Beyond the Gate

Chapter 22

By dawn the companions were on the road again, and Tallea felt … decent for the first time in three days. She was able to sit with little pain, and in fact could feel herself mending, and to her it seemed miraculous. As a Caldurian, she tended to heal fast anyway, but the Immortal’s blood had worked wonders on her wounds.

More importantly, the support that these people had given her was working wonders on her spirit. A year earlier, when Ceravanne’s other self had come to Babel, Tallea had hired on with her band, had led them into the wilderness of Moree, and there she lost them to the Tekkar. At the time Ceravanne had not announced herself as the Swallow. Indeed, Tallea had only thought her to be a beautiful woman, traveling as a companion to the valiant swordsmen who sought to destroy the Inhuman.

But one night, when they had neared Moree, the Tekkar ambushed their small band. Many good men died before their swords cleared their scabbards. Tallea herself had been sorely wounded and left among the dead. And Ceravanne, beautiful Ceravanne had been carried away into Moree where the Tekkar would do unspeakable things to her.

For a year Tallea had been serving on ships, waiting for a new band to make its way into Moree. And this time, she vowed, they would slay the Inhuman. For a year she had suffered alone on the ships, refusing to bind herself to anyone. It was an untenable situation for a Caldurian, and only her training, her devotion to the ways of the Roamers, had helped her survive.

Yet now, as they rode in the oversized wagon through a gray dawn, she could not help but feel concerned. It seemed that some cosmic balance was being maintained. Minute by minute, her pains decreased, and she blossomed to greater health.

Minute by minute, Gallen was crumbling, falling in on himself like an old house toppling under its own weight.

He hadn’t slept all night, and during the morning he just sat, huddled in the driver’s seat of the wagon, his mouth slack as he stared into nothingness. The travelbeast was guiding the wagon more than Gallen was.

Orick whispered to Maggie about it. “There is a horror on Gallen’s face that I’ve never seen before. Gallen has always been a feisty lad-nothing like this.”

And so the travelbeast ran on, its head rising and falling as it drew the wagon along the bank of a winding muddy river. Ceravanne took control of the wagon for a while, and Maggie took Gallen and cradled his head against her breast tenderly, and he stared out the back of the wagon, at the trees falling behind.

Gallen muttered, “Eighteen … eighteen. My defenses are crumbling.”

Maggie said that her own mantle whispered insistently that it was doing all it could to block the Inhuman’s transmissions. And when Maggie asked Gallen to tell her about this latest life he had lived, he said nothing for many minutes.

“God, I wish I were home,” Maggie whispered in his ear. “I wish we both were home, that we’d never come. This trip is changing us, destroying you.”

“So the journey changes us,” Gallen said wearily, surprising Tallea by responding at all. “You can’t walk from your house without your hairs growing whiter. You can’t walk down to the gate without taking a risk. And from the death of the old, the new is born.”

“This isn’t a walk to the gate,” Maggie said. “Ever since you went to the teaching machines on Fale, you’ve lost some of yourself, some of your accent. Now, you hardly sound as if you’re from Tihrglas at all.”

Gallen said no more for a long time, and Ceravanne, who was sitting up front, exchanged worried glances with Maggie.

One of the rear wheels began squeaking a bit, and Tallea climbed up, ignoring the stabbing pains in her side, got the swabbing rod out of the grease, and daubed each wheel.

No one spoke for a long time. They passed through several small villages in the space of a few hours, and Fenorah stopped at the largest to grain the travelbeast and to purchase salt, food, leather for shoes, and a number of small items that they had not had a chance to carry.

All during that stop, Gallen went and stood leaning against a hitching post, and the townsfolk took great pains to avoid him. Even a pair of yellow dogs that were running together crossed to the far side of the street.

As Fenorah began loading the wagon in preparation to leave, he glanced at Gallen and mumbled, “Only twenty demons in him, and he’s ready to crumble. If an apple spoiled in our food barrel, would we not throw it out?”

“What you saying?” Tallea asked.

Fenorah nodded toward Gallen. “I’m worried. He’s a danger to us now-perhaps more dangerous than he knows. If we left him, I do not think he’d notice.”

And Tallea realized that Fenorah truly was entertaining thoughts of leaving Gallen behind. Sometimes, it seemed that people who were not of the Caldur were so unaware of how the tenuous threads of friendship could bind people together, lend them support. To her, those feelings were almost a visible thing, they were so strongly felt.

“Now he needs us most,” she said, struggling into a more comfortable position. “Servants of Inhuman want you reject him, so he turn to them for companionship.”

Orick pricked his ears forward and stood still for a moment. “You’re right!” Orick shouted in a voice that echoed from the buildings, and he got up from the bed of the wagon and stood clumsily with his two front feet on the backboard. “This is no time to turn our backs on him.”

He jumped from the wagon, ran to Gallen’s side, and stood, wrapping his paws around Gallen’s shoulders. By applying his weight, he pushed Gallen to the ground. “I’ve had enough from you!” Orick said, putting one great paw on Gallen’s chest. “You spirits, I adjure you to come out of this man, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen!”

Gallen grunted, gave half a laugh, and his eyes suddenly cleared, as if he’d wakened. “Orick, I wish it were that simple!”

“Och, well, it was worth a try,” Orick growled, looking from side to side as if for another answer. “Look, Gallen, my friend, you remember your Bible: and if Satan can appear as an angel, then it’s no great feat for the dronon to disguise themselves as our friends. But I tell you, Gallen, even if you had a head made of straw and a belly full of whiskey, I’d expect you to know better! ‘When the dronon came to Clere, they didn’t pass out bags of gold and welcome us to paradise. They chewed off John Mahoney’s head, and shot Father Heany, turning our priest into a puddle. And on Fale, they didn’t come ask Maggie if she’d like to be their slave. They put a Guide on her and dragged her off-me fighting them tooth and claw. You know better than to trust a word they say!”

“Get off me,” Gallen choked, “I can’t breathe!”

“I’ll not get off you until you start making sense!” Orick growled, and he put both front paws on Gallen and bounced his weight on him experimentally, as if to prove the point. “I don’t care whose memories are rolling around in your head, Gallen. Your own memories are in there, too. You’ve got to take control of yourself!”

Gallen stared up at Orick, and there was a bleakness to his countenance, a look of utter desolation, and then a smile crossed his face, and he began laughing. It was not a happy laugh, though it held a tone of relief. “Well said, my dearest friend. I hereby take control of myself.”

“Good,” Orick grumbled, “‘cause I’d hate to have to crush you.” He backed off Gallen’s chest, sniffed the air. Then reached down and nipped at Gallen’s mask, pulling it halfway off. “And take off that ugly mask.”

Gallen crumpled the blue mask, put it in a pocket of his robes. Then he rolled over, began climbing to his knees. Orick bit the collar of his robe and began dragging him forward playfully, growling, “Come on, into the wagon with you.” By now, a dozen locals began gathering to watch the spectacle, creeping out of shops, openly asking one another what was going on, and for their benefit Orick said loudly, “We’ll have no more public displays of drunkenness, young man!”

Orick climbed up to the wagon, and in moments they were off.

Gallen looked to be himself, smiling around at his friends, and he put his arms around Orick gratefully, and for the moment, Tallea knew that they had him back.

When they passed out of town, beneath the shade of chestnut trees that lined the road, Gallen looked up at Ceravanne. “You told me once that you could help me fight this. I need your help.”

Ceravanne, who had been sitting up front to drive, turned back around, pulled the reins and brought the travelbeast to a halt, then set the brake. “Lean your head into Maggie’s lap, and stare into her face.”

Gallen lay back, so that his long golden hair spread about Maggie’s lap, and he gazed up into Maggie’s face. Ceravanne climbed down beside them, and the back of the wagon bed was suddenly crowded, but Tallea herself did not mind the close bodies. It reminded her of her childhood in the crèche at Wind Mountain, sleeping with her sisters among the pile of blankets in their dormitory.

“Maggie is the woman you love,” Ceravanne said softly, and only the gentle hiss of the wind through the trees competed with her voice. “You have loved her since you were children, and you gave your heart to her long ago. Look into her eyes and concentrate, try to recall every detail of her face, and remember that she is the one you have chosen to give yourself to.…” She hesitated, and Gallen stared into Maggie’s face, his mouth working as he silently spoke to himself. Cool clouds were scudding overhead, and the wind played delicately in Maggie’s hair. Ceravanne’s voice was fragile, dreamy. “Maggie is the one you’ve loved forever. Tell this to yourself, over and over. A hundred times is not enough. A thousand times is just the beginning. A hundred thousand times, you must repeat this, though it take the next year of your life.”

Gallen stared up at Maggie for a long time, and she held his face. The sun shone through the clouds on him, and Tallea could see on his nose the pale remnants of freckles that might have been more pronounced in childhood. He had a strong jaw, and clear blue eyes, and for a few moments, all the pain and worry seemed to leach away. Maggie was holding Gallen’s chin, stroking it, and he was gazing up into Maggie’s eyes. So Gallen did not notice when Ceravanne reached down and brushed his lips with the back of her forefinger.

Tallea had heard much about how the touch of a Tharrin could calm a person. Indeed, Gallen licked the back of Ceravanne’s finger, sensually, kissed it, thinking it was Maggie’s caress.

Then Ceravanne pulled her finger away gently, took Maggie’s hand and moved her forefinger into the same position, and he kissed it. Suddenly his eyes became clear, focused, and he stared at Maggie, unblinking, for several moments, then fell asleep.

He rested for a long time in Maggie’s lap, and Maggie said, “What did you do to him? Put him to sleep?”

Ceravanne shook her head. “No. He has hardly slept in three days. I think that we just eased his mind enough so that fatigue finally took him.”

“But what did you do?”

Ceravanne said softly to Maggie, “Every woman’s touch can have a power over man, but a Tharrin’s touch is very strong. There are … agents, pheromones in my skin that he craves, that can cause him to bond to me. I exude them at all times, but I do so more when I am afraid. It’s a defense mechanism that your ancestors gave me. He tasted those pheromones, but it was your face he was watching. He will be more strongly bonded to you now.”

“I envy you that power,” Maggie whispered.

Ceravanne shrugged. “Don’t envy me. I think that it is a power that causes as much harm as good. It has saved me at times, but it ill serves the men who throw their lives away in my defense. I envy you his love, for it is you that he loves above all others.” She watched Gallen sleep for a bit, and whispered, “He will hunger for your presence as never before, and you must stay close to him. Still, the draw of the Inhuman is strong. He may need more treatments before this is over.”

She climbed out of the wagon bed, got back up front into the driver’s seat again, and eased the wagon out slowly.

“I’m glad he’s resting,” Orick said, watching Gallen. “I know that if Gallen were thinking straight, he’d never doubt us.” Orick was lying on his stomach, resting his nose under his paws, watching Gallen thoughtfully with his sad brown eyes, like some great dog studying its injured master. The sight of it warmed Tallea’s heart, for she valued faithfulness above all traits, and instinctively she knew that Orick would never betray Gallen or be unsteady. Orick looked right at Tallea and said softly, “Thank you for reminding me how to be his friend.”

The way that they were sitting, his rump was near her hand, and she patted his rear paw. In response, he began licking her ankle with his broad tongue, and she found this show of affection … curiously sensual.

For a moment she looked around at these strange companions-to strong Fenorah up ahead of the wagon, running in his rolling, lumbering gait; Ceravanne at the wagon’s reins; Maggie and Gallen, resting together with eyes closed; while faithful Orick lay at Tallea’s feet.

It seemed remarkable to her how these people had a way of weaving themselves into her heart, with a song, a sigh, a touch.

Tallea’s Caldurian instincts were having their way with her. Perhaps it was only because she had denied bonding with someone for so long. Perhaps she would have chosen to serve these people anyway. But she felt a sharp need to protect them.

The wagon left the wide valley and began heading up a long road again, into some lonely hills where the trees grew thick and wild. It was a likely place to find Derrits or Sprees, or some other wild animal.

Tallea pulled her sword from its scabbard, a blade heavy near the guard for parrying, and deceptively long and thin, for thrusting. The sunlight gleamed on its edges, and the blade was in high condition, but over the past few days Tallea hadn’t felt well enough to take proper care of it. It had been nicked and blunted in the battle at sea, and she’d managed only a cursory cleaning the day before.

So as the wagon rolled ever closer to Moree, she took her stone from its pouch tied at her back, and began grinding out the nicks, honing the blade to razor sharpness, buffing off the rust, and she considered. If they were going to Moree, she’d need a bow and some arrows.

The travelbeast was running steadily through the brisk air, over the rolling hills. At the rate they were moving, they’d reach High Home by nightfall. She hoped to buy some weapons there.

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