The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

85

  THE BLOCK ON THE STONE WOULD HAVE FAILED

  The black-bearded man sat up slowly and painfully. He had lost a lot of muscle since Karan had last seen him but she did not doubt who he was for a second.

  Several seconds passed before he found any words. “Because … we were … so few,” Rulke said haltingly, as if he had forgotten how to talk, “we made plans … Yalkara and I … in case either … took … mortal wound.” He paused for three rasping breaths. “I cast … stasis spell. Mimic … signs of death.”

  “But—” said Llian.

  “Maigraith took … body to Yalkara,” said Rulke. “Yalkara used … potent healing spells. Secret. Even from Maigraith. But could not save me … hid me until statue … prepared. Put me inside … reinforced stasis charm … so time … and body’s own healing processes … repair … damage.”

  He studied Karan and Llian, looked long at Sulien and favoured her with a ghostly smile. In a stronger voice he said, “I judge … ten years have passed. Is Yalkara about?”

  “She’s two years dead,” said Flydd.

  Rulke reeled. “Yalkara dead! How?”

  “Two hundred and twenty-four years have gone by since you were ‘killed’,” said Llian. “Just days ago we fled to the future using—”

  “My virtual construct!” he said delightedly. “However did you manage it?” His face became grave. “Two hundred and twenty-four years!”

  He shook the dust off a pair of trews, then a shirt that would have fitted three of Karan, and socks and boots. Rulke dressed with an effort and got up, but swayed on his feet and had to sit down again.

  “Too soon,” he said hoarsely. “Need food and drink. Desperately.”

  “This way,” said Flydd, who for the first time since Karan had met him had nothing to say. He looked stunned.

  Karan also struggled to take it in. She had liked Rulke at the end; he had been a much-wronged man, a legend whose choices and actions had been shaping the Three Worlds for thousands of years, and now he was back. What would he do? Where would he take them?

  Rulke realised that Sulien was staring at him. There was dust in her long red hair and on the tip of her nose. “The black pill I gave you worked, I see,” he said to Karan.

  “Without Rulke you would not be here,” Karan said to Sulien.

  “I know, Mummy,” sighed Sulien. “You’ve told me a million times.”

  He lurched forward, stooped and shook her hand. “Thank you for seeing me and freeing me; my flesh was wasting from lack of food and I would soon have died. May I lean on you?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small, awed voice. “My name is Sulien.”

  Flydd led the way back to the circular chamber, Rulke walking slowly, supporting himself on Sulien’s shoulder. Flydd introduced Lilis, who had met Rulke as a girl and was suitably astonished, M’Lainte, who merely handed him a full bowl and a heaped plate, and Wilm and Aviel, who said nothing at all.

  Karan knew how they felt. Too much had changed, too quickly, and she could not see through it to any happy future. Yet with Rulke on their side …

  He ate like a man who had not dined in centuries, gobbling the food and spilling it down his front. M’Lainte, who seemed rather taken with him, replenished his plate.

  Llian started. “I’ve just thought of something. Wait here.”

  “What are you doing?” Karan said irritably, but he had already run out.

  He returned a few minutes later carrying a dusty bag. “Something to celebrate with.”

  He drew out a cut-crystal decanter, a beautiful object with an extravagant silver stopper and a base of silver basketwork.

  Rulke raised a black eyebrow.

  “It’s Driftmere,” said Llian. “The finest brandy ever made, already aged for a hundred and seventy-eight years when I left it here two centuries ago.”

  “A trifle beyond Gothryme’s budget, I would have thought,” said Rulke, eyeing Llian’s shabby clothing and generally unkempt air. He took the decanter.

  “It was my … um, fee. For a private telling of my Great Tale.”

  “You got your tale then? Congratulations.” Rulke weighed the decanter in his hand. “Unlikely the cork will have survived.”

  “The stopper is glass.”

  Rulke drew it out, sniffed, and his face lit up. “Yet again I underestimate you, chronicler.” He conjured goblets from somewhere in Alcifer, wiped the dust off and poured a measured amount of the red-gold fluid into each. He raised his goblet and everyone else did too. “To old friendships.”

  They drank. Karan only took a small sip; she needed a clear head. Sulien merely tasted the brandy with the tip of her tongue, grimaced, said, “Yuk!” and put her goblet down.

  Rulke raised his goblet again, to Sulien. “And to brilliant young gifts.”

  He studied her as if there was something about her he could not fathom. This reminded Karan that she still had to find Sulien a teacher, someone gifted in the art. Rulke? She turned the idea over in her mind.

  He turned to Llian. “Chronicler, would you be so good as to fill in the intervening years?”

  Llian told him about the ten years after Rulke’s “death,” focusing on the summon stone and the Merdrun, and the invasion force that had come through the Crimson Gate to Gwine. Rulke’s dark eyes showed shock and dismay, and possibly fear at the mention of the Charon’s greatest enemy, though he did not comment.

  “Why did you flee so far into the future?” he said curiously.

  Karan hesitated, for she knew he had loved Maigraith—they had sworn to one another, for ever. But he had to be told.

  As she and Llian related Maigraith’s obsessive plan to create a living monument to Rulke, and her relentless pursuit of Sulien, his jaw tightened. “You say she bore me twins. What happened to them?”

  “Julken was killed before he was eighteen,” said Lilis. “Hunted down by a band of men whose daughters he had outraged. He was … not a good man.”

  “Any children?”

  “Only one—Gilhaelith, a master geomancer and mathemancer. He died twelve years ago, without issue.”

  “And the other twin?”

  “Illiel took after Maigraith’s Faellem side, so she abandoned him to them. I don’t think he’s still alive but he had a daughter, Liel, now known as Tulitine. She’s …”

  “Now Yggur’s partner,” said M’Lainte when no one else spoke. “She’s been good for him. She’s helped him with his troubles.”

  “Now there’s an irony,” said Rulke. “My only descendant taking care of the man who was one of my greatest enemies.” He sighed wistfully. “But I have a granddaughter; I’m not alone in the world.” He stared into the middle distance for a minute or two, then said in a hard voice, “Clearly I was wrong about Maigraith. How could she do such a thing?”

  Was he talking about her obsessive pursuit of Sulien, or her abandonment of Illiel?

  His plate was empty again. M’Lainte refilled it without being asked and gave him a jug of water. Rulke gulped half of it, gasped and wiped his mouth. He looked stronger now and this time did not touch the food; he was staring at Sulien.

  “What’s the matter?” said Karan.

  “How did you know I was inside the statue?” he said to Sulien.

  “I … saw you,” said Sulien. “With my inner eye. Like I saw the Merdrun way across the void.”

  “Ah!” he said as though that explained everything.

  Karan shivered. What did he know that she did not? “What’s going on?”

  “Unintended consequences,” said Rulke.

  “You’d better explain.”

  “The black pill I gave you when I lay dying was designed to increase the chances of conception—as you know, we Charon are plagued by terribly low fertility—but it was also tailored to heighten the far-seeing gift in any Charon child conceived through it.”

  “Why?” she snapped. She felt a surge of anger. It was happening again! What had he done to Sulien?

  “As an early wa
rning. If the Merdrun ever turned their attention to this world, that child’s heightened gift would detect the psychic signal from the enemy, even from across the void. If this happened, my people would be in desperate peril and there would be little time to prepare.” He studied Sulien again, as if looking into her mind. “But if Sulien already had the seeing gift from you, the pill may have developed it even more strongly.”

  Karan thrust back her chair and stood up, knuckles pressed hard against the tabletop. “You used us!” she cried, struggling to hold back her fury. “You planted this gift in Sulien to aid your own people.”

  “What people?” Rulke said mildly. “I’m the last Charon there is, and I didn’t know the black pill would work on you at all, since most triunes are sterile. Besides, I was dying. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think things through. It was a generous impulse, no more.”

  It sounded convincing but she refused to believe it. “The moment Sulien saw the Merdrun’s vital secret in a nightmare,” Karan said furiously, “she was condemned. They hunted her for months, tried to kill her a dozen times … and almost did. The gift you heightened in her, the gift she doesn’t know how to use properly, could have doomed her.”

  “I can teach her.” Rulke reached out to Sulien.

  “Don’t touch her!” cried Karan.

  Rulke withdrew his hand. “As you wish.” He turned back to Llian. “So Shand and Yggur blocked the summon stone. A clever piece of work. And since then?”

  Llian explained how they had come to the future, then Flydd related the story of the Lyrinx War and its aftermath, as he had done earlier.

  “Mister Flydd, you said there’s far less mancery now?” said Sulien. “Why is that?”

  “That’s a very good question,” said Flydd. “The Lyrinx War became like a … a magical arms race, with each side developing ever more powerful weapons and drawing more and more power from the fields around nodes.”

  “Fields that Sulien first saw,” said Llian.

  “Did she really?” Flydd gazed at her in wonder, then continued. “At the end, Tiaan, one of our most gifted geomancers, was utterly sick of war and all the ruin done to the world. She found a way to destroy every node and field at once, and that almost wiped out the Secret Art.”

  “But not the two sorcerous quicksilver tears, Gatherer and Reaper, that had accidently formed in an exploded node years before,” said M’Lainte. “They now held almost all the magical power left in the world, and Jal-Nish, a vicious ex-scrutator, had them.”

  “So began the brutal reign of the god-emperor, as he styled himself,” said Flydd, “which lasted another dozen years until he was killed two years ago, and Gatherer and Reaper were destroyed. Only in the past two years have people’s lives begun to get back to normal—whatever normal is. And some of the fields that were destroyed are slowly regenerating, though—”

  Rulke thrust himself to his feet, wild-eyed. “You said Shand’s blocking device was powered by a node at Demondifang.”

  “That’s right,” said Llian. “Why does that matter?”

  “When Tiaan destroyed all the nodes and fields fourteen years ago, the block on the summon stone would have failed.”

  Karan felt a sharp pain in the top of her head where the old magiz had attacked her months ago. It can’t be happening again.

  “But the Demondifang node would also be dead,” said Llian. “There wouldn’t be anything for the summon stone to draw power from.”

  “Until Gatherer and Reaper were destroyed two years ago,” said Rulke, “and the fields began to regenerate. The summon stone would have started to draw power straight away, from Demondifang or any other nearby field. Clearly, that’s what the Merdrun designed it to do.”

  “But the block—”

  “Wouldn’t resume by itself after all that time. The Command device would have to be reset.”

  Karan felt trapped, helpless, numb with terror. There was nothing she could do this time.

  Flydd scrambled to his feet. “M’Lainte, how quickly can we get to Demondifang?”

  She rose. “A day. I’ll get the sky galleon ready.” She headed for the door.

  “Wait!” said Rulke. “The stone may not be there any more.”

  He swept the table clear in front of him, rested his elbows on it and his head on his hands, then stared, eyes unfocused, at the wall. Karan could feel her own leaden heartbeat, thud-thud, thud-thud. She was utterly reliant on him and Flydd now, but could she trust either of them?

  “I know how the Merdrun’s devices work,” said Rulke. “I can see the stone, but it’s moved.” He gestured, and an image appeared on the wall, a steaming blue lake in a shallow crater. The summon stone, a trilithon now standing more than twenty feet high, stood in the middle of the lake, upright again, the decay and corruption gone.

  “It’s very strong,” he added. “I dare say it’s been drawing power for years; it must be close to reopening the Crimson Gate. And if the enemy know we’re spying they’ll redouble their efforts.” He snapped finger and thumb, and the image was gone.

  “Can we block the stone again?” said Llian.

  “I … don’t see how.”

  “What about Sulien’s nightmare?”

  “Ah!” said Rulke. He looked at Karan. “May I try to recover it?”

  “No!” Karan snapped. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Then what solution do you offer?” said Flydd.

  She had none. “I … Very well, ask her!” Karan said furiously.

  “I want the nightmare out and gone,” said Sulien.

  Rulke laid his huge dark hand on top of her head and pressed down the curly red hair until it flattened against her skull. His eyes closed, his lips moved. He did not move for several minutes, then his eyes sprang open and he said, “There’s a block, put there by the old magiz I’d say, to prevent you remembering their secret weakness.”

  “Can you remove the block?” said Sulien.

  “Part of it, at least.” He murmured words in the Charon tongue then lifted his hand away abruptly. “Speak the nightmare!”

  Sulien closed her own eyes. “There’s an old blind man … so weak he can barely hold his head up. He gets up … and he’s shaking … as if he’s going to fall down. His eyes are white and … oozing. The old man faces the Merdrun leader, but it’s not Gergrig. I think this must be long ago.

  “The old man says, A child of a lesser race can defeat us if her mighty gift is allowed to develop to …” She strained to speak but no more words came.

  “What child?” said Flydd when she did not go on. “What gift? Defeat them how?”

  “I don’t remember the rest,” said Sulien. Her eyes had a far-off stare, as if her gift had not fully returned her to Alcifer. “Then the old man falls down and … Yuk! Worms swarm all over him as if he has been dead the whole time … as if he was raised so he could speak the words.”

  “Look deeper!” Flydd said to Rulke.

  “Too risky,” said Rulke.

  “Perhaps the child will grow up to develop a mighty weapon of war or attack spell,” said M’Lainte.

  Suddenly Rulke spun round, staring up in wonder as if he’d seen or heard something they had not. “Incarnate?” he said wonderingly. He rubbed a black ring on the smallest finger of his left hand, repeated, “Incarnate,” and vanished.

  “Where’s he gone?” said Flydd. “Has the bastard betrayed us?”

  Karan was thinking the same thing. What could Incarnate mean?

  Sulien, whose eyes were still unfocused, cried, “Mummy, Daddy, they’re coming!”

  A low rhythmic sound began, like someone tapping a fingertip on a large drum. It quickly swelled until it was like the thundering of a gigantic drum-clock, counting down the seconds towards catastrophe.

  “I can see them!” cried Sulien. “They’re at the Crimson Gate, on Cinnabar.”

  She broadcast what she was seeing, and Karan viewed it with perfect clarity in her mind’s eye, for it was so strong even Llian
and Wilm, who lacked any gift, caught glimpses.

  The thundering cut off as the Merdrun army began to march through the gigantic Crimson Gate. The gate too was bigger than before; twenty soldiers could pass through side by side. Karan tried to estimate their numbers. The top of the icy plateau was completely covered in troops.

  “They’ve got to be a hundred and fifty thousand strong,” said Flydd in a choked voice.

  “Last time, with just a thousand,” said Llian, “they nearly beat six thousand of us.”

  “To have a chance against the most deadly fighters in the void we’d need an army of a million men.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “None,” Flydd said hopelessly.

  “Why the hell not?” cried Llian.

  “Jal-Nish’s army was disbanded two years ago. After a hundred and sixty years of war and bloodshed the whole world ached for peace.”

  “Xervish,” said M’Lainte, “is there any hope you could divert their gate to the middle of the ocean, and drown the bastards?”

  “Right now I couldn’t divert a beetle to the other side of a spider web,” said Flydd. He grabbed Karan by the arm. “What’s happened to your friend Rulke?” he said roughly. “He’s the last of his species, and blood will out. Maybe he’s decided to join the Charon’s mirror selves—the Merdrun. And he knows everything!”

  Karan shook his hand off and backed away, towards Sulien.

  “Is that what he meant by Incarnate?” said Llian. “Bloody war on humanity?”

  “Sulien must be the child the seer spoke of,” said Flydd. “The key to defeating the Merdrun. We’ve got to develop her gift—”

  Karan swept Sulien behind her. “A room full of brilliant adults,” she said contemptuously, “and all you can come up with is using a child as a weapon? It’s a death sentence.”

  “Is no one going to ask me what I think?” Sulien said quietly.

  “You’re only nine!” Karan choked.

  “And I’m already under a death sentence. But if I’m our only hope, I’ve got to try.”

  The Gates of Good and Evil will continue.

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