The Gates of Tagmeth (Chronicles of the Kencyrath Book 8)

by P. C. Hodgell

  “Er . . . how does he feel about such a development?”

  “Rather pleased, I think. His partner, on the other hand, is delighted.” She cleared her throat. “I also heard, in part, what happened on the roof. You really think that’s how hay-cough spreads?”

  Kindrie shrugged. “We Kencyr don’t have much experience with communicable diseases. Nothing much a Rathillien native can catch affects us. Why here with such a severe bout of harvest-cough and why now, I’m not sure, but when the Highlord is vulnerable, so are his Kendar.”

  “At least this gives us a way to fight it. We owe that to you, too, whatever Blackie said.”

  “Blackie—Torisen—is confused just now, and no, I’m not sure what the problem is there either. But he will sort himself out eventually. He always does.”

  Rowan almost smiled, stopped by the tightened skin on her scarred forehead. “I’m glad that you understand him so well.”

  Not well at all, Kindrie thought sadly as the door closed behind her. If only he did. But then, according to Lady Trishien, he had barely begun to understand himself.

  Night fell. The garrison clattered around itself, in the mess-hall, in the dormitories, finally, bit by bit, settling down. Kindrie waited until the sentry passed. Then, taking his bag, he slipped out into the hall and out of the fortress.

  Down by the Silver, the post station had also quieted for the night, although a candle still burned in the duty-officer’s room, in case a vital message should suddenly arrive as might be the case at any hour, day or night. The remount herd stood shot-hip, half-asleep, in their corral. Some stirred as Kindrie moved among them. While he could ride, he was no expert and had no idea what sort of a mount to select. Presumably any here would do. He chose a quiet-looking piebald and led it to the tack shed. Kindrie had never rigged out a horse before, but he had seen it done. He hoisted up a saddle and, after some fumbling, secured it with various straps. Closer observation revealed that the horse was not an “it” but a “he.” When he presented him with a bridle, he roused and looked askance at the bit.

  “Come on, come on . . .” Kindrie muttered.

  Get out of my house.

  He had to go. Therefore, this horse had to take him. Kindrie jammed his fingers into the hinge of the animal’s jaws and forced them open. The bit slid in over the tongue. Yellow teeth chewed irritably on the metal, a harsh, grinding sound.

  Quiet, quiet . . .

  Kindrie led the beast down to the River Road where, with difficulty, he mounted.

  “Your name is Spot,” he said, as if naming him increased his rider’s control. “Now go.”

  Spot snorted. The next moment, he had launched at a dead gallop with Kindrie clinging desperately to his mane.

  III

  ROWAN GROPED HER WAY into the benighted bedroom, and swore as she tripped over a pair of discarded boots.

  “Can’t you put anything where it belongs?” she hissed into the darkness.

  Bed-leathers creaked under a shifting weight.

  “Is all well?”

  “You tell me.” Rowan found the edge of the pallet and sat down on it, as usual misjudging its height and landing with a thump. A muffled snort of laughter greeted her.

  “It’s as you feared,“ she said, pulling off her own boots one by one, then struggling out of her other clothes. “They fought. Why do those three have to rub each other the wrong way all of the time? You’d think they had enough in common to make common cause.”

  “Perhaps they’re too much alike, in ways that please none of them.”

  “Maybe. I’m just a simple randon. What do I know?”

  “You know them. Blackie in particular.”

  She slid under the blanket and punched him lightly in the side. “Jealous?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Only if you’re a fool. Which you aren’t. But how is it with you? This has been quite a day.”

  He turned and slid an arm around her. “My ribs ache. No worse, though, than after preparing for the midsummer feast. All of those meat pies, all that holiday bread!”

  She rolled into his embrace.

  “Good. Want to play bouncy-bouncy?”

  Bake-master Nutley lay back, drawing her on top of him, and grinned up into the shadowy planes of her face, where scars meant nothing. “At your service, m’lady.”

  IV

  A GIBBOUS MOON ROSE and, after a time, set, leaving the sky awash with stars. Clouds of them drifted past overhead with speckled chasms between, then familiar constellations like the Frog and the Three-leggéd Wolf, then a curtain of silent, wavering lights that danced for awhile, apparently for its own amusement, before disappearing. It was a mild, late-summer night, with a sweet breeze from the south, perfect riding weather.

  If he bounced one more time, though, Kindrie thought he would split in half.

  He had heard that it took a post rider some two hours to get from keep to keep. By that reckoning, he had hoped to reach Mount Alban by early the next morning. However, he hadn’t counted on what so much riding would do to unaccustomed muscles. Barely an hour north of Gothregor, he was obliged to break from a canter to a trot, which hurt even more. Without spurs to urge him on, Spot soon shifted to a sedate jog. At least they had the River Road mostly to themselves. Only twice did Kindrie have to draw off it, dismount, and hold his mount’s muzzle lest he whinny to a passing messenger, bearing what message he shuddered to guess. Getting back into the saddle was harder each time.

  Toward dawn, they drew near the Brandan keep of Falkirr. Spot tried to turn into the post station there, which was just beginning to stir, but Kindrie whipped him on with a stripped willow withy. Their progress thereafter was slow and grudging. It occurred to Kindrie that perhaps post riders made such good time because they changed mounts often, but he could hardly present himself to Brandan’s ostlers without facing a flood of questions and, probably, detention.

  North of Falkirr he drew off the road into a grove of trees, dismounted, and hobbled Spot. Not thinking the trip would take so long, he hadn’t bothered to bring any food. Now, despite a growling stomach, he rolled up in his cloak and slept while his disgruntled mount cropped grass nearby. In his dreams, he labored in the Moon Garden to prop up bruised stalks, the leg muscles pulled in his long ride throbbing with every move. The piebald was there too, wandering about. Only the white patches of his hide showed, the black melting into the shadow of deep grass.

  On waking near dusk, Kindrie realized that he had lost sight of the Silver. He had heard Jame speak of the dangers of leaving the road, but hadn’t quite understood what she meant. After all, the Riverland was bracketed with mountains. Down was down. From the east bank, turn toward the setting sun and, sooner or later, you would find yourself by a descending stream or back on a beaten path.

  However, like others before him, he hadn’t counted on an evening haze of low, drifting clouds. The ground rose and fell. Trees leaned this way and that. Streams babbled, but out of sight. Perhaps, if he had been on foot, he could have told by the pull on his still sore muscles which way he was going, but on horseback he lost even that advantage. Spot seemed to know the way, however, so Kindrie gave him a loose rein, which he promptly abused by snatching bites of every bush he passed.

  They began to pass between tree stumps. Here there was no forest, only the rotting remnants of one, dotted by shrubs and boulders.

  Finally the haze kindled sunset red to the left, by which he knew that they were still traveling north. Soon after, in a dip below the clouds, he saw the River Road below, and a post station, and the lights of a fortress across the river, going out one by one.

  Could that possibly be . . . yes, it was: Shadow Rock. Somehow, they had come a good twenty miles in less than an hour, at an amble. Kindrie had heard of the folds in the land that one might encounter off the road, but had never understood them. If that was truly the Danior keep, though, then they had emerged from the wilderness almost on top of Wilden.

  In burst of panic Kind
rie tried to turn his mount back toward the heights. Spot fought him. Below were the shelter and food that he had sought, also hands to rub him down before a well-deserved rest. Then he shied violently as a figure in black rose up from behind a boulder and rushed at him.

  “You aren’t taking us back!” it cried.

  Kindrie hit the ground before he even realized that he had been thrown. His first instinct, after he caught his breath, was to check for damage. No broken bones. No ruptured organs. Good. Not that he couldn’t heal either, but that would have taken time.

  He heard Spot plunge off down hill.

  Then someone landed on top of him and a pair of hands scrabbled at his throat.

  “. . . you aren’t . . . you aren’t . . .” a broken, stinking voice panted into his face.

  This was more serious, perhaps imminently fatal.

  Before he could properly register the threat, however, the slight weight was knocked off. He rose on an elbow, gasping, to see a figure in mottled green hunting leathers grappling with his black-clad assailant.

  “Don’t!” he croaked.

  Green rose like water flowing backward and stepped away.

  Kindrie scrambled over to his erstwhile foe. When he raised the man, his bones felt as light as a bird’s, shifting under loose flesh. Healer’s hands futilely cupped a skull wrapped in skin that crinkled like paper. His fingertips traced brand scars on the back of the other’s neck, the swooping lines of the rathorn sigil.

  “I know you,” he said, sounding stupid even to himself.

  “And I know you too, lord.”

  The man relaxed with a sigh that was half laugh, half groan. “Take care of them. They have no one else.” The sigh turned into a rattle. Flesh crumbled from bone, bone into dust.

  Kindrie wiped grit and hair off of his shaking hands. The latter clung, as hard to shake off as guilt.

  “He was dead before I even touched him. What in Perimal’s name is going on?”

  He became aware of the green man standing over him, watching. A hood shaded his eyes against the dying light. White braids hung over his shoulders, reaching almost to his waist. Kindrie nearly called him by name, but this close to Wilden, that would be dangerous.

  The other turned. “Come out,” he said, in a voice rusty with disuse.

  Four gray and brown clad figures hesitantly emerged from behind scraggly bushes and boulders—two young acolytes and two younger novices of the Priests’ College.

  “He said he would protect us,” one of the former whined. “Now what do we do?”

  It took awhile to sort things out, to the extent that was possible.

  “Things have been bad at the college since early spring,” said the senior acolyte, who was all of twelve or thirteen years old. His name, he had told them, was Oreq. “There are . . . were . . . former Knorth there—you know, Oath-breakers like . . . like . . .”

  Nervously hugging his knees, he glanced at the pitiful pile of ash, still smoldering, around which they sat. Kindrie had barely whispered the pyric rune, but his throat still felt scorched. Not that he begrudged that. His only fear was that someone in the darkened Randir keep might have seen that brief flare of light that marked a brave passing.

  “She took away his name,” Oreq blurted out, horror in his voice. “Lady Rawneth. And now we can’t remember . . . remember . . .”

  “Who he was,” Kindrie finished for him.

  He himself had never known the man’s name, only that during Kindrie’s imprisonment at the college two years ago, this priest had risked much to warn him that the Witch of Wilden had her claws hooked in his soul-image. Names, souls, and shadows were interlinked, as were all three to bodies. What happened to one affected the others. Only great willpower must have held the priest together until he had been able to pass along his charges.

  “Anyway,” continued Oreq, “Lady Rawneth suddenly decided that all the Knorth at Wilden were traitors to her house, never mind that most of us actually belonged to the College and were her guests. We here are the last left, and only quarter-bloods, at best.”

  “Why did she turn on you?” asked Kindrie.

  “Ancestors only know.”

  Kindrie looked around the circle of frightened faces. There was no question of returning these boys to the Randir fortress. If they hadn’t caught Rawneth’s attention before, they surely would now.

  “Now what?” he asked the man in green who stood back from the light, gravely listening.

  “Shadow Rock?”

  Consternation rippled through the fugitives. The Danior keep was too close. Rawneth would hear that they were there and demand their return. Kindrie agreed. Cousin Holly was in no position to defend such visitors, although he might well feel honor-bound to try.

  “Gothregor?”

  That, no doubt, was where the nameless priest had meant to take them, but Kindrie couldn’t return. Not now. Not yet.

  “If you go there, it will have to be without me.”

  Twin, white-haired novices huddled on either side of him, no older than five or six. Their small hands clutched anxiously at his sleeves. “Don’t leave us!”

  Kindrie felt pangs both of sympathy and obligation, drawn by their drop of Knorth blood, even more by their helpless appeal.

  “Mount Alban?” he suggested.

  The younger acolyte gave a half-strangled yelp of protest. “I can’t walk that far! And why should I? I . . . we haven’t done anything wrong. We should go back to Wilden and beg M’lady’s forgiveness.”

  The older boy jabbed an elbow into his ribs to shut him up. “Mercy? Don’t be a fool, Loof. You know perfectly well that she has none.”

  The man in mottled leathers had apparently made up his mind. “Follow,” he said, and strode away down the hill. Not a blade of grass whispered as he passed.

  They descended through the ruin of great trees. Over the past century, Wilden had cut down everything within two miles of their fortress to enlarge its inner structure. When land had crumbled, the Silver had changed course. Then Wilden had lost the rich bottom lands, it had largely been due to erosion.

  Kindrie walked with a twin holding tightly to each hand. When he had asked their names, one had answered “Timtom” and the other, “Tomtim.” Someone, obviously, had had a cruel sense of humor, but not about their Shanir nature in abandoning them to the Priests’ College. He didn’t know to which face of their god they were aligned or how their abilities might manifest themselves, assuming they did yet. Many Shanir only showed themselves at puberty.

  The mist turned to mizzle. It was a very light rain, but Loof began to whine again and tried to lag behind. Part Knorth or not, Kindrie would gladly have left him, except that his return would probably rouse the garrison. He caught the eye of Oreq, who took the boy in charge.

  The night was very quiet except for their progress and muffled protests that “You’re hurting me!”

  The man in green had ghosted ahead of them. They caught up to him at the post station. Light shone around the shuttered window, but flickered out when he knocked on the door.

  The corral held a dozen remounts, all steadily munching hay, while Spot tried to reach through the bars from the outside to snatch a mouthful.

  A saddled mare stood beside him. Mirah, Kindrie supposed, she of the leaf green eyes and the pearl-gray coat dyed all the shades of the passing season, although it was too dark by now to make out any details. She whickered softly at the approach of her master.

  They caught and saddled two horses (“But I can’t ride!”) while the ostlers continued to hide. Kindrie took one twin up behind him on Spot, the green man the other on Mirah, and they set out northward.

  The River Road seemed to stretch out forever at the foot of brooding Wilden. The clop of hooves rang so loudly in the silence that Kindrie winced at each one. He didn’t even want to look at the Randir fortress, that cruel prison where he had spent so much of his life. His memory was already too full:

  . . . the stench of the subterranean scho
ol, compounded of damp, mold, and unwashed boys . . .

  . . . a scream in the night, down in the priests’ quarters where a novice had been summoned . . .

  . . . the sting of a teacher’s rod: “Half-wit, moron, bastard, you aren’t paying attention!”

  . . . blue-tinged milk, moldy bread, green-veined cheese swarming with mites . . .

  . . . bullying, brutality, boredom . . .

  That bitter catechism:

  “Who is our patron?”

  “Lady Rawneth.”

  “Whom do we serve?”

  “The high priests.”

  “Who is our family?”

  “Each other.”

  “On whom do we spit?”

  “On our cruel god, who has forsaken us.”

  And Rawneth again, with that chill, caressing smile and behind her mask those glittering eyes that never seemed to blink.

  “Let me see you, infant. Come close. Closer. Close enough. They say that no one can do you lasting harm. How . . . intriguing. Shall we see?”

  Yes, he had survived, but his flesh remembered what had followed, many a day, many a night, when only soft laughter answered his cries.

  The thin arms of Timtom (or was it Tomtim?) tightened, trembling, around his waist. No doubt the child had memories of his own. Kindrie laid a hand on small, cold fingers, only too aware that he himself had little warmth or comfort to give.

  Mirah stopped suddenly, the other horses behind her.

  “Go on, go on,” Kindrie urged under his breath, frantic to be gone, but then he too sat still, listening.

  The Silver chuckled. Streams descending from Wilden’s overflowing moat slyly gurgled past them. One horse snorted, its breath a white plume in the growing chill of night. Another stomped.

  Then from somewhere came the faint sound of distant knocking . . . tap, tap, tap . . . and a voice that cried out urgent but barely recognizable words.

  The moon, near full, had risen, and cast its silver light down Wilden’s winding streets, which were so steep that one could see most of them over the outer wall, all the way up to the high terrace and the Witch’s Tower.