Exiles Gate

what are you talking about—waves and shores? Who are you?'

'I have said,' Morgaine said quietly, and her hand never left Vanye's shoulder, a calming touch. If it had not been there he would have reached for a weapon for comfort. It was; and he felt himself numb like a bird in the eye of the serpent—not afraid, not capable, he thought, of fear at all any longer. He knew her lies, even when they were told with the truth. Even when they were entirely the truth. He trusted. That was all there was left to do.

'Perhaps you can flee,' Morgaine said to the others. 'It seems likely. I do not think he will trouble himself with you.'

Rhanin edged away. And stopped, as if he did not know what to do, or as if he had expected the others would, or as if he had had second thoughts. He only stood there.

Then distantly, softly echoing, came footsteps in the corridors.

This time, Vanye thought, it was substance which came to them; it was substance which appeared in the shadows of the corridor which let into this hall.

It was Skarrin himself who walked out into the light which was always available in such places, that power drawn of gate-force, come full in the room.

'My lady of mysteries,' Skarrin said, halted there in that entry. 'Am I in truth welcome?'

'Oh, indeed,' Morgaine said in a still, hushed voice. 'Good day to you, shadow-lord.' She walked a few paces closer, and stopped, and Vanye stood with a shiver running through his limbs, a twitch that was the impulse to follow her, stay with her instantly; but that was a fool's move, to show hostility to this lord, and useless. He watched Morgaine stop and stand, hands on hips, head tilted cheerfully. 'You are smaller than I thought.'

For the least instant he frowned, then laughed in offended surprise. 'We are well-matched.' His gaze swept the room. 'And this, the company you ask me to keep. You—Man. Come here.'

Vanye's heart turned over. He measured the separation between him and Morgaine and between him and Skarrin with a nervous sweep of his eye, and used that small chance to bring himself even with Morgaine.

'I take my lady's orders,' he said as mildly as he could, while his heart beat in panic.

'Defiance from a human?'

'From me,' Morgaine said, and walked a little forward, to stop again with hand on hip. 'Not that I am discourteous, my lord, but I do not lend my servants; I will reckon you have your own, and I will trust there are loyal folk among them. Or has this kingship of yours gotten too old and the intrigues too many? Or have you ceased to care? My folk will serve you. Bring your own servants—I care not, only so they are strong enough to last the course and honest enough to guard our backs. Let us set the gate and quit this tedious place. Keep to my path a while. I shall at very least value your company—and your advice. I am, after all, youngest. You can teach me—very much. And I can teach you, lord of dusty Mante—that there are new things under new suns, I am sufficient guarantee of that.'

'You are arrogant.'

'So I am told.' She walked two paces forward and stood wide-legged. 'I am terminus. And perhaps I am inception. Time will prove that. My origin is very recent as you measure time. I have never existed until now.'

'As you dream—you have not existed.'

'I am Anjhurin s daughter, Anjhurin who claimed to have seen the calamity. Think of that, my lord. And my mother came down a thread he had never known, that one which leads to stars outside, my lord. By seizing that he hoped to widen his power. But causality doomed him. He used force. She despised him. So, my lord, did I. And I destroyed him.'

'You.'

'With a will, my lord. All of Anjhurin's causality rests in me. That is my weight in the web of time—the youngest and the oldest of us, in one, and I reach outside. In me, every causality meets.'

Skarrin backed a pace.

She lifted her hand so naturally and so quickly the red fire had touched the lord before Vanye could both realize the weapon was in her hand and draw in his breath.

'I cannot die —/' Skarrin cried; as a second time the red light touched him, from Morgaine's hand, amid the forehead: he fell with a horrified expression.

Die . . . die . . . die . . . the walls and the vaulted ceiling gave back. They echoed the heavy fall of Skarrin's body, and the nervous shifting of the horses.

Vanye caught his breath, shaken in every bone, not believing it had been so sudden or so without warning.

And knowing then by the dread in Morgaine's face as she turned that it was not over. It was far from over. It was wizardry they fought, whatever Morgaine named it; wizardry that could knit bone and heal flesh and put blood back in veins—and his liege's face was pale and desperate. 'Follow me!' she cried, and ran toward the dark of the corridor.

Chapter Nineteen

Vanye ran, sword in hand, abandoning everything to Chei and his comrades—ran with a desperate burst of speed to close the gap between himself and Morgaine as she headed alone toward the corridor inward.

He heard someone behind him then, and spun to a halt and saw Chei and the other two coming. 'Watch the horses!' he shouted at them, not wanting them at his liege's back, not wanting the horses unguarded either.

Then he raced after Morgaine, reaching the corner an instant after her—the corridor ahead filled at short range with a double rank of drawn bows and loosed arrows.

He hit her from behind in utter panic—that quickly the arrows flew and he fell to the floor atop her, did not think, except they were both like to die here, did not know what he did, except that the enemy had to nock their next arrows and he was already rolling toward them, onto his feet and toward them with a Kurshin yell —'Haaaaaiiiiiiii—Haiii!'—hurtling for the flank of their double line with sword swinging even while they were thinking some of them to shoot him and some nearest him to parry him with bowstaves and daggers.

The curved blade swept along the parry of a bowstaff and, skidding off it, came around into an unprotected arm and neck, and he laid about him left and right and round about without time to see where attack was coming from until it came within his circle, and then he killed it, with sword in his right hand and then Honor-blade in the left, for what came at him too close.

A blade scored his armor at his back; he gained room with the Honor-blade, and followed with a sword- stroke. A bow whistled round toward his head; he ducked under it, stabbed under a rash fool's chin, as some fallen enemy groped after a hold about his knees, raking the heavy leather and braces of his breeches and boots with a dagger stroke. He sprang aside from that, used his bow-arm bracer to counter a descending blade on one hand, clove a man's face horribly in a slash to the right and brought the blade back to deal with the return stroke on the left.

That enemy fell arrowshot through the neck, and he did not know where it had come from, except he saw the flash of red on a man's armor that meant Morgaine's weapon, and there were fewer and fewer enemies. He gasped for air and struck out, turning, sliding off a blade with his curved one to deal a man a blow that staggered him—hard effort then on the desperate one after, and on the parry he swept around to save his own skull. Steel rang on steel, bound and slipped as he made his sweep the faster, out of breath now, sight hazed and sweat streaming, on a carnage widening by the instant, red fire taking man after man. One man fled him; red flashed on his armor and he fell, screaming, on a heap of his comrades.

Others tried to surrender. Fire cut them down as they were halfway to their knees, and fire swept the wounded on the ground. 'Liyo!' Vanye cried in consternation—but it was done, there were none alive as he staggered clear of the bodies and hit the wall with his back, gasping after air and gazing in horror on the slaughter.

Chei pulled his sword from a body and Hesiyyn and Rhanin stood back as Morgaine recovered herself, there at the edge of the carnage, the black weapon in her hand. She will kill them too, Vanye thought on the instant. There was no reason and no mercy on Morgaine's face.

Then she caught her breath and ran for the undefended door, opened it with quick passes of her hand on the