Exiles Gate

Arrhan needed the same. Vanye saw to it, hung his bow from Arrhan's saddlehorn and let out first Arrhan's girth and then the straps of his own body-armor, that were tight to the point of misery; but the bandages and the padding he could not reach, and he drew a breath and strained at them, trying to stretch against what would bind his draw and his sword arm.

Even in blackest sorcery, he thought, gathering his gear about him, there were cursedly maddening shortcomings.

Morgaine flung the stirrup down and gathered up Siptah's reins, looking back toward Chei and the rest. 'I will warn you,' she said. 'You may be safer here. Death—may be safer than where we go. Choose for yourselves.'

Chei looked astonished. It was young Chei's expression. The frown which followed was Gault's. Or Qhiverin's. 'You jest, lady.'

'No,' she said. 'I do not.' And led Siptah among the tall stones, toward the open gateway.

Vanye led Arrhan after her, the blaze-faced bay following perforce, with lagging, wearied steps.

The others came behind him, then, a clatter of iron-shod hooves on stone.

He had as lief not have them at his back. He recollected the medicine Chei had given him, and what it had done to him when at last he had had to rely on it—

—Chei had warned him, he recollected. To do justice to the man, Chei had warned him clearly.

Chei had given it to him after that warning, of course—in hope, perhaps, of not having him between them and Morgaine—in any sense. And if he had used it before that, Heaven knew what would have been the outcome.

He kept constantly between Morgaine and the qhal, now, on the winding track among the stones, pale gold of standing stones and of pavings and masonry—and of more sunlit paving visible through the gateway.

Another trap, he thought.

But the gateway opened out into yet another such courtyard, this one with a single standing stone in its center … a flat, paved courtyard, the end of which a building closed, jumbled planes of wall and tower, and at the sides—

A sheer drop: and buildings upon buildings, upon buildings and buildings, pale gold stone, red roofs, as far as the eye could see.

He stopped in his tracks and stared—only stared, senses confounded, when he was mountain-born and used to heights and perspectives.

But not to men and the works of men so vast they spread like a blanket about the hill and across the plain— to the verge of the cliffs that dropped away into the circular abyss of Neisyrrn Neith, and along and away till the roofs lost themselves in haze and distance.

Morgaine had stopped. So had the others.

'Mante,' Chei said softly. So a man might speak of Heaven and Hell in one.

The others said nothing at all.

And Vanye could not forbear looking at it, though he tangled his fingers in Arrhan's coarse mane and feared irrationally that the sight might drive the horses mad, and bring them too near the edge, however far away they stood.

Morgaine led Siptah further. It was the sound of the gray's steps that woke him from trance, and brought him after her, resolutely, as she walked toward the open doorway at the end of the courtyard.

The others followed, at distance.

This door—had little sunlight about it. This one let into the very heart of the fortress, by a long narrow aisle, shadowed by columns.

They had seen such before, of many kinds. Such buildings were always near the World-gates. They held the machines to command and direct the forces.

It was what they had come to find; and Morgaine would go in. He had no doubt of it. He saw her lay her hand on the sword-hilt.

'Liyo. ' He searched after the chain of the stone he wore about his neck, drew it from his collar and over his head as he led Arrhan quickly to overtake her. It was a weak thing—stronger by far than the Warden's mote or many another sending-stone in this land, he suspected, but not Changeling's match. It was useless to him, a means to sudden death, if he matched it against anything of Changeling's power.

Or against the gate Hesiyyn swore must lie close hereabouts.

'He knows you have a gate-weapon,' he said. 'Take it. It is larger than the ones they use. It may be he will mistake this for it.'

She understood him then. And refused it with a shake of her head. 'The sword,' she said in his language. 'I cannot wield both. And no—he will not.'

'The sword is too dangerous,' he whispered hoarsely, and started at a movement in the corner of his vision, in the deep shadow within the narrow aisle ahead—a qhalur man, alone, nor very old.

Some high servant, he thought, the while his heart skipped a beat and his hand went for his sword-hilt; and then he thought otherwise, seeing the eldritch figure drifted, mirage-like, and was only an image.

It spoke. It spoke words he could not understand, but he knew, whatever they were, that they were not meant for him, or for Chei, or any of them other than Morgaine. He heard Morgaine answer in that tongue, and saw the man's figure grow dimmer as it retreated down that aisle.

She walked forward.

Vanye caught at her arm, the barest touch, before she reached that threshold. She looked at him. That was all; and she turned and hit Siptah a resounding blow on the rump.

The Baien gray sprang through the door, hooves echoing on stone, off high walls, and stopped inside, unscathed.

She went, then, through the doorway, in a single step and a second one which cleared a path for him to follow. He did so, in a motion so quick he did not think of it: he was there, Arrhan was behind him, and he whipped the arrhendur blade from its sheath, for what it was worth against this illusion and the more substantial things it might call down on them.

A question then, from the man of light and shadow. The voice echoed about them, rang off the walls of this long, narrow passage.

'He does not understand you,' Morgaine said.

'He is human,' the image said then. 'I have read everything—in the gate-field. I know what you carry. Yes. How could I fail to remark—a thing like that forming in the patterns? I read his suffering. I intervened, against my habit, to save him. I trusted there was a pattern—if you valued him. And I was not mistaken.'

'I thank you for that,' Morgaine said.

'I wished to please you,—who come wandering the worlds. Anjhurin's daughter. It is likely that we are kin— remote as that kinship may be. How does Anjhurin fare?'

'He is dead,' Morgaine said shortly.

'Ah.' The regret seemed genuine. The image murmured something in the other language.

'Perhaps,' Morgaine said, 'he was weary of living. He said as much.'

Again it spoke.

'No,' Morgaine said. And to another query: 'No.' And: 'I travel, my lord.'

A harder voice then.

'For my companion's sake,' she said. 'Speak so he can understand.' And after another such: 'Because he understands it and because I wish it.' And again: 'That may be. I would be glad of it.' She lapsed for a moment into the other tongue. Then, gently: 'It has been a long time, my lord, since I have spoken the language. It has been a long time—since I have had the occasion.'

'You bring me felons and rebels.' The mouth of the image quirked upward slightly at the corners. 'As well as this human warrior. You have turned my court upside down, lifted every rotten log and sent the vermin scurrying forth—from Morund-gate to the highest houses in Mante. What shall I do for you in return?'

'Why, give me the three rebels in question,' Morgaine said, 'and the pleasure of your company, and in due time, the freedom of your gate. I am a wanderer. I seek no domain of my own.'

'Nor to share one?'