The Limbreth Gate

TWENTY

Rebeke stood by the Limbreth Gate. A dark wind keened loudly through the streets, bearing a burden of dry dust to confound the eyes and ears of any folk who might be abroad this night. Rebeke herself wore a new robe, of the darkest blue the dyer could produce, one shade short of black; its midnight blended against the shadowed wall. Beside her another stood, draped in black, awaiting her summons.

Rebeke closed her eyes and her sensitive fingers traced the crack that was all that remained of the Gate. It was all darkness within, no more to the casual glance than any of the faults slowly developing in the ancient walls. Rebeke dropped her hands to her sides. Within her mind she quested subtly, reaching with the powers of a now extinct race; and within the recesses of her transmuted brain, a knowledge less a memory than an instinct stirred. Again, she felt the edges of the Gate, but this exploration had nothing to do with physical touch. She could see it, this odd twist in the web of the worlds that brought two places so far apart into a strange conjunction. Even more complex were the processes that had opened a Gate between them; it bordered on making the unreal into reality. Rebeke quivered at the sight of such deep magic, and trembled again, with foreboding, when she saw on what a flimsy knowledge it was based. The Limbreths made this as children might dig a tunnel into a sand bank, seeing only how easily the digging went, and not how ominous the collapse might be.

She balked at the thought of opening the Gate again; but it was too late. With her or without her, the Limbreths would do it. Yoleth had given them a hunger, and they would sate it. The Gatekeeper, immune to such knowledge as Rebeke possessed, had already begun. She felt the Limbreths reaching through his mind to clasp thoughts with her, and then the flood of the Limbreths entering them both. To resist them now, to cry out of danger, would only be to make the collapse certain. Instead she bowed her will to theirs, and let them tap her strength. She sensed their pleasure as they reached into her and found a well of determination such as they had encountered nowhere else. At first it was all she could do to hold herself open to their demands, but gradually she was able to see the direction their labors took. Slowly she eased a measure of control back to herself; she sensed their outrage but ignored it. Deftly she began to twist and spin, even as they did, but with a difference. She followed them, shoring up what they had undercut, strengthening where their deep delving had weakened. But even so, even with her added insight, the Gate was a flimsy thing, little more than a wish in the night. Vandien's passage had done more damage than the Limbreths appreciated; Rebeke sensed the skewed pressures he had brought with him, and the crookedness of their mending patch. Yet it was atop this very patch that they had to open the Gate anew. Let it hold, she begged the moon, for one night more; and for no more than that!

It came, with a glimmer, and then a warm glow of red, opening and stretching the night to make a place for itself. Wider and taller it went, and the Limbreths were more satisfied with it than she was. She stood, eyes closed, muscles singing with tension, but fearful when they were ready. Could they not see; could they not feel the fragility of this thing? A Gate did they call this gap? More like to a pinprick in a bladder. But they were finished, and their gatekeeper was stepping within, using his presence to maintain the gap between the worlds. A brave soul, Rebeke thought with admiration. Then, no; she saw an ignorant, expendable bit of the Limbreth, and almost pitied him.

'The Gate is open!' Pride glittered in the voice of the new Keeper. Its squat head swiveled as if it could truly see. 'Where are those who would use the Gate? Let them step forward.'

'I am Rebeke of the Windsingers,' Rebeke began in a gravely formal voice.

'That is known, that is known!' the other cut in sharply. 'My Masters have told me all; and we await you. Have you brought what you have promised?'

'I have brought no one. The one that comes, comes of his own will. Your master will have to call whatever other one he chose.' For a moment the Keeper bowed its head, seeming to listen. 'Yes, that is right. That is as agreed. It is not as it is usually done, nor as they first trained me. But they are the Masters; the Limbreths do I serve, in whatever fashion they say. So we are ready.'

'Are the ones I bargained for ready as well?' Rebeke pressed.

'They approach even now. They have been brought to you with some difficulty, and my Masters would have you appreciate that. Far easier it would have been to destroy them. At first they sought to do violence against my Masters' folk. But they have been shown the light and might of my Masters, and brought to their knees. They shall come as they are bid, and we have made them anxious to use the Gate. All will go as you desire.'

'Might I see them?' It was a polite nothing. Even as she asked, Rebeke sent her Windsinger senses questing through the Gate. Almost immediately she touched Ki's aura, a shape familiar to her and yet subtly changed. She hoped it was but the distortion of the Gate. She tapped Ki's senses, and became aware first of Vandien and then of some other creature, no doubt the 'demented Brurjan' the Limbreths had told her of. She wondered what they would do with it, and then dismissed such speculation as childish. She would not waste her time trying to understand a Limbreth. She drew back into herself and became aware of the Keeper telling her, with polite regrets, that he could not show them to her until the moment when they entered the Gate. She stifled her impatience. She would have Ki and Vandien soon enough. 'Then let us begin. The night of my world wears on, and it were best if we were finished before dawn.'

'Agreed. Bring forward the one, and we shall summon the other.'

Rebeke's heart skipped. She thought she had hardened herself to this moment; nay, she thought she had convinced herself that it was the greatest good for all involved. Her throat constricted and she could not voice the word that would bring her offering forward. She stepped into the shadows and with a touch made her will known.

He stepped lightly out. She looked on his dreaming features beneath the blue Windsinger bond twisted about his brow and cursed whatever demon had inspired her to dress him so. The short black cape was in the style he had always favored, the shirt of pale silken grey, open at the throat to expose his pulse beating warmly. The shirt was the same shade as his eyes, so tranquil and unfocused under her bonding. His face was unlined; he looked for all the world like a boy on the turn of manhood, unroused from a sleep of sweet dreams. She reached to remove her bonding.

'My Masters say that they can take him through the Gate like that. He may give less trouble that way.'

'No!' Rebeke's voice broke harshly. 'No, he goes in knowing what he faces, and who sent him to it.' The Keeper is blind, a small voice within her whispered, and it might be the last kiss you would ever wish to bestow. But she did not. With a twist of her wrist, she slipped her bond from his mind, but left intact the sky rune, wrought in silver and pinned to his cloak, that kept his body's will tied to hers.

'Rebeke?' Dresh glanced about with wondering eyes, but adapted quickly. 'A fine night for a stroll through old Jojorum. I'd take your arm, if I could move mine.'

'The last night we shall share, Dresh. Yet I would have you know, I do not act with malice. I could never be without fear of you, if I set you free. Yet keeping you in a well like a book on a shelf demeans us both, and me not the least.' A smile twitched his lips. 'But why do you bond me? You gave the decision to me. At least I shall exist. That is true?' He addressed this query to the Keeper.

'My Masters have given their word that it shall be so, and they do not lie,' the Keeper intoned ponderously. 'They touch this one, and find him all that they desired. He is acceptable for the exchange.'

'But ...'

'Hush,' Rebeke told him, not harshly, and a touch of her will stilled his lips. She looked away from his face, refusing to meet his eyes again.

The Keeper crouched in the center of the Gate. Rebeke could feel the power whistling through him like wind through a cracked door. He was the channel for it as it flowed through the Gate, and went seeking, seeking, until it found the crystal that could focus it and make it irresistible. The command was as acute as a scream in the night. Rebeke's honed senses winced from it and she was glad it was not addressed to her.

Its target was far away. All waited in silence. Rebeke tried for amusement to pierce the Gate with her own eyes, but with no success. Her other senses confirmed that Ki and Vandien were on the other side, nearer than they had been and hastening toward her. She tried to take comfort in the thought, and to forget the silenced wizard beside her.

She came on a wind from outside the realm of night, traveling from her hall to this Gate by the paths and steeds that only a Windmistress could command. Rebeke's honed senses felt her first as a breeze and then as an anger hanging in the moving air, poorly masking a frantic struggle.

The beast, invisible to untrained eyes, dropped her in the street. Her cowl was awry and her features stiff with hate. Yoleth of the Windsingers did not come with a good will. She was not taken sleeping or drunk or in the madness of grief. But she came. She came by the strength of the calling gem that clung to the skin of her hand and made demands in a stony voice. She advanced, stiff-legged, to the Gate. It was justice, Rebeke told herself. Yoleth's frantic resistance took all her will but availed her nothing, and terror silenced her.

'Are you pleased with the gift your skills wrung from the Limbreths?' Rebeke asked her in a voice as flinty as the gem. 'Come to the place you have prepared for yourself

With a light touch to Dresh's shoulder, Rebeke moved him to her side. They stood like a bridal couple in some blasphemous ceremony. She stroked the soft hair back from Dresh's eyes, and this time she did not resist her impulse. She set her scaled lips cooly to Dresh's smooth cheek in a farewell kiss. She wondered who, if anyone, it comforted. She freed his voice.

His grey eyes met and clung to hers. 'Come with me.' His voice was soft, untinged by any of his skills. 'In that world, perhaps we could be what we once were.'

'There is no world in which we could be together and be at peace. Neither of us was made for that. But I wish you well.' She turned away from him. 'We are ready now,' she told the Keeper.

'As are we. Let them enter.'

A touch of Rebeke's hand and a spur from the gem set them in motion. At the last possible moment, herhand darted out to rip the rune from his cloak. For an instant he struggled, but the pull of the Gate was already upon him, and slowly he entered. 'Upon the other side, you shall feel the touch of my will no longer,' Rebeke said, knowing her words could not carry into the Gate.

She peered into the rosy haze of the Gate, and stiffened as the Brurjan loomed suddenly into view.

The rain had never paused. Although the Limbreths might be willing to show them the Gate, they did not seem to wish their journey to be short or pleasant. They had come out of the last shred of forest into a deeply grassed meadow, and Hollyika had cursed in the savage Brurjan tongue at the sight of a Gate that seemed no more than a red crack in the night. But as they rode toward it, the crack had widened and assumed regular outlines, an arched red portico that beckoned in the night. Hollyika had reined in before it, and given a tug on the lead rope that brought Sigurd up beside her black. Vandien rode up beside Ki. He glanced across at her. Her face was unreadable, the red light giving it a glow that would have seemed wholesome, had not her face been worn to bones.

Vandien stared into the Gate, at the Keeper like and yet unlike the one he had overpowered to come through. His back was to them and Vandien wondered to whom he spoke. The Gate at last, as they had so long sought it, and in his heart there was no joy, for it was parting time. He drew his knife to cut the bonds on Ki's wrists.

'Leave that be!' Hollyika hissed.

'You gave your word,' Vandien reminded her. He did not know enough of Brurjan expressions to read the look on her face.

'What is a word given to one you have not shared hot blood with?' Hollyika whispered imperturbably. 'Bite your wagging tongue, and be ready to do all exactly as I say, or your Romni friend pays for you.'

Ki turned to him, and their eyes met. They pleaded, but her lips were dumb, and he did not know what she asked of him. He bowed his head, turning his eyes away from her. The Keeper had put his attention upon them.

'We're coming through,' Hollyika announced before he could speak.

'Yes. Yes,' the Keeper agreed. 'You and the man. All has been prepared, all will balance. Be ready to come forward when I give the signal.' His eyes flickered over Ki with casual interest. 'You may take the animal she bestrides as well. My Masters have no use for it.'

'Neither do we,' Hollyika asserted. The loop of lead rope fell from her hand to the wet ground. Vandien caught his breath. Ki sat still as stone.

'Then enter now,' the Keeper bade them, and turned his sightless head toward the other side. 'As are we,' he answered to some unheard comment. 'Let them enter.'

Hollyika cried out in Brurjan to her horse, and Black sprang forward as if stabbed. The lead rope loop, so showily dropped, jerked tight, and Vandien saw the loose end of it knotted to the pommel of Hollyika's saddle. Sigurd screamed at the rude jerk, but surged forward all the same. Sigmund could ignore Vandien's frantic blows, but not his team mate going without him. He too pushed into the Gate. It met them like a rising tide. Vandien was stifled by the pressure of it. The horses struggled like trapped cattle in a mire. Black was furious, his bit foaming pink, his angry hooves seeking targets. The thick atmosphere frustrated him, changing his killing blows to floundering. Dimly Vandien was aware of a Windsinger going down before him, and rolling, to begin a slow crawl to the Limbreth side of the Gate. Her face was twisted in despair, and he had a half instant in which to wonder what drove her on. A dark-cloaked man with a hauntingly familiar face slipped nimbly through the midst of the scuffle, moving toward the Limbreth side without reluctance. Ki sat astride the plunging Sigurd as if she were glued to him, and Vandien saw the nudge of her knee that pushed him into the gap Hollyika had cleared.

Hollyika had seized the hapless Keeper, who wriggled like a rabbit in her grip. 'I'll balance your damn Gate for you!' she roared in a voice made sodden by the heavy air. With one arm she jerked him from his feet and held him aloft. Impending disaster howled in Vandien's mind. Sigmund beneath him sensed it as well, and with a shouldering shove that pushed his brother through the Gate, he plunged out as if he were coming out of a flooded river fording. But Vandien was not quite clear of the Gate when he felt the red air within it grow suddenly thin. He had a brief image of the Keeper flung back to the Limbreth side, tumbling through the air, to suddenly wink out of the Gate. For a second he heard Hollyika's roar of laughter and saw the flash of her grin.

Then agony crushed her. Blood started from her ears and nose, and the black horse screamed like a woman. The Gate was falling, collapsing in a ruin that was both more and less than stone. The very blackness of the night fell in on itself, making a darkness that no light could pierce. Hollyika's aggressive determination alone was not enough to hold the Gate in existence; but it was barely enough to drive Black on, to spring nearly clear of it before he sank to the ground. Rocks the size of clenched fists rained down upon them. A choking dust of ancient stone filled the air; Vandien couldn't see Ki. He sprang from Sigmund and gripped Hollyika, but even the strength of terror was not enough to drag her free. A rock between the shoulders flattened him onto her and he became her unintentional shield against the debris that followed. For a small eternity the wall fell, and then a silence as heavy covered them with mercy.

'Did they get through?' A voice as loud as a roaring wind was in Vandien's ear and shaking his shoulder as well. He rolled to face it, and then recoiled from the inhuman visage so close to his own. He had seen those blue and white eyes before; the memory didn't reassure him. He opened his lips to speak but coughed rock dust instead.

'Did they get through?' The voice persisted, but Ki's voice, calm as a summer's day, was the one to answer. 'I caught a glimpse of them on the other side, before she threw the Keeper at them. They were clear, and Dresh was farther from the collapse than we were.'

Vandien rolled over slowly. Rebeke straightened up from shaking him, and gave him enough space to come to his feet. Ki just looked at him, without a touch or word, but her sunken eyes were full of regrets.

'So they're through. And the Gate can never be reopened. I suppose I am relieved.' Rebeke's words seemed almost Human; uncertainty gave the tuned instrument of a Windsingers voice a mortal tone this night.

Ki stepped forward, and Vandien watched her eyes roving over the fallen masonry. A whole section of the wall had gone down, exposing a flat expanse of yellow plain, with a few straggly trees. The pile of rubble did not seem enough to account for such a gap.

Belatedly, he recalled Hollyika. The horse was groaning, but she was still. To his surprise he found Rebeke helping him to drag her from the saddle. Relieved of her weight, Black made an attempt to stand. It was pitiable to watch, but he finally levered himself upright, his head drooping down until his nosenearly touched the street. He trembled and sweat began to stain the black coat; but he seemed, miraculously, unhurt.

'Is she alive?' Vandien asked Rebeke as the Windsinger stooped over Hollyika.

'You ask that question about a Brurjan?' Was that a trace of humor in the trained voice? 'They're nearly as hard to kill as Romni. She's stunned, and her hearing will never be the same. But she will live to let you know she feels no debt toward you.'

'I'll never understand why she did it. What did she gain by bringing Ki through?' He stopped at the strange look Rebeke gave him. 'They weren't going to let Ki through, you know. That was their bargain with us. That we could pass the Gate if we left Ki behind.'

'Was it? A great one for bargains, the Limbreths. I hope they think this one has been shrewd, for it is the last one they will make with this world.'

'What was your role in this?' Ki asked suddenly in a flat voice.

'One that need not concern you, for I had no wishes for your well-being. You were a pawn in someone else's gambit, as usual.' The words were slighting, but they held one another's eyes. Rebeke moved toward Ki, to free her still bound wrists.

Hollyika's eyes slid open. With a roar she clapped her hands over her ears and rocked back and forth. Rebeke glanced about the streets. Dawn was not far away; the less evidence left, the better.

'Bring her horse,' she told Vandien sharply. With a strength he found incredible, the slender Windsinger pulled the Brurjan to her feet and began to walk her away.