Exile's Gate

by C. J. Cherryh

  "If they have taken it on themselves to do this, by that very act they are entangled."

  "And they know other races who know others still."

  Vanye listened through that silence, his heart beating harder and harder. Morgaine's light hand upon his elbow held him fast, by oath and by the surety that somewhere in this exchange he had become all humanity, and that existence was the prize of this struggle—What must I do, what must I say, what is she telling him—of threads and bubbles?

  This man can kill us all. He has stripped this house of its servants, its goods, its cattle. He has destroyed them or he has sent them through the gate before him—and means to follow.

  —Humankind—has refused the trap.

  What is she telling him?

  "Change," Morgaine said, "is very possible. That is the work I do."

  "And this—for heir," Skarrin said. "This for companion. His get—for inheritors."

  "Come with me," Morgaine said, "down the thread that leads to infinity. Or bind yourself more and more irrevocably to the one you have followed thus far. Eventually change may become impossible. But you will not find it inside the patterns; you find it linked to these—to qhal, and to humankind. And to me, lord Skarrin, and to those with me."

  "So I should serve your purposes."

  "Follow your own. Did I ever say I wished to share more than a road and the pleasure of your company? We will bid one another farewell—in time, in time I cannot predict, my lord Skarrin, nor can you. That is chance, my lord Skarrin. Have you grown too attached to this age and to what is? Have you found your own end of time, and are you content with solitude among your subjects—or do I tempt you?"

  "You tempt me."

  "We have a horse to spare." She held Vanye's arm the tighter, and laughed softly. "What want you, an entourage, a clutter of servants, lord Skarrin? I have my few, who will serve you the same as me. A horse, a bedroll, and the sky overhead—your bones are still young, and your heart is not that cold. Come and learn what a younger generation has learned."

  The image smiled, slowly and fondly. "Was Anjhurin—fate's way of creating you—who see no wider than that?"

  "Perhaps that is all there is worthwhile, my lord kinsman. Freedom. "

  "Freedom! Oh, young cousin, lady, you mistake the roof for the sky. We are prisoners, all. Inside the bubble we work what we will and we shift and change. The gates end and the gates begin. And all the hope you bring me is that the contagion is spreading and the bubble widens. Is that cause to hope? I think not. In the wide universe we are still without significance."

  "You are melancholy, my lord of shadows."

  "I am a god. The cattle have made me so." There came laughter, soft and terrible. "Tell me, is that not cause for melancholy?"

  "They name me Death. Is it not reasonable that I am the youngest of us, and the most cheerful?" Again she laughed, and stood and leaned against Vanye's shoulder, clasping his arm. "Few of humankind love me. But, lord of shadows, I shall live longest, and so will those who ride with me. It is helpers I seek. Come ride the wave with me, down to the last shore. Or do you want eternity in Mante, with shapes of your own devising, in a world of your own making? Another stone palace and more worshippers? Come, let us see if we can shake the worlds."

  The image faded abruptly to dark. The hall was very still, except the random shift of a horse's foot, which rang like doom on the pavings.

  "What are you saying?" Chei asked, suddenly breaking that peace. "What are you, what are you talking about—waves and shores? Who are you?"

  "I have said," Morgaine said quietly, and her hand never left Vanye's shoulder, a calming touch. If it had not been there he would have reached for a weapon for comfort. It was; and he felt himself numb like a bird in the eye of the serpent—not afraid, not capable, he thought, of fear at all any longer. He knew her lies, even when they were told with the truth. Even when they were entirely the truth. He trusted. That was all there was left to do.

  "Perhaps you can flee," Morgaine said to the others. "It seems likely. I do not think he will trouble himself with you."

  Rhanin edged away. And stopped, as if he did not know what to do, or as if he had expected the others would, or as if he had had second thoughts. He only stood there.

  Then distantly, softly echoing, came footsteps in the corridors.

  This time, Vanye thought, it was substance which came to them; it was substance which appeared in the shadows of the corridor which let into this hall.

  It was Skarrin himself who walked out into the light which was always available in such places, that power drawn of gate-force, come full in the room.

  "My lady of mysteries," Skarrin said, halted there in that entry. "Am I in truth welcome?"

  "Oh, indeed," Morgaine said in a still, hushed voice. "Good day to you, shadow-lord." She walked a few paces closer, and stopped, and Vanye stood with a shiver running through his limbs, a twitch that was the impulse to follow her, stay with her instantly; but that was a fool's move, to show hostility to this lord, and useless. He watched Morgaine stop and stand, hands on hips, head tilted cheerfully. "You are smaller than I thought."

  For the least instant he frowned, then laughed in offended surprise. "We are well-matched." His gaze swept the room. "And this, the company you ask me to keep. You—Man. Come here."

  Vanye's heart turned over. He measured the separation between him and Morgaine and between him and Skarrin with a nervous sweep of his eye, and used that small chance to bring himself even with Morgaine.

  "I take my lady's orders," he said as mildly as he could, while his heart beat in panic.

  "Defiance from a human?"

  "From me," Morgaine said, and walked a little forward, to stop again with hand on hip. "Not that I am discourteous, my lord, but I do not lend my servants; I will reckon you have your own, and I will trust there are loyal folk among them. Or has this kingship of yours gotten too old and the intrigues too many? Or have you ceased to care? My folk will serve you. Bring your own servants—I care not, only so they are strong enough to last the course and honest enough to guard our backs. Let us set the gate and quit this tedious place. Keep to my path a while. I shall at very least value your company—and your advice. I am, after all, youngest. You can teach me—very much. And I can teach you, lord of dusty Mante—that there are new things under new suns, I am sufficient guarantee of that."

  "You are arrogant."

  "So I am told." She walked two paces forward and stood wide-legged. "I am terminus. And perhaps I am inception. Time will prove that. My origin is very recent as you measure time. I have never existed until now."

  "As you dream—you have not existed."

  "I am Anjhurin s daughter, Anjhurin who claimed to have seen the calamity. Think of that, my lord. And my mother came down a thread he had never known, that one which leads to stars outside, my lord. By seizing that he hoped to widen his power. But causality doomed him. He used force. She despised him. So, my lord, did I. And I destroyed him."

  "You."

  "With a will, my lord. All of Anjhurin's causality rests in me. That is my weight in the web of time—the youngest and the oldest of us, in one, and I reach outside. In me, every causality meets."

  Skarrin backed a pace.

  She lifted her hand so naturally and so quickly the red fire had touched the lord before Vanye could both realize the weapon was in her hand and draw in his breath.

  "I cannot die—" Skarrin cried; as a second time the red light touched him, from Morgaine's hand, amid the forehead: he fell with a horrified expression.

  Die . . . die . . . die . . . the walls and the vaulted ceiling gave back. They echoed the heavy fall of Skarrin's body, and the nervous shifting of the horses.

  Vanye caught his breath, shaken in every bone, not believing it had been so sudden or so without warning.

  And knowing then by the dread in Morgaine's face as she turned that it was not over. It was far from over. It was wizardry they fought, whatever Morgaine n
amed it; wizardry that could knit bone and heal flesh and put blood back in veins—and his liege's face was pale and desperate. "Follow me!" she cried, and ran toward the dark of the corridor.

  Chapter 19

  Vanye ran, sword in hand, abandoning everything to Chei and his comrades—ran with a desperate burst of speed to close the gap between himself and Morgaine as she headed alone toward the corridor inward.

  He heard someone behind him then, and spun to a halt and saw Chei and the other two coming. "Watch the horses!" he shouted at them, not wanting them at his liege's back, not wanting the horses unguarded either.

  Then he raced after Morgaine, reaching the corner an instant after her—the corridor ahead filled at short range with a double rank of drawn bows and loosed arrows.

  He hit her from behind in utter panic—that quickly the arrows flew and he fell to the floor atop her, did not think, except they were both like to die here, did not know what he did, except that the enemy had to nock their next arrows and he was already rolling toward them, onto his feet and toward them with a Kurshin yell—"Haaaaaiiiiiiii—Haiii!"—hurtling for the flank of their double line with sword swinging even while they were thinking some of them to shoot him and some nearest him to parry him with bowstaves and daggers.

  The curved blade swept along the parry of a bowstaff and, skidding off it, came around into an unprotected arm and neck, and he laid about him left and right and round about without time to see where attack was coming from until it came within his circle, and then he killed it, with sword in his right hand and then Honor-blade in the left, for what came at him too close.

  A blade scored his armor at his back; he gained room with the Honor-blade, and followed with a sword-stroke. A bow whistled round toward his head; he ducked under it, stabbed under a rash fool's chin, as some fallen enemy groped after a hold about his knees, raking the heavy leather and braces of his breeches and boots with a dagger stroke. He sprang aside from that, used his bow-arm bracer to counter a descending blade on one hand, clove a man's face horribly in a slash to the right and brought the blade back to deal with the return stroke on the left.

  That enemy fell arrowshot through the neck, and he did not know where it had come from, except he saw the flash of red on a man's armor that meant Morgaine's weapon, and there were fewer and fewer enemies. He gasped for air and struck out, turning, sliding off a blade with his curved one to deal a man a blow that staggered him—hard effort then on the desperate one after, and on the parry he swept around to save his own skull. Steel rang on steel, bound and slipped as he made his sweep the faster, out of breath now, sight hazed and sweat streaming, on a carnage widening by the instant, red fire taking man after man. One man fled him; red flashed on his armor and he fell, screaming, on a heap of his comrades.

  Others tried to surrender. Fire cut them down as they were halfway to their knees, and fire swept the wounded on the ground. "Liyo!" Vanye cried in consternation—but it was done, there were none alive as he staggered clear of the bodies and hit the wall with his back, gasping after air and gazing in horror on the slaughter.

  Chei pulled his sword from a body and Hesiyyn and Rhanin stood back as Morgaine recovered herself, there at the edge of the carnage, the black weapon in her hand. She will kill them too, Vanye thought on the instant. There was no reason and no mercy on Morgaine's face.

  Then she caught her breath and ran for the undefended door, opened it with quick passes of her hand on the studs which marked its center.

  It gave back on hall and hall and hall brightly lighted, leading toward other doors.

  "Hold here!" she cried. "All of you, hold the doors! Vanye—stay with them! Do not count Skarrin dead!"

  She ran, before he could muster protest; and he thought then and knew he was guard of those who guarded them—to ward their retreat when it would surely be in haste.

  "One of you," he shouted at Chei, "get down to the end of the hall and guard the horses!"

  "Curse you, we are not your servants!"

  "Dead men have no precedence! We are all in this, and likely to be stranded if we have no horses!"

  "Rhanin!" Chei shouted, and Rhanin tucked his bow in hand and ran, vaulting dead men as he went.

  That was the only one of them presently with other than a sword and dagger. Vanye longed for his own good bow, which he had left with Arrhan, and took a dead man's in its place, gathered up a quiver of arrows and slung it to his shoulder.

  One arrow to the string, two others in his bow-hand. He tested the draw, and moved down to the intersection of the halls to set his shoulders against the wall where he had vantage of the right-hand corridor, while Chei took up a bow as well, and a quiver; and by the way he handled it, at least one part of him was no stranger to the weapon.

  Morgaine's footfalls had died away in distance, within the farthest doorway, and he pressed his shoulders against the wall and watched, arms both at ease and ready on the instant, if there were any movement down the lighted corridor.

  Such places he knew. There would be machines. There would be traps and such things as Morgaine dealt with better than ever he could in that room where she had gone, to deal with whatever Skarrin had done to the machines that controlled the gates. But he trembled as in winter cold, the reaction of muscles into which the bandages cut, and the fight which still had him drenched with sweat, and cooling now in the chill of Skarrin's keep. He blinked at the film on his eyes, shook his hair aside as it straggled into his face, his heart pounding in his chest with a kind of terror he had seldom felt in his life.

  Qhalur enemies, he knew. Chei and Hesiyyn across the corridor from him made him anxious, no more than that. But this—

  This man who knew the gates well enough to frighten Morgaine herself, whose mastery of them excelled hers—

  What manner of enemy could die that death and not die, struck through the skull and through the heart?

  Except there be witchcraft and sorcery which Morgaine denied existed.

  But I am skilled in both. What matter it invokes no devils? I have met devils left and right in her service, and slain no few, except this last, that says he cannot die—

  O Heaven, could we come so far and across so many years and fall to this, this creature, at the height of the sky, while so many men are surely going about their business in the town below, in all ignorance what passes here—if they are there—if the whole of that great city has not gone like the servants.

  God deliver us. I do not know what more to do than stand here and guard her back.

  Chei shivered, against the wall, looking toward that portion of hallway which was his to guard. Exhaustion ached in his knees and his gut and trembled in his hands. And the lady—

  The lady had not killed them. That much they knew of her. Nothing more, that the boy had believed of her. Nothing more, except she was perilous as ever Skarrin was—more than perilous: murderous and hellbent and—which she had said—more than a match for any gate-warden.

  Skarrin's match—that was very clear. Of Skarrin's disposition: that remained to be seen.

  Across the hall, Hesiyyn, warding the other direction; and at the opposite corner, Vanye; and the slow minutes passed, while something happened in that room down the hall—the master boards for the gates of all the world: that was what Morgaine Anjhuran had her hand to, who had defeated Skarrin—that was the fact which could hardly take hold in a shaken mind: Skarrin, who had ruled in Mante from time out of mind, Skarrin, ever-young and ruling through proxies, but cruel beyond measure when some rebellion came nigh him—

  Skarrin, around whom conspiracies and plots continually moved, like a play acted for his amusement—

  Gone—in a lightning-stroke, the simple act of a woman who had not come to parley at all.

  And at whose actions with the gate, in that room—sent the lights brightening and dimming as if all Neneinn were wounded.

  "What is she doing?" Chei asked furiously. "What does she think to do?"

  "What needs no hearers,"
Vanye returned shortly across span of the hall which divided them. "Trust her. If she wished you dead you would be dead with the rest."

  "I have no doubt," Hesiyyn said, and tightened a buckle of his armor—wan and exhausted, Hesiyyn, as all of them, shadow-eyed and dusty. He took up his sword again from between his knees. "But whatever she is, she has done fairly by us, and that hound Skarrin is dead or dead as fire can make him." He made a kind of salute with the blade. "There is all I need know."

  It was a desperate man, Hesiyyn who had no choices; and himself—himself with so much good and ill mixed in him of his varied lives that he could not see the world, either, in dark or light. And Nhi Vanye, who knew, with more confidence than either of them, where his loyalty belonged.

  It was irony, Chei thought, with pain in his heart, that he, Qhiverin, found more and more reason to like this man, while the boy—the youth forgave him, him, Gault-Qhiverin, because of old betrayals and loss of kin and things in which they fit together like blade and sheath—never mind that some of those griefs had been at Qhiverin's hand, Qhiverin's fault, in the bloody deeds incumbent on a warden of the warlike South—Qhiverin could find sympathy, Qhiverin could embrace and comfort Chei in his desolation. There was no more war between them, except the boy would not forgive, would not listen, would not reason—

  —for too much self-blame lay within it.

  Here is insanity, Chei thought in a heart-weary panic. Peace, boy, or we both go under.

  And the boy, who did not want to die: He will kill us if he can—finally, when we have done all they want, one or the other of them will kill us. Knowledge was all they ever wanted.

  Then they made a poor bargain, did they not? He wiped tears from his eyes. Boy, we will guard his back. You are a fool, is all—a great fool. And would you had never made him my enemy. Your brother would have had more sense. It was yourself coming up on the man's sword-side, it was Bron drove his horse between to shy you off. That is the truth I remember.