Exiles Gate

It was too difficult to hold on. The dark grew too deep, a place unto itself, tangled and mazed. He wanted to come back. He wanted to stay awake to listen to her.

He dreamed of dark, like that between the Gates.

He dreamed of dark, in which she walked away, and he could not so much as tell where she had gone.

Chei rested his head in his hands, weary with his own aches, with the foolishness that would not let the woman see reason.

Will not leave him, the inner voice said, and it echoed a night in Arunden's camp, a doorway—embarrassed youth, rebuffed and dismayed and made lonely all at once, in a child's way; Pyverrn, seeking exile—riding into Morund on a wretched, shaggy horse—Ho, hello, old friend — Court grew deadly dull without you. . . .

Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, grimaced with the confusion of images.

'My lord,' Rhanin said.

He looked up to see the lady walking toward them—with further delay, he reckoned. She looked distraught, her eyes shadowed and her face showing exhaustion.

She had to sleep. There would come a time she had to sleep. Then there was a reckoning, with the weapons in his hands, and the lady brought to see reason once for all.

He was not prepared to see her hand lift, and the black weapon in it, aimed straight at him. His heart froze in him: death, he thought. Our death, only so a crazed woman dares sleep —

'My lord Gault,' she said quietly, 'Qhiverin. Chei. I have a proposition for you.'

'My lady?' he asked, carefully.

'I am going to rest. You will tend him, you will do everything you can for him, you will make him fit to ride, my lord; and if he is not better by morning, I will kill you all. If he cries out—once —I will shoot one of you at random. Do you have any doubt of that, my lord?'

'He will not be fit to ride—the man is fevered—he is out of his head—'

'Do you doubt my word, my lord? Do you want an earnest of my intentions?'

'She is mad,' Hesiyyn exclaimed.

Chei gathered himself hastily to his feet. 'Up,' he said, dragging at Hesiyyn, at Rhanin. And cast an anxious glance at Morgaine, whose weapon stayed centered on him, whose eyes were, as Hesiyyn said—mad and beyond all reason. 

Chapter Sixteen

Vanye. Vanye,' Morgaine's voice called him gently.

'Aye, liyo.' He opened his eyes, trying to bring her face out of the dusk. He could not, quite.

'Vanye, will you trust me?'

'Aye, liyo.'

'I am going to go over there and rest, the night. Listen to me. I have not the strength to take care of thee—' Her fingers brushed his cheek. Her voice shook. 'Chei will help thee, he will do everything he can for thee—he has agreed, at peril of his life. Does thee understand, Vanye? I do not want thee waking and not knowing where I am. And if he hurts thee I will shoot him. And if thee does not mend I will shoot him. And he knows it.'

He blinked at her. When she took that tone it was her intention beyond a doubt, even if it made no sense at all.

'Thee understands?'

'Aye,' he said.

The dark swallowed him up a time, and there was movement about him—firelit faces between him and the night sky.

One was Chei's.

He forgot, then, where he was.

'Ah,' he cried, and tried desperately to fight them.

'Be still,' Chei said, and put his hand over his mouth. 'Be still, man. Vanye. Vanye—listen to me.'

He recalled then, some insanity that Morgaine was with him. Or would come. He could not remember which.

'Look.' Chei lifted his head, carefully, gently, and showed him a strange sight: showed him Siptah, and at Siptah's feet a stump, or some object, and Morgaine sitting with her hands between her knees. He was afraid, until he saw Changeling across her lap

'You are safe,' Chei said. 'You are quite safe with us.'

'She has promised to shoot one of us.' Hesiyyn gently unfastened a buckle at his side as Chei let his head back. 'I have no doubt which one of us. My lord Chei is necessary, Rhanin wins everyone, and I am told I make enemies. I pray you know I shall be careful.'

He blinked dazedly. He recalled some such thing, mad as it was, and lay still, until they needed to work the mail shirt off. But that they did gently, easing his arms as they worked it free.

It was all one with the dark, the fever, the nightmare that began to become ease of pain. They put warm compresses on his hurts, renewing them constantly; they put hot cloths over him, soaked in herbals; they made him drink something complex and musky, and breathe something that gave his throat ease. He became comfortable, finally.

And slept till Chei roused him and made him drink something else.

'No more,' he said.

'Drink this,' Chei said fiercely. 'Damn you, drink; we will not die for your convenience.'

He heard the harshness of panic in that voice. He recalled a nightmare, wherein Morgaine had asked him bear with everything.

He struggled onto his arm, dislodging compresses, to see was she safe and his memory true.

She was there. Changeling was still with her. Siptah stood close by her. Her head had fallen forward, her pale hair touched with fire-glow and starlight.

'Drink,' Rhanin said.

He trusted them then, and drank, with a clearer head than he had had. He shivered, and the bruises hurt less. They renewed the compresses out of a pan of hot water, and smothered him in blankets.

Only his chest hurt sharply, where ribs might be cracked. But that, he thought, was bearable, if he were not so drained and weak. The burns hurt far less; the other injuries that had near taken his mind with pain, were so much relieved he seemed to drift in enervated numbness.

The qhal whispered among themselves, urgently, debating something they might give him. Or how much they might give him, to put him on his feet. One said no, there was risk. Another objected he had to ride, and could not else: he would never last in the saddle. And that was Chei and Hesiyyn.

He lay and thought about that. He tested his breathing, how much it hurt; he moved his right leg, to test whether it hurt as it had, and looked at the two who argued.

'Is there something,' he asked faintly, in a lull, 'will let me ride today?'

He shocked them, perhaps. There was a moment's utter hush.

'Yes,' Chei said. 'There is something that will. But the end of it is worse than the first. Best you do without it. You will ride. That is what she asked. That is what she will have. We have kept our end of the bargain.'

'Do you drink it,' he asked, the faintest of whispers, 'or swallow it?'

'Not, I say.'

'Chei—tell me what it will do.'

'It will kill you, that is what it will do. And no.'