Shadow Gate

12

Keshad stood beside a stone pillar, staring nervously over the darkening vista. After days of hard traveling, they'd pushed through the rugged Soha Hills. Tonight they sheltered in ridgetop ruins that overlooked Sohayil, a wide basin with hills rising on all sides. The

valley floor blended into the darkness as daylight faded. 'Bai, if outriders from the army stumble onto us, they'll kill us.'

'Kesh, on all those caravan runs you made into the Sirniakan Empire when you were Master Feden's slave, were you as likely as this to jump at your own shadow? The approach to these ruins is narrow, along the ridge. No one is going to try to navigate that track at night without a light. If they come with a light, we'll see them. As for whatever folk live down in Sohayil, even if someone down there happened to see our light all this way up here, they'd most likely think the ruins are haunted. So we can rest easy for one night. Why don't you trust my judgment?'

He shuddered as he turned away from the view, clutching his bowl of gruel in his hands. Someone could crawl up that long steep slope, even at night, testing each handhold, moving slowly, using feel and the texture of the air to make his way. Someone who knew the hills well.

A single lamp illuminated the stone walls and dusty ground. The old beacon tower had collapsed untold years ago. Most likely, the folk in Sohayil had experienced relative peace for so long that no one had thought they needed to repair it. Just like in Candra Crossing, no one had thought an army would march through, devastating every village in its path. Maybe in the valley of Sohayil they still didn't know. An army marching down West Track could have entirely bypassed Sohayil.

A spire of rock, its sheer face impossible to climb, thrust up behind the ruined beacon tower. It had a flattened top, and if you looked at it from the right angle you might imagine those contours were the remains of an old wall, all the way up there where only someone with wings could reach. Probably it was an old Guardian altar, long since abandoned.

Was that a light – a lamp's flame – winking up there? No. It was only a trick of the light, catching in the angles of rock as the sun set behind them.

From the the tower's ruins, beside the campfire, she watched him. 'You've never told me.'

'Told you what?'

'Obviously since my debt was bought by Ushara's temple, I was apprenticed to the Merciless One. All those years we were slaves, I

never saw you more than once a year. You never told me where you served your apprentice year. Which of the gods you served.'

His stomach was aching, and his head hurt. He gulped down the last of the gruel, walked back to the fire, and took hold of the pot's handle. 'I'll scrub this clean.'

She grabbed his wrist and held it. 'I'm just curious.'

'Let me go.'

Her hold tugged on him, like a river's current dragging you in the direction you don't want to go. 'Are you telling me that Master Feden broke all custom and holy law, and did not let you go for your one year when you were fourteen or sixteen? He could be fined for that! Even children sold into debt slavery must be allowed to serve their apprentice year to one of the gods. Why didn't you complain?'

'Do you think any of the temples in Olossi would have listened to me? Master Feden rules the council. A word from him, and the tithes to the temples would have dried up like a dry-season channel in the delta. A word from him, and any merchant who tried to mention his lapse to one of the temples would have lost her license to trade and been ostracized in the bargain. You are so naive, Bai.'

She released him. 'Maybe so, but when I was in Olossi twenty days ago, Master Feden was in deep trouble. He's the one who made a dirty alliance with the northerners, the same people who burned villages and murdered innocent village folk just for whatever sick pleasure they took in the doing.'

'Don't forget I had to march with that army for an entire day.'

'The council in Olossi now knows what Master Feden did. We needn't fear Master Feden any longer.'

Having to remember the twelve long years he had served out his debt slavery to the man made him want to kick and punch and destroy some helpless object, breaking it down until it hung in splinters. Wasn't that the way his and Bai's life had been destroyed, when they'd been orphaned and their aunts and uncle had sold them on the block rather than raise them? The life they might have hoped to have had been smashed to pieces, and here they were, remade into people he no longer recognized.

She went on, a wolf gnawing at cracked bones. 'Once we reach a place we can stop, you have to apprentice to one of the gods. It's not

unheard of to come so late to your year of service. It's better than carrying around that prison bowl, where the southern god sucks in the souls of his worshippers.'

'You don't know anything about Beltak!'

'A Hundred man should not be praying to a god from the empire.'

'I only took up the bowl because it gave me an advantage in trade. That way I didn't have to pay the fines the empire men levy in the market on merchants who aren't believers.'

'I thought their priests burned anyone who didn't sacrifice to their god.'

'They do, but they have to accept merchants from other countries, at least in the market, or they'd have no trade, would they? But they can charge them extra, and forbid them to build temples of their own or to say prayers to other gods.'

Her lips, pressed together, made a tight line.

'I did what I had to! I got us free, didn't I?'

'You did,' she said as the line of her mouth softened. 'It's not too late. The gods will not abandon you. You only need stand before them. It's just… I can't look at you and easily see to which god your service is best suited. Kotaru the Thunderer? You're not obedient enough nor do you get into fights just for the fun of it. Ushara the Merciless One? You can't give up your very self to the heart of the goddess. Atiratu the Lady of Beasts? No, for hers is a caring and selfless heart, and you have trouble looking beyond your own troubles. Taru the Witherer? He who waxes and wanes? I think not, for you have remained constant all these years, and that's a fine thing, since we're both free now because of your efforts. Ilu the Envoy? You've traveled, but you're just not talkative enough. You're observant, but only when you're toting up things to your own advantage or disadvantage. Sapanasu, the Keeper of Days? It's true you're an excellent accountant, and you've made' good use of those skills in acquiring the coin to free us. But I just can't see you being willing to shave your head on the day you enter through that gate. You're too vain of your lovely hair.'

I le glared at her, thinking she was teasing him, but it was obvious she was perfectly serious. The hells! She was right, of course: Although she'd been glad to leave the temple, she was nevertheless

sworn to the goddess in her heart in a way he could not fathom. No doubt she considered herself a hierodule still, even if she no longer served at the temple of Ushara, the Devourer, the Merciless One.

'That leaves Hasibal, the Formless One. Eh!'

He jumped, spinning around to see if anything was sneaking up behind him, but there was nothing except shadows.

'You might have been walking Hasibal's path all along,' she continued, because the exclamation had been merely a grunt of consideration. 'Still, you know what they say.'

'Must you drone on with this annoying prattle? When you were little, you were so quiet. The temple ruined you.'

'Our souls are bound to the land through our service to the gods. At birth we enter one of the twelve years, which determines much of the character of our heart. With our naming, we are linked to one of the Four Mothers, which determines the texture of our mind. Without service to the gods, we are as a boat without an anchor: adrift in stormy seas.'

'I survived twelve years adrift. But I might expire if I have to hear any more of this. Can't we go to sleep now?'

'A difficult path to follow, but the deepest.'

'Sleeping?'

'Hasibal's path.'

'Won't you stop?'

'No!' Rising to face him, she seemed larger, brighter, fiercer, a wolf about to lunge. 'Don't mock the gods, Kesh. Don't turn your back on them. We are what the gods make us.'

'We are what we make ourselves!'

'How can you separate the two? You only think you can.'

'You don't know anything!'

Her weight shifted forward. Her shoulders stiffened. He thought she was ready to rip out his throat. She could kill him. He knew it. She knew it.

Then she smiled, and relaxed. Raising both hands, palms out, she nodded briefly. 'You must walk your own path, Kesh. That's truth. But there's another truth you don't want to hear and must hear: you must walk a path, or you'll always be lost and wandering, as in the wilderness.'

'Aui! Can't we-'

'Go to sleep? Yes. Scrub out that pot. I'll check on the horses.'

He scoured the pot with a handful of gravel, then rinsed out the grit with water from the cistern. Bai took the pot and hauled more water for the horses. He wrapped himself in a blanket, in a walled corner where he'd get shelter when it rained during the night, and closed his eyes.

But he was restless. Their argument had robbed him of the ability to sleep. The words of the evening prayer to Beltak, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, the Shining One Who Rules Alone, whispered in his head.

Rid us of all that is evil. Rid us of demons. Rid us of hate. Rid us of envy. Rid us of heretics and liars. Rid us of wolves and of armies stained with the blood of the pure. He touched the sacred bowl tucked against a hip. 'Teach me to hate darkness and battle evil. Teach me the Truth.'

Yet what is truth? Master Feden had prayed to the gods of the Hundred, and paid his tithes to the temples at the proper times and in the proper amounts. But he had cheated his own slaves by padding out their debts so they remained in perpetual servitude to him, never able to buy themselves free. He had made common cause with a mysterious commander out of the north, whose army included the worst kind of criminals and sick, twisted men. Feden had done all that to consolidate the power his faction already held in the council of Olossi.

Still, any Hundred-born-and-bred man must admit that the situation in the Sirniakan Empire was unpleasant, with lords and priests able to kill any man they wanted at their whim, with helpless folk born into slavery and never able to buy themselves free, with women trapped like animals behind high walls. When Kesh had hired a Sirniakan driver named Tebedir to cart his trade goods north from the empire on the very last trading journey Kesh had taken as a slave, Tebedir had made all kinds of awful remarks that struck Kesh's ears as offensive or cruel. And yet, Tebedir stuck by his oath to stay with Kesh even when they'd been attacked by bandits in the village of Dast Korumbos. He could have run, but he'd said himself that honor was more important than death.

So who was a better man, Feden or Tebedir?

'Peace. Peace. Peace,' he whispered. A wind soughed up from the basin. Rain pattered through the stones. But he was not soothed.

When bandits had attacked, threatening to rob him of the precious treasure that would buy his and Bai's freedom, he had prayed to Beltak, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Shining One Who Rules Alone. And after that, the black wolves -Captain Anji's troops – had ridden as out of nowhere to save their caravan from the ospreys who sought to pillage it. So maybe Beltak had answered his prayer. Or maybe it had just fallen out that way. Maybe he'd just been lucky that the right people had come along at the right time. Maybe it was only that Master Feden had abused his power and gone against the law because he wanted to enrich himself and squeeze the throats of others more than he wanted to do what was right in the eyes of the gods.

On Law Rock in Toskala, the laws governing the Hundred were carved in stone. When a person sells their body into servitude in payment for a debt, that person will serve eight years and in the ninth go free.

But laws mean nothing, not really. They only mean something if people agree they do, if people walk in obedience to the law, or are forced to comply. If your heart had turned away from the law, then your heart would not restrain you when you violated it. Long ago the Guardians had stood over the Hundred, to guard the law, while the reeves had enforced the law. But the Guardians vanished, and while some of the reeves were turning their back on their duty to enforce the law, the others were losing their power to do so even if they wanted.

So who was a reeve to talk of justice? Who was anyone to do so? Anyone could be lying. Anyone could be speaking words out of the right side of her mouth and acting opposite them with her left hand.

Aui! His Air-touched mind could not quiet. He must turn and turn things, flit from one thought or memory to the next. He must wonder what was happening in Olossi. He must wonder what would happen to Nasia, who had been his fellow slave and lover for four years even though he had abandoned her the day he'd returned. He must wonder what would happen to the treasure he had obtained far to the south through simple good luck. He had

handed off the ghost girl without a second's regret, trading her freedom and her life in exchange for Zubaidit's freedom.

He must wonder about the envoy of Ilu he had met on his last journey over the Kandaran Pass. That amiable man had conversed cheerfully with him, had laughed kindly at him: 'Goats are inconstant and unstable, prone to change their thinking, especially if they're Air-touched and liable to think too much. Still, they can survive anything!'

Kesh suspected now that the envoy had been looking for the ghost girl with the demon-blue eyes. It should no longer matter. The envoy was dead, murdered in the bandit attack, yet his face and voice haunted Keshad. How was it that you might meet a person and spend only a day with them, and yet have them imprinted so deeply on your heart and your mind that they could never be forgotten?

The rain eased. The wind stilled. He slipped into a state drifting between a waking dream and a restless doze.

He woke abruptly, but he wasn't sure what had broken his sleep. Listening, he heard nothing except the whisper of wind through the stones and the irregular drip of water onto stone. Some night animal had been out on the prowl and wandered away, that was all. Yet the night's unease had returned, and along with it the memory of that last trip over the mountains out of the south. The envoy of Ilu was dead. He hadn't even known the man's name, but he could still remember vividly the look of his face and sound of his voice and the effortless way the man had negotiated the twisting paths of life.

After the twilight rains washed through, the waters of the wide Olo'o Sea calmed to become a mirror in whose depths burned those few stars visible between tattered clouds. The moisture soaking into the earth woke a sweet scent that permeated the air. Long ago, an unknown hand had planted a stand of thorn trees in a crude semicircle, with the open side facing the inland sea. A traveler's shelter, four poles and a low thatch roof, was tucked away within that protecting fence. A man uncovered the fire pit and blew on its coals until flame rose along fresh wood. By its light, he sat back on his heels and busied himself with raking stray embers into the center,

where he'd built a frame of kindling. Light flared as the embers caught in the wood.

He was a slender man of mature years, no longer young and not yet elderly, and dressed in the gaudy manner of an envoy of Ilu: baggy pantaloons as dark as plums, a knee-length tunic woven of a cloth as pale as butter, and a voluminous cloak that in daylight would be seen to be the same color as the cloudless sky, a pure, heavenly blue.

He hummed softly, hoping the sound of this wordless melody, like the rains upon the parched earth, would soften the girl's hard shell.

She said nothing. Silence, like night, is a cloak that conceals.

She was young, no longer a girl and yet not entirely a woman, and startlingly, disturbingly, horribly pale with a ghostly complexion and hair colorless as straw. She seemed to be staring at the ground, not even lifting her gaze to the lovely dance of fire. So be it. He was patient.

He tended the fire. Waves slapped the tumble of rocks in the shallows before hissing back into the sea. She sat on a large rock that some thoughtful soul had rolled into place untold years ago, a homely act to benefit strangers from whom the builder could never hope to gain thanks, or profit.

'It is hard to know whether we will meet with brutality or kindness in the world,' he mused aloud. The fire popped. A spark dazzled, spinning into the air, then flicked out. 'Or indifference. I traced the tracks of your passage to the temple of the Merciless One by Olossi, and there indeed I did find you. I admit you were not what I expected. I thought you would speak your name and know at least something of where you came from. That's usually how we awaken. But, in truth, how is life ever what we expect? We are constantly surprised. I suppose it is those who wish never to be surprised who cause most of the trouble. I wonder…'

She did not rise to the bait. He rose, returned to the shelter, and picked up one of the torches that a passing traveler had bound and left for those who would come after. A small courtesy, one of many in the fabric that weaves society together. He thrust the knotted end into fire. Flames licked up the torch to reveal their surroundings more clearly: The outline of thorn trees was softened with white

flowers folded against the night. The grass in the clearing was cropped short. A red flag was tucked into a corner of shelter, one flap loose, and bound by a rope that could be used to tie it atop the roof as a signal to any passing reeve if travelers found themselves in trouble.

He walked toward the shore but halted where the last thorn tree held its ground. A treasure was caught in the branches. Using his free hand, he eased it free, then walked back to the fire holding a huge feather mottled brown and white. The feather was as long as his arm but so light it was like holding air in his hand.

'A tail feather. See how the quill runs right down the center. You'll learn to know the shape of any given type of feather, whether it is a tail feather, or the leading edge of the wing, or the rear edge, or a contour feather grown close to the bone…'

Even the precious eagle's feather did not attract her attention. She stared as into a void.

He sighed. In the days since he'd found her, he had not touched her in any manner, fearing that even a reassuring pat might be interpreted as violence. It was so hard to tell with this young thing, caught as she was in the whirlpool of awakening and trapped as well in a deeper stream whose currents he could not fathom. Some other trap was strangling her voice. She must emerge of her own will, by her own choosing, in her own time.

Yet leisure was the one thing they did not have. Now that he -and she – were back in the Hundred, those who wished to destroy them would seek them out swiftly and without mercy. Days and months and years they had in plenty, given what they had become, and yet a measure in which to pause and breathe, they had not at all.

'We can't stay here long,' he said.

Mindful that the molt feathers of the giant eagles were sacred to the gods, he anchored the feather within the bristling hedge of thorn trees. The gods must watch over that which they deemed sacred. Another traveler would come, and find it, or no one would.

He stood beside the shelter with the torch still blazing, his gaze turned toward the dark sea. He mused aloud, as had become his habit over the years. He was not a man who liked to be alone, but he had learned to endure solitude when he must and enjoy company

when he could. Anyway, he supposed that the sound of his voice, kept low, might soothe her.

'After so many years and such an arduous journey, I expected further trials of a very different sort.' He chuckled. 'So I am paid in my own coin, being given what I had hoped to avoid. Yet it did seem to me that you recognized something, that there was a spark of knowledge, a moment of trust, when we first came face-to-face in the temple of the Devourer. You gave me a question, and a decision. You asked me, "Who are you?" You told me, "I will come with you." And here you are, and here I am.' He smiled, amused by his own consternation. 'Aui! Now it seems you cannot speak, or will not speak. I love conversation above all things. Shelter over my head, a dram of cordial, a well-laid table, and a few cheerful companions with whom to pass the evening! I like to think of myself as a man who makes few demands, and is easy to please, and content with little enough, but I see the gods have chosen to test me in the manner meant to make it hardest for me. So it goes.'

Her torso expanded and contracted as she took in and released breath, that was all.

'I remember my own awakening – a long time ago now, to be sure! It took the patient coaxing of a pair of cloaks – like you and me – to instruct me. Twilight was one. Strange that I can't now recall the other. Yet there is more to your silence, for it's not the usual way – not that there's anything wrong with it, mind you! What brought you here? Where did you come from? How – why -did the cloak of mist reach to you? What is your name? I have a name, too, although no person has called me by name for a very long time. I was born in the Year of the Blue Rat, which is what makes me what I am. We Rats are known for being acquisitive, but Blue Rats don't grasp after money but rather after company and conversation and secrets. Then I was dedicated to Ilu, the Herald, because I was always restless, seeking, wandering. And named by my mother in the honor of the Water Mother, whose fluid nature thereby enhances those other qualities. It's a wonder I can keep silence at all! Nothing like you. I suppose we're well matched in that way. I talk, and you – heya! – maybe you listen and maybe you're hearing some other voice entirely, one I can never hear. Maybe you're tired of voices.'

The wind has a voice, light and airy, full of promise, but sometimes cruel and rough. So does the rain have a voice, arid the waters of the sea lapping the shore with their constant motion, never entirely quiet, able to choke and drown those the sea swallows. Fire has a voice, first crackling and impatient and later fading into a soft burn that may spark again when least expected. The earth's voice seems to slumber, but she, too, speaks in her slow, measured way and she may crack when none expect her temper.

Even demons and ghosts can speak, if one has the ears to hear.

She raised her head.

He smiled gently, to encourage her.

She was looking beyond him. He turned. The two horses had wandered back into view. They differed from ordinary horses in several ways, two of which were obvious now: they possessed uncanny night vision, and they had wings, at this moment folded tightly over their backs and flanks. She rose, walked past him, and went to the horses.

She didn't approach too quickly but held back, waiting for them to invite her. They let her know they'd allow her to approach. She stroked their ears and noses. She had a treat for each, shriveled pieces of fruit he'd not seen her hide in her sleeves.

He must coax her as one would a skittish, abused, anxious horse. Her scars ran deep, certainly, but she hadn't run away from him. Or maybe it was just that she hadn't run away from the horses. He must be patient. He had time in plenty, after all, as long as their enemies did not catch up to them before he had won her trust and taught her the terrible truth about what she had become.