Exiles Gate

'It would keep a dead man on his feet,' Hesiyyn said. 'It would not improve his judgment. And my lord says the truth: it would take a heavy toll.'

'Give it to me. To carry. Chei, give it to me and we are quit of a great deal.'

Chei gnawed at his lip—young Chei's face, a mature qhal's calculation as he rested with his arm on his knee and his eyes, by firelight, flickering with changes.

'You would take only a taste of it on your tongue,' he said. 'I will tell you the truth, man, if you use it in extremity—you will not survive it.'

He thought about that. He drew breaths against the ache in his ribs, and knew what his sword-arm or his archery was worth at the moment. He thought how far they had yet to go.

'You are not the man I would choose,' he said. 'But there is a great deal you could learn from my liege. There are more worlds than you know. If you knew more than you did, I think you might understand her more. You would know why she is right. More than I do. Give me this thing and do not tell her. The important thing is that we get there.'

Chei looked at him in profound disturbance. His fist clenched and unclenched, of the arm which supported his chin, and his brow was ridged and glistening with sweat. 'And you do what—lay this in her lap? Tell her then we tried to kill you?'

'We will have no quarrel, Chei. What do you want? That she stop somewhere further on—for my sake? That is what she is doing. Give it to me.'

Chei delved into his belongings, and gathered out a packet. 'One pellet. One. No more than that. Three and your heart would burst. I am putting it with your belongings. That is all I will do.' He busied himself and mixed something with water, and boiled it.

'What is this?' he asked, when Hesiyyn intended he drink it.

'I thought we were allies,' Hesiyyn said. 'Drink. This is for the fever.'

'Also,' Hesiyyn said when he had drunk it, 'it will make you sleep.'

The sun came up, and Morgaine still drowsed, he saw as he lifted his head, with Siptah's tether passed across her shoulder, with the sword in her lap, her back against a rock, and the small black weapon between her knees, in both her hands.

It was Chei whose eyes had shadows. It was Chei who offered him an overcooked porridge, with a hand that shook with exhaustion.

He took it. He forced it down. It came at too much cost to refuse.

Across the little distance, Siptah jerked his head up and snorted challenge to Rhanin's approach. Morgaine lifted her head abruptly, the weapon in her hand.

But it was a bowl Rhanin brought, offering it to her. Rhanin came no closer, and Morgaine got quickly to her feet, Changeling in one hand, the black weapon in the other, and stopped, staring not at Rhanin, but toward him.

He stared back at her, weak as he was, and got up on his arm, feeling the shock of cold air as the blanket fell.

For a long moment she said nothing. Then: 'How does thee fare this morning?'

'Much better,' he said. 'Much better, liyo.'

'I had not meant to fall so far asleep—'

He drew a breath, such as yesterday would have cost him pain. It amazed him it did not, overmuch. Only it would be very easy, just now, to weep, and he moved, suddenly, and shoved himself up with a sudden straightening of his arm so that a twinge took his mind off it. He was dizzy then. The whole world swung round.

She came to him and swept Changeling, sheathed and crosswise, in curt dismissal of the others, who drew back a few paces. Then she knelt and spared a glance for him.

'I think the porridge is safe,' he murmured, 'but I would not eat it.'

'Has thee?'

'Aye,' he said. 'It is truly wretched.'

She slid the black weapon into place at her belt, touched him with that hand, brushed the hair off his unshaven cheek. She looked tired, tired and mortally worried. 'We will ride at night,' she said.

'Liyo, we cannot wait!'

'Now how are we arguing? I take your advice and you will none of it. We are safe here for the moment. The horses are resting. We can make up the time.'

'We cannot make up two days. I can ride.' He sat upright and tucked his leg up; and she put her hand onto his knee.

'Thee will lie down, thee will rest, that is what. Thee will not undo everything.' She touched his ribs, where Hesiyyn had wound a tight bandage. 'Broken, does thee think?'

'No. Sore.' He drew a breath, testing it as he had tested it again and again: if he kept his back straight it was much better. 'I will manage.'

'Vanye.' Her hand sought his wrist and closed on it, hard. 'Do not give up. Hear me? I will tell thee a thing may comfort thee—'

She hesitated, then. That reticence did not seem to herald anything that should comfort him; and ice settled into his stomach. 'What?' he asked. 'What would you tell me, liyo?'

'Thee knows—how substance goes into a gate—It . . . disarranges itself . . and some similar arrangement comes together at the other side—'

'You have told me.' He did not like to talk of such things. He did not like to think of them oftener than he must—especially now, facing a gate which was not behaving as it should. He wished she would go straight to the point.

'Thee will find—thy hurts—will not trouble thee the other side. Thee will not carry the scars of this beyond it. Thee will mend.'

She could lie with such simplicity. Or with webs of truth. Except that it was something kept from him, that he would not like. In such things she would not meet his eyes. It was that simple.

'What are you saying?' he asked.

'I chose a time,' she said. 'I made a pattern, for thee as for me … a rested pattern, a whole pattern, a pattern without flaw. Within its limits—and it has them—it will always restore it. Every gate, on every world—will recognize thee, and always restore it—restore thee, as thee was, so far as it has substance to work with. There will be no scars. Nothing to remind thee.'

It made no sense for a moment. He put his hand to his ribs, wondering could it mend more than the surface.

Or what other things they had done to him.

'There will always be the weakness in the knee,' she said. 'That happened before the pattern was made. Would I had done it before that. But there was never the leisure it needed.'

'Shathan,' he said. 'Azeroth-gate.'

'Aye. There. The gates will abhor any deviation from that moment. They will restore that moment, so far as they can, always. The thoughts go on. The memories. But the body—will not change.'

'Will not change? Ever?' A sense of panic took him. He thought that he should be grateful. He thought that it was a kind of gift.

But it was Gate-given. And every Gate-magic was flawed—

'I shall grow older—'

'Never. Not in body.'

'O my God,' he murmured. For a moment the dizziness was back. Mortality was, reminding him with a sharp pain in his side and a twinge in the hip.

He had always had an image of himself, older, grown to his mature strength—had begun to see it, in breadth of shoulder, strength of arm. A man looked forward to such a thing.

It would never happen. His life was stopped. He thought of the dragon, frozen in snow, in mid-reach.

'My God, my God.' He crossed himself, gone cold, inside and out.

'Injuries will never take their toll of thee. Age—will have no power over thee. Thee will grow wiser. But thee