. We’ll do him next.”

  “How?” said the third triplet.

  “Boil his sword down and make him drink it.”

  65

  HE’S THE ONE!

  Since they now had no way of contacting Malien to reopen the gate, Tallia knew she was going to die here, along with the rest of the invasion force. She had been fighting for half an hour now and was flagging rapidly, but she was not going to die easily.

  She had gone to the aid of the troops trapped against the north-western wall. Barely a hundred of them survived, and they were surrounded by about three hundred Merdrun. The smaller group of Gwinians, numbering well over a thousand, had attacked the Merdrun from the rear, but few had been armed with anything but sticks and stones, and the Merdrun had turned on them so ferociously, slaughtering them by the hundreds, that they had broken and many had fled.

  Ahead of Tallia a small band of Gwinians, no more than a dozen, had been trapped against the circular walls of a pair of above-ground water cisterns and were under attack by three Merdrun warriors, who despite their disadvantage in numbers, were mercilessly cutting the Gwinians down. Five fell in a furious onslaught, then two more.

  Tallia ran in and, with a savage blast of mancery, knocked the feet out from under the closest of the enemy. He bounced upright and came at her, but with a delicate stroke that took him by surprise she glided the tip of her blade past his and into the base of his throat.

  As he fell she went after the second Merdrun, who had just struck down another of the Gwinians. The wounded man let out a cry which resonated through her in a way that the agony of hundreds of other victims had not.

  She went at the Merdrun as he turned to face her and with a horizontal slash sent his head flying from his shoulders. The third Merdrun, who looked even more exhausted than Tallia felt, took one look at her grim face, another at his two dead comrades, and did what few other Merdrun had done anywhere on the battlefield that day. He ran.

  Of the dozen Gwinians, only three were still on their feet. They grabbed the weapons of the fallen enemy and bolted, and Tallia could hardly blame them. She looked down at the injured man, a tall dark fellow whose black hair, unlike the curly-haired natives of Gwine, was as straight as her own.

  She could not see his face, for his right arm was crooked across it as if to ward off a blow. He had been struck in the left thigh, a long deep gash that was pouring blood. The femoral artery had been severed, and if she could not stop it he would bleed to death in minutes.

  Was there any point in trying to save him when they were all going to die anyway? He was not armed, nor did he look like a soldier, yet he had come up here to face the enemy and do his best. Tallia could do no less for him.

  She tore away his trouser leg, mopped the eight-inch gash with a rag until she could see inside and identified the severed artery. With a focused blast from her bloody right forefinger she sealed it, then did the same for several smaller arteries and veins. That was the easy part.

  In the right circumstances she might have attempted a healing charm, but that was not possible here; she did not have the strength or time for such delicate and subtle work. In any case, the wound must first be cleaned of all the mud and muck, otherwise it would turn septic and he would lose the leg to gangrene, and probably his life.

  Having dealt with many a battlefield injury, Tallia had brought balms and bandages, stitching needles and thread. She got them out of her pack and tore his trouser leg off.

  “Handsome thigh you’ve got there,” she said. “It’d be a pity to lose it.”

  His arm still lay across his face and he did not answer.

  She supposed he was in shock. She cleaned the wound, spread balm over it and pushed the sides of the gash together as neatly as she could. “Put your hands here and here.”

  He did so. She moved his fingers. “Push down on either side of the gash. Not too hard.”

  When the lips of the gash were pressed together to Tallia’s satisfaction she put forty-five stitches through it, then bandaged the wound tightly and sat back.

  “Nice job,” he said.

  She looked at his face for the first time, then into his warm brown eyes, and felt a sudden shock, a recognition of what—or who—she had been searching for all this time. He’s the one!

  “Who are you?” she said. Despite the heat she had goose pimples all up her arms. “You’re not from Gwine, are you?”

  Though he must have been in considerable pain, he managed a smile as he looked into her eyes. “I’m Zanser, master healer. Crandor born, as, I’m sure, are you.”

  “My family dwells near Roros,” said Tallia. “Cocoa plantations. But I haven’t been home for many years. I’m—”

  “I know who you must be,” said Zanser. “The Magister, Tallia bel Soon. And I thank you for saving my life.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” With an effort, for he was a tall man, she picked him up and carried him to a spot between the cisterns where he would not be readily seen. “We’re probably going to die, but if we don’t—if we can get the gate back—I’ll come back for you.”

  “That would be risking your life, and you’ve already done that once.”

  “I’l
l risk my life for you whenever I feel the need,” she said tartly, “and no mere man is going to tell me otherwise.”

  Zanser laughed and extended his hand. “Likewise!”

  66

  I’VE SEEN MANY A WORSE DEATH

  Hingis would not have said that he was happy.

  No one with a shred of humanity could have smiled in the midst of such bloodshed, brutality and carnage, yet he felt a sort of grim satisfaction at his achievements. His illusions, bolstered by the arts Culligon had taught him, were far more powerful than before, yet incomparably more subtle, and he could either target a whole army or one individual in an army of thousands. He had struck at Gergrig on four occasions, confusing and weakening him, and that alone had saved a hundred lives. His other illusions might have saved a thousand.

  Hingis’s twisted bones ached unbearably, each in a different way. He could have identified every bone in his skeleton from the unique character of the pain it gave him, but right now it did not matter a damn. He had repaid Culligon, and he almost felt—almost but not quite—that he had atoned for the wrong he’d done his beautiful, tragic sister. Esea was at peace now, and since he had done the very best he could, he was ready to join her.

  The battlefield, which was wreathed in drifting smoke illuminated by dozens of fires, looked like a vision of damnation. There were bodies everywhere, dead or dying or longing for death but unable to find it, silent or groaning, begging for help or to be put out of their misery.

  He was lurching along, looking for another opportunity to use his illusions, when a familiar face, as black as coal, appeared before him.

  “Osseion!” said Hingis. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Couldn’t keep me out of it,” said Osseion with a painful smile. He was slumped on the ground, leaning against a boulder, and blood soaked the front of his shirt and trousers.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Seen enough wounds to know no one can help me. Blade to the belly. Won’t be long now.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Hingis and was. He had always liked Osseion, even after the unbridgeable schism—all his own fault—that had separated himself and Ussarine.

  “When you’re a soldier you expect it to end this way. Never thought I’d live to see twenty, much less fifty.” Osseion paused, panting, then went on, “But there is one thing you can do for me.”

  “Name it.”

  “Ussarine?” Osseion called.

  “She’s here?” said Hingis, shocked and dismayed. He had done everything possible to keep her at a distance since his sister’s death.

  “And not too good. Ussarine, where are you?”

  “Here, Father.”

  Ussarine staggered out of the smoke to Hingis’s left, carrying a gigantic broadsword. There was a bloody gash on her upper left arm, another on her left hip and a third on her right thigh. And her left hand was gone. The arm ended at the wrist and was wrapped in a bloody bandage. She looked down at her father and tears appeared in her eyes, then at Hingis, and her face took on the lost look he remembered from their last awful meeting.

  She turned away abruptly and knelt before Osseion. “How is it, Father?”

  “I’ve seen many a worse death, and delivered a few such deaths myself. It’s not so bad.”

  “You’ve got to hold on. If I can find a healer, a good one …”

  Osseion shook his head. “It was a fatal wound from the moment I took it. I’m sorry to leave you, Ussarine. I could not have wished for a better child.”

  “Not even a son?” she said teasingly, though with an ancient sadness.

  “Not even a son,” he said firmly. He moved sideways as if to ease his pain, and blood surged from the wound in his belly.

  “Don’t move,” she begged.

  “It’s time to go,” he said quietly. “But first one last thing.”

  “Yes, Father. Anything.”

  “Give me your hand.”

  She put her large well-shaped right hand in his three-fingered paw.

  “Hingis!” said Osseion in a tone that did not admit of refusal. “Come here.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I asked you for a favour and you said, Name it. This is it. No man of honour can refuse a dying man.”

  Hingis very reluctantly knelt beside Ussarine and took Osseion’s other hand.

  Osseion pressed Hingis’s hand into Ussarine’s, then, as they tried to pull apart, enclosed both in his own enormous hand and gripped them so tightly that Hingis could not move.

  “You’ll make an odd couple,” Osseion said, “though I dare say there have been odder. More importantly, you were made for each other. I can see that even if you can’t. And you need each other. Don’t you, Ussarine?”

  “Yes, Father,” she said meekly.

  “Don’t you, Hingis?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Hingis, and at last he knew it to be true.

  “Despite the loss of her left hand?” Osseion said in a hard voice.

  Hingis had betrayed his sister by showing his revulsion after she had lost two toes trying to save him from the mancer Scorbic Vyl. To Hingis that small imperfection in Esea’s otherwise flawless beauty had been unbearable—it had made his own hideousness so much harder to endure. But now he gazed at Ussarine’s big, strong arm, which would forever end in a stump, and realised that it did not matter one iota.

  “I love her just as she is,” said Hingis, “and ever will.”

  67

  SMASH IT, DADDY!

  Llian lay on his back on the floor of the sweltering cave, bitterly regretting his stupidity.

  Why had he attacked the triplets when any one of them was his match, either with a blade or unarmed? Why hadn’t he kicked over the brazier and its metal-fuelled fire, which was clearly so important to the mancery they were doing here to reopen the gate? It would have given him the chance to grab Sulien and run, and could even have delayed the gate. But he had not thought clearly enough or acted quickly enough. He was brilliant writing about conflict, but when it came to action he was a dunce and a duffer.

  The triplet he now knew to be Jaguly held up a heavy, broad-bladed knife. “Is it too wide?”

  “The teller’s got no mancery,” sneered Unbuly. “Any blade will do for him.”

  “Melt it and make him drink it,” said Empuly eagerly.

  Jaguly looked out the cave mouth, frowning. “That’d take too long; Gergrig needs more power.”

  “Stab him. Do it now.”

  Jaguly knelt between Llian and Sulien, facing him. Unbuly and Empuly took their places to either side. “Quick or slow?” said Jaguly.

  “Quick!” cried Unbuly, licking her black lips.

  “Forehead or chest or belly?”

  “Forehead!” Empuly and Unbuly said together. “All the way through.”

  A few feet away, Karan moaned, faint and quivering. She was still alive! He struggled desperately.

  “Kill the teller!” shrieked Unbuly.

  Jaguly raised the knife, and the other triplets clamped their hands around hers, over the hilt. Llian flinched. Between them, from a corner of an eye, he saw Sulien’s fingers working above the knots, though not touching them. They smoked, charred and fell away. She sprang to her feet, caught Unbuly’s head from behind in one hand and Empuly’s in the other, then slammed them against Jaguly’s head. For a few seconds the triplets were dazed.

  “Unbuly to Empuly!” Sulien shrieked, pressing the triplets’ heads together. “Empuly to Jaguly, Jaguly to Unbuly, flood, flood, FLOOD!”

  A pale green nimbus formed around the triplets’ heads, ran up Sulien’s arms and vanished. The triplets fell back, thrashing and screaming incoherently, and Jaguly’s heavy knife went flying. As Llian rolled over a big foot caught him under the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Sulien grabbed the knife and hacked through the ropes biding his wrists, removing a long strip of skin in the process, then freed his legs.

  “Smash it, Daddy, smash it!”

  “Smash wha
t?” He looked around and saw, placed lovingly on a golden stand, the blood torus. He staggered across and kicked it off the stand, then looked around for something that could break it.

  “The sword!” cried Sulien, dancing from one foot to the other and holding Jaguly’s knife out in both hands.

  Llian slammed the notched sword down onto the blood torus. Chips of red cinnabar flew off, but it remained unbroken. And now the triplets were recovering, coming to their hands and knees, preparing to spring.

  “Harder!” said Sulien. “Quick, Daddy!”

  He raised the sword as high as he could reach, its broken tip scraping the ceiling, then brought it down with all his strength, cleaving the blood torus in two.

  “Smash it to bits, Daddy.”

  Jaguly, the first to recover, dived for the blood torus. Llian kicked the two halves apart. She shrieked then hit the floor hard, screaming and thrashing. She staggered to her feet, cursing and kicking her sisters, and battering the walls with her fists. Unbuly and Empuly attacked her and each other, each trying to gouge her sister’s eyes out.

  Llian hacked the halves of the blood torus into pieces and heaved them into the brazier, then tossed in another scoop of powdered iron. The fire blazed high, crackled and sparked, then began to vomit choking clouds of white smoke.

  “It’s poison,” sobbed Sulien. “Get Mummy out, quick!”

  She tossed the device Jaguly had used to strengthen Gergrig into the fire. The prism burst, showering hot glass everywhere. Llian picked Karan up. Her belly was as swollen as when she had been four months pregnant; she must have lost pints of blood.

  There came a mighty boom from outside. Was he too late? Had the Crimson Gate opened? He ran for the entrance and edged along the ledge, sick with terror. Karan’s skin was cold and clammy. She was dying, almost dead. Behind him the mouth of the cave billowed white and brown fumes, and the triplets’ shrieks became more incoherent.