Exiles Gate

served. There had been some man before him. And she traveled light, and did always the sensible thing—no need ever fear that she would do something foolish.

He told himself that: he could do what he liked, cry out or remain silent, and have the qhal dice him up piecemeal, and it would do neither harm nor good. He had been on his own since she rode out of here, and would be, till the qhal dragged him as far as Mante and either killed him or, more likely, treated his wounds and kept him very gently till some qhal claimed him for his own use.

Or—it was an occasional thought, one he banished with furious insistence—she might have run straight into forces sent from Mante, and be pinned down and unable to come back—or worse; or very much worse. A harried mind conjured all sorts of nightmares, in the real and present one of the smell of smoke and the unpleasant, nervous laughter of men contemplating another man's slow destruction.

The darkness grew to dusk. The qhal finished their supper, and talked among themselves.

When Chei came to him, to stand over him in the shadows and ask him whether he had any inclination to do what they wanted.

'I will call out to her,' Vanye said, not saying what he would call out, once he should see her. 'Only I doubt she is here to listen. She is well on her way down the road, that is where she is.'

'I doubt that.' Chei dropped down to his heels, and took off the pyx that swung from its chain about his neck. 'Your property.'

He said nothing to that baiting.

'So you will call out to her,' Chei said. 'Do it now. Ask her to come to the edge of camp—only to talk with us.'

He looked at Chei. Of a sudden his breath seemed too little to do what Chei asked, the silence of the hills too great.

'Do it,' Chei urged him.

He shaped a cut lip as best he could and whistled, once and piercingly. 'Liyo!'

And with a thought not sudden, but one that had come to him in the long afternoon: 'Morgaine, Morgaine! For God's sake hear me! They want to talk with you!'

'That is not enough,' Chei said, and opened the box, so that a light shone up on his face from the gate-jewel there. The light glared; flesh crawled. Everything about it was excessive and twisted.

'You have only to feel that thing,' Vanye said, 'to know there is something wrong in the gate at Mante. Truth, man. I have felt others. I know when one is wrong.'

'You—know.'

'You have no right one to compare it against. It is wrong. It is pouring force out—' He lost his thought as Chei took the jewel in his fingers and laid it down again in the box, and set the open box on the ground beside him.

'So she will know where you are. Call to her again.'

'If she is there, she heard me.' He had hope of that small box and its stone. The light that made him visible in the twilight, made Chei a target, if Morgaine were there, if she could be sure enough whether the man kneeling by him was the one she wanted. She might be very accurate—unlike a bowman. Several men might be on their way to the ground before they knew they were under attack.

Or she might, instead, be far on her way to Mante.

'That is not enough,' Chei said, and called to the men at the fire in rising. 'You can,' he said then, looking down, 'give her far more reason.'

He was not going to put them off, then. He might shout, make a useless appeal: he spared himself that indignity and drew several quick, deep breaths before they got to him.

When the iron touched him he did not even try to hold it back.

It went on, and on. There was laughter. A human spat in his face, and some thought that amusing. Others, elegant qhal, simply watched.

She has gotten clear, he kept thinking, he insisted to think, like a litany, imagining gray horse, silver-haired rider, far and far across the hills. She is far too wise for them to catch.

And that is well. That is very well.

'O God—!'

Then: 'M'lord!' someone said sharply, and a hand gripped his hair and a knife pricked his throat.

Itis over, he thought.

But something pale appeared and drifted like a cloud in the dark across the stream. He blinked and haze cleared momentarily on a glimmer of silver hair in the dark, black figure in the starlight, the dragon sword, sheathed, set point down in front of her.

'Liyo, ' he cried from a raw throat. 'Archers!'

The knife pierced his skin; Chei struck it aside.

'We have a man of yours!' Chei shouted out.

'Liyo, they know—'

A blow smashed into his skull, jolting everything into dark, his sense of place, of whether he had warned her or only meant to—

'Do you want me or do you want to talk?' Morgaine's clear voice rang out of the dark.

Vanye slid his eyes to the open box, the gate-jewel. She could not draw, with that unshielded, without taking him as Bron had gone. He struggled against those who held him, only to bring his legs around, tears of pain running through the sweat on his face.

'Do you want your lover back?' Chei taunted her. 'Come in and bargain for him.'

Vanye gave a sudden heave, swung his left leg over and brought it down on the lid. The light went out. He was blind.

Then Changeling's light flared out, a bar of opal which grew to a white blaze, a shimmering into colors the eye did not want to see. Qhal who had faced that thing before scrambled to escape.

But Chei snatched the box and rolled to cover at Vanye's back, beside the tree.

'I have the stone in my hand,' Chei yelled. 'Come near my men and I uncover it!'

'Vanye?' her voice rang out. He saw her and all the brush and hill about her lit in Changeling's fire. He saw her hesitate, stopped still. But the winds still blew, howling and blowing the grass. No arrow could fly true in that.

'Liyo, he is telling the truth. Do what you have to. They will not keep me in any comfort.'

'In perfect comfort,' Chei called out, 'if you are reasonable.'

'What do you want?'

'Liyo, it is Chei!'

There was silence then, and he lay back against the tree, satisfied, then, he had gotten out what would tell her everything. It was all she needed know.

Perhaps there would be a miracle. He thought not. The only thing he hoped now was that she would not try further, understanding now there was no bargain to be made—not with Chei, who knew far too much about her intentions.

'Curse you for that,' Chei said at his shoulder, and surprised him into a painful laugh. It was altogether Chei's expression, plaintive and indignant.

'Let me free,' he said to Chei. 'It is the only bargain you can make. At the least you will have to keep me in better state than this.'

'We have him,' Chei shouted out into the dark. 'Come near us and he will suffer for it, all the way to Mante —he will wear that stone about his neck, lest you have notions otherwise!'

'Let me tell you, I will take your men one by one, and you will not kill him—you will not dare harm him, else your men die faster, my lord, you will see how fast. And you will not kill him, for your own life's sake, because he is the only thing keeping you alive. Lest you doubt me—'

A man cried out and fell, and Chei whirled half about and clenched his hand on Vanye's shoulder.

'Now what will you do?' Vanye taunted him.