The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels )

by Geraldine Harris

  The next morning they ate their breakfast quickly and moved on. The rocks they had slept beneath were a dull red with patterns like bundles of straw, sliced in two and splaying outwards.

  Kerish and Gidjabolgo walked close together, carefully talking of trivial things.

  The next line of rocks was tall and intricately colored. Kerish felt a curious reluctance to examine them. The pattern in the rock surface seemed at first to be beautiful and wholly abstract. There was a dark center surrounded by a glimmering starburst and then a circle of gold and green filaments. The design was repeated over and over again. The Forgite leaned forward to touch one just as Kerish backed away.

  “They're eyes! Gidjabolgo, they're eyes!”

  After a moment, the Forgite nodded. “Yes, human eyes. Shall we go on?”

  As they walked, Kerish tried not to think about what some of the other rock patterns might have been, but as each new outcrop blocked their path, he felt compelled to look. There were teeth with their long, tangled roots, and bones, cut across to display their texture. They hurried past outcrops shaped like skulls, but Gidjabolgo paused in front of a rock stained with matt crimson.

  “Hearts,” he murmured. “Have you never watched a beast's heart cut from its body? Perhaps our sculptors have seen a human heart.”

  They did not stop to eat or rest, hoping to reach the end of the valley by nightfall. Just before dusk they came to one last line of rocks. Gidjabolgo ran his hands over the pale surface.

  “Don't,” said Kerish, “or at least, don't tell me what they show.”

  “You can stop quivering,” answered the Forgite, “the surface seems prepared for carving, but there's nothing here.”

  Dusk came abruptly but Kerish and Gidjabolgo stumbled on till the rocks were left behind. The path narrowed and the jungle closed in on them again. They lay down very close together and talked for most of the night. With cruel humor, Gidjabolgo catalogued the weaknesses of his Forgite masters and the idiocies of life on the Merchant Isle. Kerish described his schooling and Forollkin's youthful exploits, growing gradually more incoherent, till his sentences began to drift apart. “Of course the priest didn't know about the kirzan fruit and it took weeks to get the color out of his skin. But I lost the ring in the Moon Pool and Forollkin laughed and said I should have it back when the cats of Hildimarn took to water. I wish I could swim, almost as good as flying . . . oh yes, I was telling you about Forollkin . . .”

  Kerish fell asleep in the middle of a confused anecdote about his brother's first hunt. Gidjabolgo covered the Prince with his cloak and lay awake until dawn.

  He woke Kerish and they ate quickly and then made an early start. Gidjabolgo was still in a talkative mood. As they crossed a broad clearing he spoke freely of the tricks he had played and the people he had blackmailed to earn enough money for his trip to Ellerinonn.

  “I'm sorry,” Kerish broke in suddenly, “I treated you very badly in those days.”

  “So you did,” agreed the Forgite. “It used to give me a great deal of pleasure to goad a Prince of the Godborn into betraying his ideals.”

  “But why?” Kerish rarely touched Gidjabolgo but now he gripped him by the shoulders.

  “Why? On Forgin,” said Gidjabolgo slowly, “I met many Lords and Ladies who were praised for their beauty and virtue, but people do not care what they do or say in front of a hired fool. I have seen even the best of them behave like beasts . . .”

  “And did you believe that everyone must be the same? Whatever the world said of them?” The Prince's voice was heavy with concern. “But it isn't true! On our travels we've met with real goodness in so many people . . .”

  “It is a fact,” murmured Gidjabolgo, “that you have given me a few surprises.”

  Kerish smiled uncertainly. “At least you've taught me to keep my temper . . .”

  He stopped as Gidjabolgo's expression suddenly changed, and turned round to see what the Forgite was staring at. From amongst the trees came two scarlet-feathered creatures. Black eyes winked at the travelers, yellow-barred wings were spread wide, the long beaks were open, and the wrinkled legs ended in clawed feet that clutched at the spreading creepers on which the banebirds stood.

  Very slowly, Kerish and Gidjabolgo backed along the path, until they heard the rustle of wings behind them. Two more creatures had emerged from the jungle. Kerish studied the long legs - no, they couldn't hope to outrun the banebirds, and a blow from one of those wings could break a limb.

  “Don't worry,” he whispered to Gidjabolgo. “I don't think they can harm us if we keep to the path.”

  As he spoke, one of the creatures turned its head towards them and Kerish saw a third eye, small opaque and unlidded, in its narrow forehead.

  They edged forward again along the narrow path through the clearing but more and more banebirds came out of the jungle. They spread their wings and, with curious jerky strides, moved in to surround the travelers.

  “Don't worry,” repeated Kerish, with less and less confidence.

  The path was still clear but the banebirds were very close. Kerish felt as if their sharp beaks were already probing him.

  Suddenly a sound came from the creature nearest to Gidjabolgo. It was not the high thin sound he would have expected, but laughter, low, raucous and cruelly human.

  A curious expression crossed Gidjabolgo's face, as if he were looking at his own image for the first time. Before Kerish could grab him, Gidjabolgo stumbled back off the path and a creeping plant suddenly twined about his ankles and held him fast.

  The Prince struggled to pull him back to the safety of the pathway but it was like trying to uproot a tree. A banebird was close to Kerish watching him with its third eye. Its beak opened and more laughter spilled out: not a low, ugly sound like the first but clear and sweet-toned and far more horrible. The laughter was taken up by one banebird after another.

  “Run!” gasped Gidjabolgo.

  Kerish shook his head and the laughter doubled as he fought against recognition. He had laughed like that once at the man whose hand he now grasped. Secure in his youth and beauty, he had laughed at deformity of body and spirit. He cringed from the sound, but it pursued him: laughter shattering the peace of the Valley of Silence, mocking the dead.

  Spite and disdain welled up like poison inside him. Rigid with self-loathing, Kerish tore at his skin, desperate to escape from his own cruelty.

  For a moment, pain brought clarity and he cried out, “Zeldin, help us.” The laughter echoed on. “Zeldin,” he murmured again, and retched at the thought of the Gentle God hearing and judging that laughter.

  Then a woman's voice suddenly spoke in a foreign tongue and Kerish found that his face was wet with tears. They streamed down his cheeks, soothing the scratches that his own nails had made. The laughter stopped and with a mighty beating of wings the banebirds took flight. Gidjabolgo lay moaning on the ground. Kerish knelt beside him anxiously.

  The woman's voice, rich and beautiful, spoke again. “Prince, it is fortunate for him that you exist. If he had never shared the sorrows of another, there would be little I could have done to help him escape the malice the bane-birds have awoken.”

  Chapter 10

  The Book of the Emperors: Secrets

  And the sculptor answered him, saying, “Is it not sinful to give divine images the beauty which we envy and covet in our fellow men? Surely the shape of goodness must be different from anything we have corrupted?”

  Kerish stood up and turned towards the voice. After a startled moment he bowed and said, “Lady Tebreega?”

  She smiled. “Bless you for your courtesy, sweetheart. Prince Il-Keno was not nearly so composed.”

  She was huge: taller by a head than Kerish, and almost as broad as she was tall. Her great bulk was covered by a robe the color of pondweed, but a cloak of gaudy feathers hung down her back and she held a wand entwined with feathers in her hand.

  The cloak was almost hidden by the fall of her hair, black and lustrous and tr
ailing onto the mossy path. Kerish only noticed it after he had looked away from her face. Her skin had the pallor of a night creature but was shadowed by a maze of wrinkles. Small colorless eyes, almost hidden by bulges of flesh, flanked a hooked nose. The lips were large and loose and the teeth crooked, but the face's humor was marred by the terrible scars that ravaged one cheek, dragging down the left eye and permanently twisting the mouth.

  Kerish helped Gidjabolgo to his feet. “Lady, this is my friend, Gidjabolgo of Forgin.”

  For once, the Forgite seemed unable to speak. He just gaped at the sorceress.

  “Was it you who saved Il-Keno from the banebirds?” Kerish asked hastily.

  Tebreega nodded, though her neck was too deeply buried among her many chins to be visible. Kerish wrenched his mind away from the fascination of her ugliness. “In Galkis, they call you Mistress of the Birds . . .”

  “They also call me beautiful, do they not? Ah, a Prince of the Godborn lost for words.” Tebreega chuckled. “Don't fret, my dears. Stare all you like. Beauty is common enough but I'm a rare sight. Yes, I am Mistress of the Birds, but only of the natural creatures of this jungle. The banebirds are no doing of mine. They respect my presence but they are mischievous creatures and very curious, since that's what they were made for. I watched your progress carefully in case you met with them.”

  “If they were made, but not by you. . .” began Kerish.

  “Ah, that's a deep question,” said Tebreega. “Prince Il-Keno found the answer and kept his promise never to reveal the knowledge that haunted him.”

  “Lady, we will keep your secrets,” promised Kerish.

  “No doubt, but I'm not sure I have the right to bind you to it,” said Tebreega, “since you carry the keys of six citadels.”

  “You know about our quest?”

  “Vethnar warned me in his roundabout way. Elmandis told me more directly.” Tebreega frowned. “But I can see that there are things they both omitted. I am afraid we shall have to go back to the Valley of the Rocks, but for the moment you are tired and should be fed and rested. Take hold of my cloak. You too, Master Gidjabolgo.”

  The Forgite gingerly stretched out a hand as if he could scarcely bear to touch her, but she smiled at him warmly. “The Prince is a problem but you are welcome without reserve. Now close your eyes, or you'll be giddy.”

  Kerish gasped as he felt himself tossed up into the air. Somewhere close, Gidjabolgo grunted with the same shock. Then he was falling, faster and faster, only to be caught in a net of softest down and rocked like a baby. Kerish relaxed and for a moment he opened his eyes. All around him was a glory of blue and scarlet feathers. He closed his eyes again, smiling and lay on the verge of sleep for a long time until he was suddenly thrown in the air again and landed with a jolt. He was sitting in the middle of a glade, still entangled in the folds of Tebreega's cloak. Gidjabolgo lurched to his feet. Kerish got up rather more gracefully, though the ground seemed to be swaying under his feet.

  Tebreega gave them her huge twisted smile. “I'm sorry I couldn't set you down more gently, but one of you wasn't trusting me enough.”

  Kerish looked round the glade. “This is Tir-Jenac?”

  “Wherever I am, is Tir-Jenac,” answered the sorceress.

  At one edge of the glade was a pool of clear water. The rest was bounded by tall trees, entwined with gorgeous creepers and bent under the weight of ripe nuts or berries. Another clump of trees, lower and silver-trunked, grew in the center of the glade. Hammocks were slung from their bottom branches, small platforms were fixed further up and the topmost boughs were full of silent birds and sleepy monkeys. A pavilion was pitched to one side of the trees, its canvas covered with feathers of every imaginable shade.

  At first the travelers took in only the riot of color, then pictures began to emerge: Tebreega with a living cloak of birds; beautiful maidens dancing before a Prince; a black-haired woman weeping before a naked rock. Kerish stepped forward to look at them more closely and the pictures dissolved into colored patterns again.

  In front of the pavilion was a fire-pit from which enticing smells were rising. Tebreega eyed her guests. “Neither of you look fit for feasting yet. Go and bathe in the pool. You'll find fresh clothes laid out for you on the bank.”

  She moved her wand in a circle. A dozen birds flew purposefully off into the jungle and as many more fluttered down to assist her.

  Kerish and Gidjabolgo made their way to the pool. The Forgite insisted on undressing behind a bush and kept glancing suspiciously at the sorceress as they waded through the crystal waters. Tebreega was pulling back turfs to uncover the fire-pit, more hindered than helped by the birds who fluttered around her excitably raking the ashes with their claws. Kerish simply luxuriated in the coolness and laughed at the tiny curious fish that tickled him in shoals.

  When they emerged, they found a sheet to dry themselves laid out on the bank, and two loose robes made from soft feathers of grey and fawn and speckled blue. Gidjabolgo's was slightly too long and Kerish's rather full at the shoulders.

  “I was not too far out,” said Tebreega, when she saw them. “But you came across Jenoza more quickly than I'd expected, so I had to finish them hurriedly.”

  “You made them with your own hands?” asked Kerish politely.

  “Like almost everything you'll see here,” answered the sorceress. “As mistress of the seventh key, I have all the time in the world. The more time you have, the less need you find for magic, or so I feel. The others wouldn't agree but you must already know that. You've met them all - even Shubeyash. I am glad that he has atoned at last.” The sorceress piled steaming food on to platters of stiff leaves. “Of all of them, his work was the closest to mine. I could have made his mistake very easily. I still could, but I am fortunate in having no kingdom to shape.”

  “But isn't the jungle your kingdom?” asked Kerish.

  “Mine? No.”

  Birds had begun to return, carrying rare fruits and berries which they dropped into a wooden bowl held up by Tebreega.

  “I am suffered to remain here. These creatures serve me willingly but the jungle could never be mine, for I am Galkian. Now, I used to have two extra spoons but it is centuries since I last entertained humans . . .”

  She looked up and spoke in a high twitter. There was a great flurry of activity in the clump of trees as the birds began to search. The travelers saw that there were many objects hanging from the branches or piled on the small platforms: feathered cloaks, baskets of hair, cooking knives, globes of amethyst, a trowel and spade, a royal coronet, combs, nets and a golden casket.

  Eventually a pair of vermilion birds flew down with one spoon, and a sleeping monkey was found to be clutching the other. Tebreega rescued him from a cloud of officious birds and coaxed the beast into yielding up the spoon. Dumping the monkey into Kerish's lap, she began handing round the food. The glade was in an uproar. More and more birds were gathering in the trees and all kinds of animals were slipping out of the undergrowth to make a circle round the fire-pit.

  As the monkey clambered up to snuggle under Kerish's chin, a tree-crab sidled on to his lap and a timorous deer-like creature settled itself on the hem of his robe. Gidjabolgo was rapidly surrounded by myopic squirrels and found a water-snake coiling damply up his arm.

  “Just shoo them off if they're a nuisance,” said Tebreega, who was herself encumbered by a glumly croaking bird on one shoulder and a lizard continually changing color on the other.

  Before each of the travelers, the sorceress placed slices of some baked root vegetable with an array of sauces, made with fruits, spices and herbs from the surrounding jungle. From gourd bottles she poured out cordials flavored with flower petals.

  “Now,” she said, as Kerish and Gidjabolgo cautiously began their meal, “what manner of music shall we have?”

  The travelers looked blank.

  “I'll choose then.”

  Tebreega retrieved her wand from a playful monkey and pointed it at one of
the groups of birds gathered at the edge of the grove. Instantly, they sang. Kerish soon realized that it was not the lovely but simple sound of ordinary birdsong. They were singing a tune: the Galkian air of “The Prince and the Enchantress”.

  Gidjabolgo sat with his food halfway to his mouth, his eyes big with disbelief, until one of the squirrels had licked his spoon dry. Kerish slowly ate his portion of roots, which tasted very like white meat, and tried all the sauces.

  When the birds had finished he asked how long it had taken to train them.

  “About four generations,” answered Tebreega. “An absurd project, but the Masters of the Jungle were pleased, for they are fascinated by our music, as you discovered. I hope you were not too badly frightened.”

  “The unknown is always frightening. . .” began Kerish hopefully.

  “Later, my dear,” interrupted the sorceress. “At a feast your mouth should be filled with food not questions.”

  She ladled out bowls of a rich nut and vegetable stew and raised her wand again.

  Another group of birds began to sing. There seemed no definite tune but there was a subtle weaving of harmonies such as Kerish had never heard in the dawn chorus.

  “They are my instruments, “ said Tebreega, “and they let me play on them.”

  As the chorus continued, twelve gorgeous birds strutted across the glade and danced as they would in courtship, displaying shimmering wings, ruffled crests and the frail magnificence of their tails.

  Tebreega reclined against the ungainly bulk of a tusked creature that purred at her touch. She ate little herself but constantly pressed further helpings on her guests and scattered fragments of food to the animals and birds clustered around her. When the stew was finished, Kerish and Gidjabolgo were faced with a huge array of fresh fruits and berries. As they began to pick and taste, monkeys replaced the dancing birds and gamboled and somersaulted for their delight.