Gate of Ivrel com-1

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Roh, you are vain and a madman. And honorless to do this thing.”

  “If you are honest,” said Roh, “and if she is, then you have your right to outrage. I will admit it. But this is not for pride’s sake. Thiye is enough. I want no more Irien, no more wars of qujal, no more of the like of Hjemur. And I do think that we are safer with Thiye alone than with Thiye and an enemy let loose to our north. We are the ones who die in their wars. I gave her help, would have defended her at Kath Svejur had she needed it. I would have helped her, kinsman. But she has treated me as an enemy, as a cast-off servant. I think that is all we in Koris will ever be in her mind. She treats free men as she treats you, who have to be content; and maybe you are content with that, maybe you enjoy your station with her, but I do not.”

  “You are mad,” Vanye said, came forward a step nearer than Roh wished: Roh’s hands drew Changeling partway from the sheath.

  “Put it down!” Vanye hissed urgently. “No, do not draw that thing.”

  Then Roh saw the nature of the thing he held, and looked apt to drop it upon the instant: but he rammed it safely into its sheath again, and cast it in abhorrence across the snow.

  “ Qujalin weapons and qujalin wars,” Roh exclaimed in disgust. “Koris has suffered enough of them, kinsman.”

  Morgaine was stirring to wakefulness. She came up of a sudden, hands bound, nearly fell. Roh caught her, and had he been rough with her, Vanye would have hurled himself on Roh as he was. But Roh adjusted her cloak about her and helped her sit, albeit he looked far from glad to touch her.

  Morgaine for her part looked dazed, cast a glance at Vanye that did not even accuse: she seemed bewildered, and no little frightened. That struck him to the heart, that he had served her no better than this.

  “ Liyo,” Vanye said to her, “this kinsman of mine took me from behind; and I do not think he is an evil man, but he is a great idiot.”

  “Get apart,” said Roh to him. “I have had what words I will have with you. Now I will ask her.”

  “Let me go,” said Morgaine, “and I will not remember this against you.”

  But there was a sound intruding upon them, soft at first, under the limit of hearing, then from all sides, the soft crunch of snow underfoot. It came with increasing frequency about them.

  “Roh!” Vanye cried in anguish, hurled himself across the snow toward the place where Changeling lay.

  Then dark bodies were upon them, men that snarled like beasts, and Roh went down beneath them, mauled under a black flood of them, and the tide rushed over Vanye, hands closed upon his legs. He twisted over onto his back, kicked one of them into writhing pain, and was pinned, held about his knees. Cord bit into his ankles, ending all hope of struggle. They let him alone then, to try to wrench himself up to his knees, laughing when he failed twice and fell. On his third effort he succeeded, gasping for air, and glowered into their bearded faces.

  They were not Hjemurn, or of Chya. Men of Leth, the bandits from the back of the hall: he recognized the roughest of them.

  There was quiet for a moment. He had had most of the wind knocked from him, and bent over a little to try to breathe, lifted his head again to keep a wary eye upon their captors.

  They were prodding at Roh, trying to force him to consciousness. Morgaine they let alone, she with ankles bound the same as he, and now with her back to a rock, glaring at them with the warmth of a she-wolf.

  One of the bandits had Changeling in hand, drew it partway, Morgaine watching with interest, as if in her heart she urged the man on in ignorance.

  But riders were coming up the hill. The sword slammed into its sheath, in guilty hands. The bandits stood and waited, while men on horses came into the clearing, horses blowing frost in the starlight.

  “Well done,” said Chya Liell.

  He dismounted and looked about the clearing, and one presented to him the things that had been taken, all of Morgaine’s gear; and Changeling, which Liell received into respectful and eager hands.

  “Chan’s,” he said, and to Morgaine paid an ironic bow. He considered Roh, half-conscious now, laughed in pleasure, for he and the young lord of Chya were old enemies.

  And then he came to Vanye, and while Vanye shuddered with disgust knelt down by him and smiled a faithless smile, lordly-wise, placed a hand upon his shoulder like some old friend, and all too possessively, “ Ilin Nhi Vanye i Chya,” he said softly. “Are you well, Nhi Vanye?”

  Vanye would have spit at him: it was the only recourse he had left; but his mouth was too dry. He had a Lethen’s hand in his collar behind, holding him so that he was half-choking; he could not even flinch, and Liell’s gentle fingers touched and brushed at a sore place on his temple.

  “Be careful with him,” said Liell then to the Lethen. “Any damage or discomfort he suffers will be mine shortly, and I will repay it.”

  And to those about them:

  “Set them on horses. We have a ride to make.”

  The day sank toward dark again, reddening the snows that stretched unmarred in front of them. They moved slowly, because of those on foot, and because of the thinner air. Liell rode first. He had taken back his own black horse and his gear. Changeling hung from his saddle, beneath his knee.

  Several Lethen riders were between him and Morgaine, and two men afoot led Siptah, as two led also the horse they had borrowed for Roh, who had no strength to walk; and the black mare that Vanye rode was Liell’s grace, personal, offered with cynical courtesy—exchange of the mare for the one he had stolen.

  And bound as he was, hands behind, even feet bound securely by ropes under the mare’s ribs, he could not even stretch his legs against the torment of the long ride, much less be aid to Morgaine. She and Roh were in no better case. Roh hung in the saddle much of the time, giving the appearance of a man who would as likely collapse and fall if the cords let him. Morgaine at least seemed unhurt, though he could guess the torment there was in her mind.

  Liell was qujal and knew the ancient science. Perhaps he could even read the runes of Changeling, and then Thiye, whom Morgaine had called ignorant, a meddler in sciences, would have a rival he could not withstand.

  They came among trees again, pines, rough brush, sometime outcroppings of black rock. And the trees began to be twisted and stunted things, writhing out of all true shape for their kind. Bare limbs held tufts of sickly needles, bare trunks described horrid, frozen evolutions.

  And in the snow they saw a dead dragon.

  At least so it seemed to be—an object leathery and twisted, and the horses shied from it. It was monstrous, frozen in its death throes so that it was yet less lovely. One membranous wing was half unfolded, stiff and stark. The other side was bare bone, taken by other beasts.

  The Lethen described a wide path about that corpse. Vanye stared back at the thing as they passed and the bile rose in his throat.

  Other things they saw dead too. Most were small. One resembled a man, but the wolves had had it.

  The light faded in this place of evil. They moved among the twisted pines in twilight, and went carefully. Men had bows ready, eyes constantly scanning the forest.

  Then the trees thinned out, quite abruptly. Upon the great shoulder of the mountain was a lesser rise, and upon that were broken pillars, fair-colored, rune-graven, out of place among the black rocks of Ivrel’s cone.

  And the Gate.

  It was vast, unlike that of Aenor-Pyven or Leth at Domen: metal uncorroded by the years, casting a web of shimmer that had depth, stars winking in a black arch against the twilit white side of Ivrel. The air here worked at the nerves. The horses fought to shy off, men that rode dismounted, and prepared to wait.

  Morgaine was helped down first, her ankles freed, and she was made fast against one of the few twisted pines that grew this near the Gate. Next Roh was similarly treated, though he strove to fight them. Finally Vanye was lifted down, and he thought that they would do the same with him, but instead Liell ordered him brought forward in the line.

&
nbsp; He kicked a man, threw him to the ground writhing in pain, and a Lethen hit him, kicked him down and laid a quirt to him: Vanye tucked down against the blows, unhurt by reason of the mail, save where the quirt hit neck or hands.

  And of a sudden Liell was by him, cursing the man, other Lethen hauling Vanye up, and the man that had struck him cringed away.

  “No hand on him!” Liell said. “No harm to him. I will kill the man that puts a mark on him.” And carefully he unlaced the cloak from Vanye, and gave it to a man, walked all about him, full circle. Then he made to lay hands on him and Vanye flinched back, constrained to bear it in patience while Liell gently probed bones, as if to see whether they were sound or no. In bitter humor he cherished the ache in his skull, the worse pain in his legs and joints where the ride bound to the saddle had bruised him—his only revenge on Liell. It was a sorry, sad thing, he thought of a sudden, that he had been taken so easily, and it was no comfort at all that Roh was about to pay dearly for his idiocy.

  And by that time, there would be nothing left of Nhi Vanye, though his body would continue to move and live, housing for Liell-Zri, which would take revenge upon Roh, upon Morgaine.

  That image struck him as Liell began to climb that last distance, and they began to force him up the long barren slope. It took from him what courage he had left, such that he would have fallen if not for the men on either side of him. He stumbled on the loose rocks, Liell striding sure-footedly beside him, up in that clear place where air cut at the lungs like the edge of ice. There was only the Gate above them, and the stars within, and wind that gently sucked at them, aiming into that gulf.

  It grew as they walked, until there was no more sky. The Lethen with them balked, and Vanye thought for one wild soaring moment that they would lose their courage and fail to hold him. But Liell cursed them and threatened them, and they drew him up and up, until they stood swaying in that awesome wind, poised upon a level place near the Gate.

  There Liell bade them unbind his hands and hold him fast: “I will not enter an impaired shelter,” he said. And this they did, but held his numb arms and strengthless wrists still wrenched behind him with such cruel force that he could not struggle free. He stared up into that great gulf, dizzied, faltered and lost his balance even standing still.

  “How is it done?” he asked of Liell. He did not want to know, but his courage was never proof against the unknown: he feared that he would shame himself at the last, crying out, if he did not know. He knew Morgaine’s things, that there were laws and realities that governed them; he insisted to believe so even in this.

  “It is less pleasant for me than for you,” said Liell. “I must ruin this present body of mine, enough to die; but you—you will only seem to fall for a moment. You will never reach bottom. Do not fear; you will not suffer.”

  Liell knew his fear and mocked him with it. Vanye set his lips and forbore to say anything, head bowed.

  “Those companions of yours,” Liell said. “Have you fondness for them?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Liell’s lips made a slight smile, which his eyes did not share. “As for Chya Roh, that is an old and personal matter, which I shall enjoy settling. That which you are about to bequeath me is well capable of handling the lord of Chya, of claiming what he rules, by the blood you share; and claiming Morija too. You never appreciated your heredity as I do. And do not fear so much for Morgaine. Without her weapons she is harmless, and she has knowledge that will be of great interest to me. And in other ways, with your youth, she is of interest. This is tiresome.”

  Vanye made a sound like spitting, at which Liell was neither amused nor troubled, and they began to climb again. He balked, had his arms painfully wrenched, and gave up resistance, lost in what loomed over them.

  Dark was all their vision now, stars more numerous than shone in the sky, clouds upon clouds of stars. The air was dead. It numbed. The vision seemed about to drink them into that shimmering nothing—though they climbed, it seemed a pit, a downward plunge into which one could fall and fall, and that they leaned impossibly above it. The mountain on which they walked seemed out of proper alignment with earth. The wind skirled about them, maleficent and voiced, humming with power, blurring senses.

  Liell reached the Gate and touched its arch; his fingers moved upon it, and all at once there was utter dark within the Gate. The wind ceased. The humming altered its tone, higher pitched. The opalescence of Changeling itself burst and coruscated within the arch, flung light at them.

  The Lethen faltered. Vanye spun, flung himself downslope, lost footing and slid, brought up against a level place and staggered to his feet, dazed, blinded, aware of shouting ahead and behind in the gathering dark.

  Out, was the only thing his senses grasped at the moment; and hard upon that single light of reason: Morgaine.

  He could not help her. They would have a dozen men upon him before he could free her.

  Changeling.

  He ran, sliding, mail-protected, but leaving skin of his hands on rocks, battering himself in one spill and another. Men tried to head him off at the bottom. He gasped air, spun left, veering off from Morgaine and Roh, scattering horses as he fled. Then there was the familiar black before him: he vaulted for the saddle, shied the beast and clung, clawed his way firmly into the saddle and caught the flying reins. The beast knew him, gathered himself and sprang forward under his guidance.

  Riders were already starting after him. Tumult and shouting were in his wake, though no arrows flew. He did not even seek the hill, to brave that weight of air, that awful climb, not with pursuit and enemies and a frightened horse to confound matters. He headed back along their trail.

  If the Gate were barred to him, there was still Ra-hjemur, where Thiye ruled. There was Changeling under his knee, its dragon-hilt familiar to his anxious fingers. With that in hand and the power of the Gate to feed it, he could force his way to the heart of Thiye’s power, destroy its source, whatever it was, destroy the Gate—destroy himself and Morgaine too, he knew.

  And Liell.

  The world had not yet seen what Liell could do with the power of Morgaine added to his own. Thiye was small compared to that evil.

  He rode the horse without mercy, whipped the poor beast down snowy slopes and across trails and down, doing all he could to clear Ivrel.

  Even Liell must have care of him now. Even Morgaine’s other weapons were nothing to the power of the opal blade, that drank attack and cast it elsewhere, that drank lives and cast them into nothing. And armed as he was, with that power in his hands, it was madness to kill the horse that was his best hope of reaching Hjemur: he came to his senses when he had cleared the steepest portion of the road, and come to the main trail. There he slowed his pace at last, let the horse breathe.

  Around the limb of the lower slope the main road led, bending toward Ra-hjemur. It must be. There was no other place in Hjemur that could even boast a road.

  He kept the horse to a holding pace. The Lethen might be reluctant to follow, but Liell would drive them to it—timid as Morgaine avowed herself to be, able to spend others’ lives before her own, she was capable of fearful risks when it became necessary, and Liell surely would prove no different: when caution would not serve, then there would be nothing reserved, nothing. When Liell knew finally that the Gates themselves were at stake, he would surely follow. The only hope was that he had yet to understand what Changeling was, or that a Morij ilin might understand what had to be done with the blade.

  A shadow thundered out at him. The black screamed shrilly and shied, and an impact hit his shoulder, tumbling him inexorably over the black’s rump, head over heels, and into snow and hard ice.

  Joints moved, bones unbroken, but shaken; he tried to gain command of his battered limbs and move, but a shortsword pressed under his chin, forcing his head down again into the numbing snow. A body hovered over him, the arm that rested across the figure’s knee ending abruptly.

  “Brother,” said Erij, whispering.


  CHAPTER X

  “ERIJ.” VANYE TRIED a second time to rise, and in a sudden move Erij moved back and let him. Then he snapped the Honor blade back into his belt and stalked up the road a space where his horse stood, along with Vanye’s black.

  Vanye stumbled up from the ditch, limping, trying vainly to overtake him and prevent him, saw to his dismay that Erij had already found what the black horse bore on its saddle.

  A fierce grin spread over Erij’s face as he took the sheathed blade in hand, and with the sheath in the crook of his arm and his hand upon its hilt, he waited Vanye’s coming.

  Vanye stopped short of the threat he posed him, still shaking in all his limbs, trying to gather his breath and his wits and frame some reasonable argument.

  “There is a qujal out of Leth,” he began, his voice hardly audible. “Erij, Erij, there are Lethen and the devil himself behind me. We are both in danger. I will go with you clear of this road—not try at escape, at least that far. I swear, I swear it, Erij.”

  Erij considered, his dark eyes fluid in the dark. Then he nodded abrupt decision, hooked the sheath of Changeling to his own belt—one-handed as he was, he wore it at his hip, not his back—and swung up to mount.

  Vanye hauled his aching body into the saddle on a second effort, sent the black galloping down the road in Erij’s company, down side trails into forest, though at every turn the forest looked more ominous in itself. The horses went at a careful pace now, wending their way down into rocky ground. Here was still patches of snow in which to leave prints, but brush and woods were so thick that pursuit of them could not be easy for any group of men, and their trail was somewhat obscured. It held no feeling of safety, this place—rather, the same kind of queasiness that all of Erij’s ambushes had held, from boyhood up, screaming alarm, such that he thought, like another dream by Aenor-Pyven, that he might have ridden this place in some bad dream, wherein he had died. The trees, the rocks etched themselves into his sight, his senses clinging to them as strongly as fingers might cling to some last handhold on solidity. I am losing these, he thought, and: I am mad to go with him like this. But he had no strength left, and Erij held Changeling, held his duty as ilin to hostage: Erij could reason, could be reasoned with—his hope insisted so.