from his lungs, he had struck his jaw against the wall and the front of his body was scraped raw from the slide. His joints crackled as he closed his hands. Whatever he had landed on was still poking him in the back. A red haze of pain obscured his vision as a nettlelike tingling singed his skin.
When he could, he began to move. But his muscles seemed to resist his will. He was able to straighten his legs, but slowly. He wondered what damage he had done to himself. The very air seemed to resist him, as if he were entangled in a giant but invisible spider's web. With a gasping heave he hauled his body to a sitting position. Dazedly he looked about.
He was sitting on the threshold of the Gate and the lumpy mass beneath him was the Keeper. Vandien's mind swung. There had been no Gate here when he climbed up, but he had fallen into the middle of it. It was impossible. The Keeper groaned and began to stir. Vandien tried to roll off him; he was lucky he hadn't broken his neck. Then, as his sense came back to him, he realized he was sitting on the opportunity he had sought.
A force was gently pushing him back to his side of the Gate; Vandien fought it. He leaned against his invisible bonds, striving to push them to their limits. The tautness of them against his face was like a smothering stretch of fine linen. The tingling grew worse, nigh unbearable. Vandien eased back a trifle and felt it follow him. He also sensed the easing of the force. The more he pushed, the more it resisted.
It felt like a membrane; so, he reasoned, why not treat it as he would a stubborn birth sack that was strangling a new calf? Vandien leaned forward against the force, stretching it to its full limit, and then drove his fingers stiff against it. His hands were small for a man's, no larger than Ki's, but the callused palms and scarred knuckles attested to their usefulness. He tried to get a grip on the barrier, tried to twist his fingers into it and rip it. But it was thicker, heavier, slicker and stronger than he expected. It eluded his grasp and his fingers could not rip it.
The Keeper was stirring now. Any second he would return to full wakefulness, and then Vandien would have two opponents to battle. If he was going to break through, he had to do it now. One outstretched hand kept the tension on the wall; the other reached for his belt knife.
He stabbed the blade into it. He had expected to plunge the point of his knife through it. But his initial stab bounced back into his hand. He tried again, pushing the blade in steadily, leaning on it with wrist-cracking force. The haft began to burn against his hand, but the blade sank in. He forced it to the full length of the blade, gasping at the effort it took. The barrier showed no sign of parting. Vandien tried cutting with a sawing motion. But his blade was smooth, lacking the serrated edge for this to be effective.The Keeper raised a hand to his head and groaned dully. Vandien sawed frantically.
His knife suddenly went through and his hand followed it. The sensation was the same as puncturing a large skin of cool water. His hand plunged into the coolness; he felt more of it ebbing and squirting out at him.
The Keeper rolled over with a sudden gasp, as if the spattering coolness had revived him as well. 'Stop it!' he shrieked wildly. 'You've broken the seal! You'll unbalance us!'
Unheeding, Vandien pushed his forearm into the other side while he worked the fingers of his other hand into the rupture as well. The Keeper clutched at his bare feet. Vandien kicked at him, using the gained impetus to force his second hand the rest of the way through. The thick nails of the Keeper's hands scraped down Vandien's legs as he kicked free of him. Like a diver preparing for very cold water, Vandien steeled himself with a deep breath of air. He butted his head against and then into the torn wall. The sensation was unpleasant in the extreme, like plunging his face into a congealing gut pile. He could neither expel nor take in breath. His vision wavered. He struggled, bucking his body, feeling the Keeper finally get a good clutch on one of his ankles.
Vandien was suffocating. What if this wall never let him through? What if he became entrapped between, like a fish in aspic? Panic was inspiration. The Keeper had captured one of his feet. Vandien shot out the other one in a tremendous kick that caught the Keeper in the chest, breaking his grip and propelling Vandien forward.
Vandien felt the vague stirring of birth memories, and then cold air on the top of his skull. He felt his shoulders constricted by the wall. With a wiggling surge, he forced his way out into the cool dark air. His chest was squeezed, and then he was falling, hands braced to catch himself as he somersaulted through the Gate. He tumbled into an awkward heap on a smooth straight road.
From behind him came a muffled cursing. Vandien leaped to his feet, ready to run. He had a dim vision of the Keeper trying to hold closed the torn curtain between the worlds. His ragged clothes were stirred as if by a powerful wind; his hood fell back to reveal a band of white and wrinkled skin where Vandien had expected eyes. The torn barrier fluttered with a snapping sound backed by a rushing noise like a river heard through windstirred trees. Vandien felt the motion as it rushed past his face toward the tear. At least he need fear no pursuit; for a time the Keeper would have his hands full. He slid his knife back into its sheath and turned his steps down the long straight road.
Barefoot, and a night and day behind Ki. The grey team always made their pace look easy, but Vandien had more than once tried to match them on foot. Even their most leisurely pace had a way of devouring the road. He gave a sigh and broke into a wolf trot. The road was smooth and cold beneath his bare feet. He rested one hand on the waterskin that hung from its shoulder strap to rest at his hip. He had never been so poorly prepared for anything. But the night air was cool and clean against his face; the arching trees garlanded with pale flowers beckoned him on. An unbidden smile came to his face. It was a fine night for running.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the signs of Ki's passage. The heavy wheels had left long grooves cut in the tongues of moss that stretched here and there across the road. Vandien trotted doggedly on, his eyes fixed as far ahead down the road as he could peer. His body worked smoothly and independently of his mind. His mind chewed at the little information he had, letting the lovely night scenery slip by him unnoticed. Chess had indicated a Windsinger had set up this whole ruse. But why? They had lured Ki through this Gate, but she had met with no foul play as far as he could tell. The Windsingers had no reason to love Ki, but one at least, Rebeke, had reason to treat her withcourtesy. As for Ki herself, she had never spoken of the Windsingers with anything but distrust. Her dislike of them was founded on her father's old hatred, which blamed them for the untimely death of Ki's mother. Ki had inherited that theory with no facts to back it up. Yet there had been a time when Rebeke would have fallen prey to the wizard Dresh, had Ki not intervened. It was all a most interesting tangle when viewed in the abstract. When considered while trotting down a black road with the aftermath of a hangover bouncing in one's skull, it was positively unsettling. But it was also as irresistible as prodding at a loose tooth.
His legs and feet had begun to ache dully, and he had been running in the moss beside the road for some way when the bridge came into view. He let his trot ease down to a walk, but the bridge demanded more. He stopped and gave it a full share of attention. He had no comparisons for if, rather it was like the first glimpse of a natural wonder. Like the mountain from his childhood that would always be The Mountain, or his first dimly remembered glimpse of the sea, this bridge would stay with him the rest of his days. It was the pure essence of Bridge, the perfect form that all such structures sought to attain but never did - till this one. He could spend a night looking at it, a week touching its graceful curves and still not have absorbed all the beauty of its lavish arch. If only he had the time.
But he did not. His bare feet throbbed, his shirt stuck to him and his trousers chafed him. Unstoppering the waterskin, he swung it up for a small mouthful. He let it wet his mouth and trickle slowly down his throat. One more small swallow and he regretfully put it away. Much as he would have liked to gulp the water, he could not run with a sloshing stomach, nor did he know how long the water would have to last him. He looked longingly at the stream that chuckled and slid beneath the elegant bridge. Its cool freshness changed the air. He rubbed the back of his sticky neck and looked about at the night that gave no clue as to the passage of time. The wagon was far ahead of him now. He had found no traces of a cold campfire, nor any signs left by the road Romni-fashion. If Ki had not stopped here, then he could ill afford to. But his throbbing feet decided him. Jace had told him not to drink the water; she had said nothing about bathing in it. He trotted heavily on toward the water, pulling his shirt over his head as he went.
The delightful chill of it eased his feet, making their hot throb an unpleasant memory. He lay full length in the shallowness, letting it flow past and over him. He had not known how much he ached until he felt the moving fingers of water soothing it away. Tipping his head back, he let it saturate his dark curls. When he shook his head briskly, he was amazed to find his headache completely gone. The water shattered from his hair in a silver spray. When he slowly rose from the water, it clung to his body in a silver sheen. The night air closed over him like a robe of silk as he moved lazily to the moss and soft grasses of the shore. He slowly rubbed his hands over his face and stubbly chin.
