Lieder turned his back and walked away. Which, for Lieder, was like an apology.
But then Lieder got the bright idea of tossing Danny into the 200 meters with no prep.
“I’m tired,” said Danny.
“You don’t get tired,” said Lieder.
“Of course I get tired,” said Danny.
“Ricken is limping like a big baby. If you’re in the race, he’ll try harder.”
Danny had committed to the team, which meant obeying the coach, even when he was pushing his athletes too hard in an event that meant nothing. So he said, “Sure thing,” and went to take his place at the starting line.
The 200 was almost a sprint, like running a football field from one end zone to the other and back again. But it was Ricken’s big event and Danny wasn’t going to shame him in it. Even though Ricken was glaring at him as if jumping into his event had been Danny’s idea.
Danny passed a gate over Ricken, just in case he really had hurt his ankle like he said. Then, to be fair, he passed all the other runners through gates that took them no distance at all, but got rid of any fatigue or stress injuries or cramps they might be suffering. Let’s have an even playing field, thought Danny. Everybody do your best.
It turned out that Ricken’s best was better than Danny’s after all. Of course, Ricken actually cared and Danny was tired. He hadn’t passed himself through a gate, so he was still fatigued from the two longer races. Truth to tell, though, he might have been able to stay ahead of Ricken when he made his move at the end. But Ricken wanted it, it was his event, and Danny didn’t want to be an asshole.
“You asshole,” said Ricken, still panting after the race. “You let me win.”
“You mean I didn’t trip you?” asked Danny. “I didn’t shove you?”
“You didn’t sprint.”
“I ran the thirty-two and the sixteen already today. I didn’t have a sprint in me.”
“You moron!” shouted Lieder as he approached.
“He talking to me or you?” asked Danny.
“Must be me, because you’re not a moron, you’re an asshole,” said Ricken. But he punched Danny lightly in the arm and moved off. They both knew it was Danny that Lieder was yelling at.
“I send you into the 200, you run the 200!”
“Ricken and I left all the Rockbridge guys licking our sweat,” said Danny. “And Ricken didn’t show injury, did he?”
“I don’t send you in to inspire the other guys,” said Lieder. “I send you in to win.”
Danny stood there.
“You got anything to say for yourself?”
“Besides how I already won two races?”
“Without trying.”
“But without losing.”
Again a silence.
“You’re still at war with me, aren’t you?”
“No sir,” said Danny. “The 200 is Ricken’s distance. He trains for it. He’s better than me.”
“Bull pucky,” said Lieder.
Danny leaned close and talked softly. “I told you I don’t compete. I hate competing. Ricken competes. He cares.”
“Start caring,” said Lieder.
“If I cared about track,” said Danny, “would I be at Parry McCluer, with you as my coach?” Danny turned his back and walked away. Not toward the stands. Not toward the team. But toward the fence, which he scrambled over almost like a hop, and then across the road. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like he was walking off the team. But to Danny’s more discerning perceptions, he was merely walking off the field because his last event was over.
Lieder must have seen this too, because he didn’t yell at Danny to get his butt back with the team, and all the usual abuse.
Or maybe it was because Nicki was there talking to her dad. Calming him down maybe. Or telling him that she liked putting her tongue in Danny’s mouth and so he’d better not piss the boy off. Whatever.
Danny didn’t go to the parking lot where the team bus was waiting. Instead, he started running up Greenhouse Road, away from Highway 11. Let it look like he was blowing off steam.
What he was really doing was following the voices.
He had learned to ignore the clamor of the captive gates; they were not so much voices as inchoate longings that did not speak to anything in Danny’s experience. They felt distant to him, though in the abstract he felt bad about their long captivity. That vague compassion had been, he supposed, the reason he had included the most eager of them in the Great Gate he made in Silvermans’ barn. Hadn’t that turned out well.
The voices that had been Loki’s own gates, however, were a different matter. At first their nagging chant had been like the pulse of a large beast, another heart beating somewhere in his body. Gate, gate, gate, they intoned; and when he made the Great Gate, they had seemed to panic. But them, too, he had pressed down and kept at bay, so that he could concentrate on other things. He thought that it must be rather like tinnitus, the unceasing whine that some people hear constantly in their ears. You just learn to blank it out.
But in the days since Loki had given his gates to him, everything had changed. The constant throb of gate, gate, gate was gone. At first, what remained had seemed to him like silence, except for the distant clamor of the captives that remained inside him.
It was not silence, though. It was something different. These gates that had once seemed almost insane in their monomania were now attentive, observant. Danny felt himself being watched. But not in an unfriendly way, not by a stranger. Rather it was as if his own inmost mind, the part of his mind that watched his conscious thoughts and responded to them, had been joined by others. They did not judge him, but they had suggestions.
That was what had taken him a while to understand. They did not speak in words. Even the gate-gate-gate of the past had not been in actual language. It was deeper than language. He knew the meaning of the pulse of desire. But he could not have named the language it was being spoken in, and then concluded that it was no language at all. It was self-speech. As was their conversation now.
Voices, then, but not words. And yet remembering their suggestions, even a half-moment later, he thought of them as words. His own words. His own language. Just as his conscious mind translated the impulses that came from his deep observer-mind into language the moment they surfaced into consciousness. When Loki gave his lost gates to Danny, they had become, if not an actual part of himself, the most intimate of friends. They were on his side. Their suggestions were designed to help him do better.
They did not care much about what happened with Coach Lieder, because Danny didn’t actually care that much. It was a part of the high school life that he had desired, but since arranging to come to Parry McCluer, things had become quite strange, and the whole enterprise of American public education seemed a little pointless to Danny. Homework? Really? A track team? He was going through the motions now.
To him, the only thing real about high school was his friends. His feelings about them—and Loki’s gates agreed. About them they had suggestions, though mostly they reinforced his own intentions. Don’t let Xena think for a moment that you return her imaginary affection—check. Pat might be something real; don’t mess with her or hurt her if you can help it. Check. Trust Hal, because he can be counted on, but recognize that Wheeler is the slave of impulse and doesn’t know how to keep his word. Right, right.
Now, as he ran from the grounds of Rockbridge High, up to the crest of Greenhouse Road and then down the steep slope toward the nursery that gave the road its name, he found that Loki’s gates were the music giving meaning and rhythm to his running.
Education, that was the idea they were talking about. Learning. He needed to learn. But they were not talking about calculus or social studies. There were things that Loki’s gates thought that he absolutely had to know, and didn’t know.
So he asked them, silently: What should I know?
Belmage. Danger of the Belmage. The danger that made us close all gates, prevent all
Great Gates. Danger of the Belmage.
Immediately Danny remembered the Fistalk inscription quoted in that book in the Library of Congress. “Here Loki twisted a new gate to heaven.… Here Odin crushed the might of Carthage until the survivors wept in the blood of their children.” Nasty stuff. An earlier time.
Oh, like Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden were any better.
That was not Loki’s gates talking—what would they know of that? It was an interruption from Danny’s own observer-self, criticizing his own conscious thoughts. “Nasty stuff, earlier time” had provoked his deep self to push a thought to the surface, refuting his own foolish conclusion. Of course, the moment the thought came to the surface, it became his conscious thought, while the observer-self continued to lurk in the background.
But now he felt the prodding of Loki’s gates. Yes yes yes, they were saying. Think about that. That’s what you need to think about.
What? Danny demanded. What was I thinking about?
That’s how Loki’s gates differed from his own deep self—he never didn’t know what his observer-self was responding to. But Loki’s gates were still not himself. They were his, they served him, but they were not truly a part of him.
Yes yes yes, they said again. Think about this.
So they wanted him to continue this self-examination as he ran down the hill, staying on the right, the outside, as he went around the blind curves, because people took this road too fast and he had to make sure he was visible to them. They wanted him to think about the difference between his deep observer-self and his conscious mind and the gates Loki had given him and …
Where were his own gates?
Oh such a good question. It was as if they applauded him.
If Loki’s gates talk to me, then why don’t my own gates?
And then he thought—or did Loki’s gates put the thought into his mind?—The reason my gates don’t talk to me is that they are me. For all I know they do talk to me, but I hear them as myself, as …
No no no.
It was like playing hot-and-cold as a child, the cousins all yelling “Warmer, warmer, hot, hot, cold now!” as the child who was It searched blindly for the hidden object.
This memory had come unbidden. Did that mean it came from his own gates?
No no no.
“Then what are my gates doing?” he asked aloud.
And then, as he came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, where a complicated three-way intersection with Furrs Mill Road was too narrow and dangerous for him not to pay attention, he realized: Who has been operating my body as I ran down this hill, thinking all these thoughts?
It wasn’t my observer-self—that was listening to my ponderings. It certainly wasn’t my conscious mind—it was doing the pondering. I have no memory of anything I did, any choices I made coming down the hill, and yet I was making them. I was passed by several cars—now I can remember, vaguely, that they came from behind and ahead, several of them—but they never interrupted my conscious thoughts.
My gates were operating my legs and arms. Keeping me on the road. I had a mindless task to perform—keeping myself alive while running—and I turned it over to someone else while my conscious self and my deeper observer-self were engaged in this inner conversation.
And it all came together. While Loki had been asleep in a tree for a thousand years or so, he had set most of his gates to carrying out a simple but urgent task: watching the world for gatemages. And they had stuck with that task the way his own gates—his outself—had taken care of his running body while his mind was otherwise engaged.
But Loki had freed his captive gates from their old, unceasing assignment, and given them to me. They weren’t watching the world anymore, they were …
No, they were watching the world. They were still doing what Loki had set them to do. But they were reporting to me. Or rather, preparing me to be ready for battle.
And he realized that this realization had come from the voices. Or at least it had been confirmed by them. They want me to learn about the Belmage because now that there are Great Gates in the world and a Gatefather capable of making more of them—me—I am the person that the Belmage will come after.
The words of the inscription came back to his mind. “We have faced Bel and he has ruled the hearts of many. Bold men ran like deer from his face, but Loki did not run.” Of course this wasn’t the Loki whose gates Danny now had within him. It was a much earlier Loki, one who had defeated Bel in his day.
“Loki found the dark gate of Bel through which their god poured fear into the world and through which he carried off the hearts of brave men to eat at his feasting table.” What did that mean, actually? Was it something like what the Gate Thief did?
But more of the inscription came to mind and his observer-self realized that it was the voices that were pushing it to his attention. “The jaws of Bel seized his heart to carry it away. Loki held tight to his own heart and followed the jaws of the beast.”
Wasn’t that the very passage that Danny had used to guide him in overcoming the Gate Thief? That had to be what it meant, didn’t it? That Bel was a gate thief, too?
“Loki tricked Bel into thinking he was captive, but he was not captive. His heart held the jaws; the jaws did not hold his heart.” Yes! That’s what I did to Loki! That’s how I defeated him!
“And when he found the gate of Bel, he moved the mouth over the heart of the sun. Let Bel eat the sun and drag it back to his dark world! He has no more home in Mittlegard.”
That was the end of the inscription. What am I missing? It sounds like Bel is a gatemage, not a manmage at all.
Then it dawned on him. Just because the inscription was ancient didn’t mean that the person who wrote it knew what he was talking about. Was it written by that earlier Loki himself? Doubtful. It was written by somebody later, repeating what he had heard. Had he heard it from the Loki’s own lips? Maybe. But would that even matter? If the writer was not himself a gatemage, would he understand anything that a Gatefather said about what he had done in fighting the Belmage?
He was at the top of Furrs Mill Road, where it intersected with Highway 11. Danny turned right onto the bridge and ran along it as the light turned green and cars and trucks set the whole bridge to vibrating like an earthquake. It always did that. It was nothing.
Once again, Danny had no memory of coming up the hill. Only when something different came up did his running come to his conscious attention.
I have been following that ancient inscription because it gave me the idea that helped me overcome the Gate Thief. But the Belmage is definitely not a gatemage, and the inscription sounds as if it’s a battle between two gatemages. That’s what the writer probably thought it was. But Loki—this Loki, the one I know, the one whose gates are inside me—he realized what the Belmage really was.
If the Belmage had been a Gatefather, it would have done no good to take all the gates.
So the inscription accidentally taught me how to fight another gatemage, but it taught me nothing about how to fight a manmage.
And not an ordinary manmage anyway. The Belmage.
Belmage Belmage Belmage, echoed the voices.
Who in the world can teach me about the Belmage? Danny asked.
Nobody in the world today, that’s who, Danny said to himself. For fifteen centuries and more, gatemages and manmages have been killed whenever and wherever they were caught. How can anybody possibly tell me about the Belmage?
Loki, that’s who.
Yes yes.
But he doesn’t tell me anything. If I’m supposed to learn from him, why isn’t he here teaching me?
He won’t he won’t.
Then how can I learn? Who knows?
Silence.
You know, Danny said silently to the voices. You know. Loki won’t tell me, but you know everything he knows and you serve me now, you’re mine now. So instead of obeying him and keeping silent, you’re going to teach me.
Silence.
So teach me.
He was off the bridge so the vibration under his feet stopped. Solid ground felt almost boring after the bridge.
He stopped and waited till traffic cleared so he could make the dangerous crossing of Route 11 to get on McCorkle Drive, which was far safer to run on than 11.
You’re not going to teach me, Danny said to the voices.
Silence.
But you want to teach me.
Silence.
Danny thought about how he couldn’t remember much about the running that had been controlled by his own outself. He realized that the voices had brought that memory to his mind. A memory of what he had failed to remember just a few minutes ago.
But it hadn’t been their memory, it had been his. They didn’t have memories, they could only prompt me to remember what I already knew.
Well, that’s a dead end. I can’t remember what I never learned.
Remember.
How can I remember? I never knew!
Re. Member. We. Re.
It was so vague. No words. He had no words to explain to himself what they were trying to say.
You do remember.
Remember.
But you can’t tell me what you remember.
Almost. Warmer. Warmer.
He thought again about how he had been able to think back and remember the cars that had passed him. Cars that he hadn’t been conscious of when they passed him, and which he had forgotten until he tried to remember them, but then the memory had surfaced. Sort of. Vaguely.
You remember, he said to the voices, but you don’t remember that you remember. Something has to call up the memories. You have to be tricked into remembering. You have to be reminded in order to remember.
The voices flooded him with relief. He was right.
He was also standing on the edge of Highway 60, directly across the road from the combination McDonald’s and Citgo station. How could he possibly already be here? No way had that much time passed.
But it had. He could think back now and remember every curve of McCorkle Drive, every uphill and downhill. He could even remember what thought he had been thinking at each stage along the way. The distance he covered had nothing to do with how much thinking he got done.
The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) Page 22