The Limbreth Gate

TEN

'Mother!' Chess shook Jace's shoulder. The woman came awake more slowly than the boy. Her maturity and stoicism helped her to substitute sleep for food. She had lain down at the coming of the light and slept deeply, although it was not a refreshing sleep. Chess had no such patience. He had tossed restlessly in the dirty smelly hovel, creeping often to the door crack, until the air flowed in cool and moist and he smelled the night. His belly had kept him awake all day; now it bade him seek food.

'Mother!' He shook her again. 'It's gone again. It's safe for us to go out.'

Jace sat up slowly and looked at Chess sadly. 'There's no hurry, child. We have all the dark before us, and only one errand: to check the Gate. I have no hopes that tonight will be any different. Vandien won't force his way in, and we shan't force our way out. It is time for us to talk, Chess; the time is upon us for setting aside of false hopes, and the accepting of what is.

'I'm thirsty,' Chess interrupted. 'And hungry. I wish we hadn't let the horse go.'

'Aren't you listening?' Jace demanded sharply. 'Chess, we have no more food. And if the horse were still with us, I should still give it back its freedom. Hunger and thirst do not change right and wrong.'

'Wrong and right do not change hunger and thirst, either,' Chess grumbled softly to himself. 'I'm listening, Mother. You are saying it is time for us to give up and die.'

Jace sighed. 'Must you put it so? Why be angry about what we have been given? Sometimes the fruit is sweet, and sometimes it is sour. It is always fruit, and we eat it. So it is with the days we are given. Some are sweet, and some are not. If the last of our days are not as sweet as some have been, they are, none the less, the days that are given to ...' 'Words! Words, words, words! You cover up our life with words, and our deaths too! Mother, I am thirsty! Those are words, too. Don't you hear them?'

But Jace didn't hear. She caught hold of Chess abruptly, pulling his face close to her own and sniffing at him. 'You have a foulness to your speech and a foulness to your breath as well!' Suspicion lit Jace's eyes, but she couldn't bring herself to voice it.

'I ate it!' Chess's voice was fiercely defiant. 'When my belly wouldn't let me sleep, my nose found it. And I ate it. It gagged me and it made me thirst, but it gave me enough in my stomach to let me sleep. And why not? Vandien ate of it, and he is not the only one I have seen. At the tavern I saw men and women eat plates full of it, steaming and hot and running with juices.'

'Ah! Ah! Ah!' The hoarse gasps frightened Chess; then her grip loosened, and for the first time in his life, Chess felt his mother push him harshly away. Shock made his knees go weak and he fell to the dirt floor. Drawing in his knees, he stared up in sudden terror at the amazing spectacle of his mother towering over him in rage.

'How could you?' she demanded. Tears streaked her dusty face, but rage gave her control of herself. Her voice was steady and hard as stone. 'You have eaten the flesh of another creature. What will you do next? Will you kill? Will you? but it is beyond me to imagine what one such as you will do! You are incomprehensible to me! No one could hunger enough to justify what you have done, not even one whose bones were pushing out through the flesh. That fish was a creature as alive as we, it knew the joys of leaping up a stream, of feeling the cold water to enjoy the water. It possessed a moving life, no less sacred than your own, and it ...'

'Happily gobbled up other living moving things to sate its hunger!' Chess pushed up from the floor. He faced his mother, standing as tall as his nine years would let him, fired with an anger as great as hers.

' It is not sentient!' hissed Jace.

Chess glared at her, having no reply. He whirled suddenly. A bash of his shoulder flung open the rattly door and he fled into the night. 'Chess!' Jace wailed after him, but his steps did not even pause. He was angry and hurt and ashamed, his child's mind filled to bursting with conflicting thoughts and feelings. He had eaten the body of a fellow creature; his mother valued the life of a fish over his; his mother could never forgive him for the atrocious thing he had done; his mother would rather see him starve than let him eat a fish that was dead anyway. The salt and fish taste filled his mouth as he ran panting. He found himself at the public well.

He flung himself at the water, to drink and pant, and drink again. But the taste of his sin wouldn't go away. Long after his thirst was slaked, he drank the lukewarm water, drank until he felt it slosh inside him. But still the taste of the salt fish filled his mouth like an obscenity. He rose and walked heavily away.

He scarcely noticed where his steps took him. He could not go back to the coop; in his mind he saw the door closed and held against him. He would not risk confronting the unbearable reality of such a thing. Unconsciously, his steps strayed toward the homey sound of folk talking and laughing.

The harsh glare of torches stained the darkness. He found himself at the edges of the market square. Huddling in the soft shadow of a wall, he peered out at the folk that laughed and talked so loudly. His water-heavy stomach muttered sadly at the sight of fresh melons piled in heaps. Sweetness flavored the air as the farmer split one open to display its juiciness. Another farmer paused to speak to the melon merchant; his donkey shifted restlessly at the delay. Its panniers were heavy with a soft orange-fuzzedfruit that Chess didn't know, but the warm aroma tantalized his nostrils. He hunkered down in the shadows, holding his belly tightly.

A woman's sudden shriek of laughter spooked the donkey. A toss of his long-eared head and a hitch of his rump were all it took to send half a dozen of the ripe fruit tumbling from the overladen panniers. The farmer swore bitterly and with a jerk led the beast on to its own stall in the market. Chess remained crouching in the darkness, staring at the half-squashed fruit in the dust. The man did not want it, and no others seemed interested. He darted out of the shadows to snatch them up. Like a mouse with a crumb he fled back to the wall's shelter with his loot.

The juice ran stickily over his chin and his teeth grated on the rough pit. He ate eagerly, ignoring the dust and grit that adhered to the squashed side. Two and then three he devoured before he felt his hunger ease. Three remained in his lap, and belatedly he thought of his mother. Conflicting emotions still stormed in him, but love decided him, love as much a habit as a feeling. He would risk his mother's wrath to share with her this bit of fruit, warm and sweet as a memory of their soft dark world. He rose with the fruit jumbled in his hands and slipped out into the street.

'Ho!' came the shout just as a heavy bootshod foot came down on his small bare one. With a cry of pain Chess dropped his fruit and hopped out of the way. But a heavy hand settled on his shoulder and gripped it before he could slip away into darkness. He smelled the sourness of wine and stared up in terror into a heavy grizzled face. Large brown eyes measured him shrewdly, but softened suddenly.

'Did I break your foot, little man?' the stranger asked, and the kindness in his voice was unmistakable. Chess could only shake his head, wordless. He stooped to retrieve his twice-bruised fruit, but a swipe of a large hand knocked it back into the dust. 'No, little one, it's all spoilt now. But don't think old Mickle will send you home to face a scolding and a slap. I stepped on your foot and spoiled the fruit. So I'll be the one to put it to rights. So!'

The heavy hand on his shoulder turned him about. Mickle leaned heavily on him and propelled him through the market to the stall of the fruit merchant. Chess was speechless with fright. He had no inkling of what the man intended, and could only think of his mother alone in the dismal hut, and the rising of the terrible sun that must come eventually. If the drunk's hand had not been so tight on his shoulder, he would have squirmed away and vanished into the darkness, to seek his mother again, no matter what scolding and disdain he might find. But Mickle's grip was tight.

'A dozen of your plumpest!' he told the merchant loftily in a drink-furred voice. 'Hold out your basket, boy!' When Chess just stared at him helplessly, Mickle leaned down and squinted at his empty hands. 'So that's the trouble of it! No basket to hold out. No wonder you spilled the fruit, darlin'. Hold on to those peaches, farmer. We'll be back.'

The next few hours passed in a sort of delightful horror for Chess. Mickle purchased a basket, large enough to hold a dozen peaches and to spare. The room in the basket seemed to trouble him, so that he added a melon and two crusty loaves of warm bread. And then a bit of cloth, to cover it over and keep the dust from the fruit and the warmth in the bread. And a pair of sandals for the boy, so that the next time his feet were trod upon, they would have some protection. And then a brush, to smooth the wildness of his hair. When it was smoothed, so neat a head of hair deserved a hat, and a feather or two to make it perky. But then the tunic was too ragged for such a fine head, so Mickle must have a blue cloak to cover over the ragged brown garment. From stall to stall he wandered with him, with many a genial belch and lurch. His hand was ever on Chess's shoulder. Mickle carried the heavy basket; Chess's hands were curled defensively against his thin chest under the soft blue cloak. Mickle bought him gooey sweets that the vendor passed over to him in a curled leaf cup. After Chess had eaten one, he found his tongue and courage to ask, 'Why are you so kind to me?'

'What else should I be to a puppy like you? Eat your sweets, boy.'

'I must be going home soon,' Chess whispered, half afraid that this strange man would keep him against his will.

But Mickle only stirred as if awakened, and with a glance at the night sky, agreed that he certainly must. With a gaspy belch, he looked about in sudden puzzlement. 'Which way is home?' he demanded of Chess.

Chess's heart thudded to stillness, and then went away at a gallop. Mickle's hand possessed his shoulder. His buried memories of the innmaster broke upon his mind like fresh welts. But looking into Mickle's drink-softened features, he saw no lust or secrecy, only the mild confusion of drink. After an instant of hesitation, Chess turned them from the market and toward the Gate. A certain craftiness, new to him, rose up as he asked, 'Shan't I carry the basket? You've carried it all evening and it must be getting heavy.' Shame flushed his cheeks, so trustingly did Mickle hand it over to him, but the darkness hid his blushes. For now they were beyond the reach of the market's torches, moving down the quiet wall street that led past the Gate. For Chess must visit the Gate, as he had every night since Vandien had left them; he still hoped Vandien would find a way to open the Gate for them.

'Down Dark Street we go?' Mickle asked questioningly. 'So folk are calling it now, did you know? There's a leak in the wall that lets in the dark and the cool, day and night, though none can say from where; even by day it's grey here, and night brings blackness. But there is a marvelous coolness and freshness to the air. Some folk have moved away, saying the darkness is demon's work, but as many have moved in, saying the coolness and freshness is a blessing from gods we have forgotten.'

Chess nodded, scarcely noting his words. He waited for some unevenness in the cobbles, some stumble to loosen the grip upon his shoulder. Then he would be gone. Adrenaline hastened his breath; his leg muscles felt rubbery with readiness.

When Mickle did stumble, his grip only went tighter on Chess. Chess's heart sank into his roiling stomach. How long was it until light and heat? The Gate loomed up on their left before Chess expected it. But, no, it was not a Gate anymore; no red glow lit it. The sweet coolness of the air increased, and Chess smelled the flowers of his home; but the Gate was now only a rent in the solid wall of the city, exactly as if the stones had torn like scraps of weathered cloth. No Keeper stood within it and the tear was too narrow to admit or release anyone.

Chess drew closer to it, unmindful of Mickle's hand on his shoulder. Rags of darkness fluttered from the edges of the rent, coolly insubstantial to his reaching hand, but the night flowed out of the rent, thick and strong as gushing water. He forced his hand into it, feeling his skin tingle in gratitude for its fresh moisture. He leaned forward, pushing. Past his elbow, up to his shoulder. He had forgotten Mickle and the basket now. He turned his slender body sideways and tried to slip into the crack. His chest and buttocks rasped against stones, he butted his head against rough rocky edges. He would not fit.

'It's too small!' he wailed, drawing away from it. 'No one can get through that! We can never go home!'

'Hum?' Mickle's questioning noise suddenly recalled him to mind. The grip that still rested on his shoulder was the clenching fist of this hateful hot place. Chess whirled on him, his small teeth bared in a sudden grimace of hatred. 'Why won't you let me go?' he screeched. 'Why are you keeping me here?' His anger forsook him and his strength went with it. He sank sobbing to the hard cobbles of the street, feeling the wind of his home wash over him without comfort. Even the tears he shed in this place were hot salty things that left stiff tracks down his face and stung his chapped lips. He huddled himself into a little ball, rocking. He had no home, his mother hated him, nothing was right, and he couldn't understand why any of it had happened.

Mickle knelt awkwardly beside him. He patted him clumsily with huge rough hands. 'There, lad. There. It happens to all of us, sooner or later. It's sooner for you, that's the shame of it. Just when you need to go home the most, you find that you can't. Well, I won't claim to understand it. So you came from the other side, is that it? I've heard tales of folk that did, not loudly told, but I've heard. Home. Well, there are homes and there are homes. I won't say that mine is much of one, but it's all we've got tonight.' With a grunt, Mickle raised him in his arms. The basket dangled from one of his hairy wrists. He wrapped the new cloak clumsily about the boy. Chess found he had neither the strength nor the will to struggle away. He dropped his head against Mickle's shoulder, smelling his beery breath and sweat.

'Don't let the sun shine on me,' he whispered. 'I won't,' Mickle promised solemnly. So thin this boy, and so scared. What, he wondered, would the Windsinger be wanting him for? And where was the other one?

Jace could call no more. Her dry throat was rasped raw, but her mind still whispered. 'Chess, Chess.'

No sooner had Chess disappeared from sight than Jace's anger had vanished, too. Her heart was heavy, her belly cold as she sat down on the step of the hovel to await his return. Anger was a rare emotion for Jace, and she was not accustomed to apologizing for words said in its heat, especially not to Chess. But now she groped, trying to think what she would say when Chess returned. But he did not return. Ashamedly, and then with rising fear, Jace had called him. She had made her way back to the tavern where he had worked, thinking perhaps he would return there for shelter and food after she rejected him. Sly peerings at the door and window cracks had discovered no Chess, and when she made bold enough to tap at a kitchen door and ask if the boy was there, the innmaster had flung foul words and a bowl of slops at her. She had fled, and then began a fruitless combing of the dark streets and alleys, calling Chess softly but with urgency. Twice she had visited the Gate, or the crack that was left of it. No Chess. The herb stall woman had not seen him. She did not know where else to look.

Jace turned her steps back to the hovel, pausing one last time at the Gate and again at the public well. But there was no trace of him. Dawn began to stain the sky and Jace hastened for shelter, promising herself that Chess would be there, that he would have returned and be wondering where she was. The early morning light tickled and then stung her skin. Her eyes began to water in its grey glare, her breath to come in gasps. Then the hovel in the alley was before her, and she flung herself in the open door, crying 'Chess?' But she found only dust motes dancing in the horrid bitter light. Jace wedged the door shut and huddled trembling and alone in the dark.