say that her roots were withered, her herbs without potency, her onions gone to rot.'
'As they are,' Jace conceded. 'But I would not be so ill-bred as to mention it. You must realize that what we gave her had little value to her. We must not complain that she gave us the least of her wares; to her, it was as if we wanted to give her a stone in exchange.'
'Mother!' Chess's voice rose a notch. 'That is how they barter here! She only wished you to believe she had no use for the necklace. In that way, she could give you as little as possible and you would feel grateful.'
'So swiftly you have grown hard and suspicious in this place. You would turn a cold eye on the food she gave us, food that will keep us for a day or so, in return for a trinket that was not even appropriate for her to wear.'
'Yet it was a good enough trinket that it was the only one Vandien wore!'
Jace hesitated, uncertainly considering what he said. But her faith in her own years and experience won out. One hand was gripping the sleeve that held the vegetables. But she caught Chess's hand in her other hand and held it tightly.
'Let us go to the Gate,' she said softly, letting the wind blow away their previous words. 'Maybe Vandien will be there. Maybe he has made a way for us to go through. Think of that, Chess! We might be home safely tonight. Come.' Privately Jace resolved that if Vandien had found a way for one to pass the Gate, that one would be Chess.
They came to the street that followed the city wall. With a quick glance to be sure all was clear, they darted into its shadow. Like mice they scurried along the base of it. When they sighted the dull red glow of the Gate, they slowed to more cautious steps. If Vandien had indeed won through to the other side, the Keeper would be looking angrily on all comers tonight.
Jace halted them completely at the low mumble of voices. A few more silent steps and the words came clear to her, but she paid them no heed. For at the same instant a breeze, so fresh and pure that it seemed a living creature, rushed up to her and enveloped her in its embrace. The clean scents of her home filled her nostrils, and she tasted the peace of the meadows and streams. It was like nourishing broth to starving children. Its moist kiss was no kin at all to the sterile dry wind that swept through the city streets and stirred the yellow dust.
Only gradually did the voices penetrate her mind. Jace had closed her eyes in the breeze's caress. Now she opened them and peered hopefully into the Gate.
But no Vandien watched to beckon her on. Instead she saw the grey-draped figure of the Keeper, his robes fluttering in the breeze. The hood had blown back from his face. Dark hair streamed from his flattened skull. An eyeless band of wrinkled flesh writhed above his nose ridge. But that which stood talking to him was no odder. 'Windsinger,' she breathed to herself, remembering old legends. For there was the long blue robe, the mysterious tall cowl and the scaled skin. Worry and frustration emanated from the Keeper, but anger alone lined the Windsingers face. Their voices came to Jace in broken snatches, their words blown away by the wind.
'How could he get through?' the Windsinger demanded. 'Of all the mortals on this side, why did you have to permit him?' 'Permit!' The Keeper spat out the word. His arms moved and his long fingers gripped at the night itself, striving to heal it. 'He was violent! You made no mention of any attempt like that! The Limbreth was totally disgusted. He broke contact with me to avoid the contamination! You gave no warning about any such as he! He ripped through! Do you understand what that means? Can you begin to grasp it? The balance is gone, our world bleeds into yours. The Gatherers have but to look and they'll know what we have done here! You fret about this man, but when the Gatherers come for you, will you even remember him? They can feel it. A breach like this cannot be hidden.'
Jace watched them silently. The anger was gone from the Windsingers face, replaced by fear and wonder. The blowing wind came from beyond the Gate. It fluttered the Windsingers torch to a red glow and a streamer of straggling yellow. The Keeper leaned against the wind as he worked, but Jace could not see what he struggled with. His actions were strangely difficult to follow as he was alternately hidden and revealed by flapping rags and tatters as scarlet as the torch and as black as the night. His hands and bared arms were thrust aloft, his muscles straining against invisibility.
'Do the Gatherers really care?' asked the Windsinger. 'Do they really take an interest in such as we?'
'They do,' the Keeper grunted out as he wove up the night.
'How long do we have before they discover us, then?' The Windsingers voice was hushed.
'Who knows?' the Keeper growled. 'While the Gate is here, it shouts aloud to them.'
'But if it should close? You said it would, but it seems no smaller than last night.' There was more than disappointment in the Windsingers voice; there was dread.
'We don't know if it can close. The Limbreth doubts that it can heal against such an imbalance.' The Keeper's voice held no sympathy. He was too immersed in his own misery and fear. 'Our world bleeds into yours. Who knows what damage it does us? Your day is stained with our blessed darkness, our winds of peace waste themselves in your streets.'
'You are the one that let Vandien through!' The Windsingers voice denied his accusing tone. She changed her tack. 'What about Ki? Does the Limbreth have her yet? If they are satisfied with her, I should like to at least settle the rest of our bargain. A calling gem was promised to me ...'
'Is it not enough that my Master has taken her from your hands? Our Gate is torn, and a rogue loosed in our world, and you come begging and whining for that which you could scarcely use properly. If I had the voice of the Limbreth! But I do not, and he bids me now to be respectful to you.' The Keeper paused, lapsing into a listening stance. The Windsinger shifted impatiently but waited. At last the Keeper turned his eyeless face back to her. 'Ki has not reached the Limbreth yet. The one you insisted we admit before her to test the Gate has slowed her progress. This is your own doing, so you must wait until it is settled. Once Ki is before the Limbreth and is proven to be suitable, all bargains shall be fulfilled. Does that suit you?'
'It sounds to me as if you hope that the Gate will close before then! Tell your master to be wary of cheating a Windsinger. I shall be back tomorrow. I want the gem then. Tomorrow will be the last time I speak gently.'
The rest of her words were gusted away by a blast of wind that drove the Keeper to his knees. He fought it as it rolled him onto his back and his grey legs waved bare and skinny as a stork's. The streetgrew suddenly darker, more fragrant, cooler. Behind her, Jace heard Chess snuffling in long breaths of it, gulping the air down as if he could drink it.
'... do about the dark seeping into this world?' demanded the Windsinger into a catch of silence. The Keeper shot her a venomous look that was no answer but a denial of culpability. Jace watched as the Keeper battled his way back to the center of the Gate, to once more lift his arms overhead and begin his incomprehensible weaving motions.
'Vandien isn't here,' Chess pointed out hoarsely.
'I know. Hush.'
'But I'm hungry,' he protested. 'Can't we go home now?'
'Home?' It took a moment for Jace to realize Chess was referring to the hovel they hid in. She felt a moment of panic. The boy was dangling over an abyss and slipping inexorably away from her. She took her son's hand, but knew she could not hold him. Not long. Not here. She gazed with longing at the Gate, but something obscured her vision. Even a glimpse of her own land was denied her.
'Come along,' Jace whispered, and they slipped away, moving from shadow to shadow as they wound their way through dusty streets back to the alley. They stopped only once, to drink water from a public well. Jace cringed at drinking the flat lukewarm stuff, but Chess drank deeply of it. After he had finished, he drew up another bucketful and laved his dusty face and arms. Those thin arms gave Jace a pang. The sun blisters had pocked them and privation had thinned them to bone and tendon and skin. Jace remembered them as round and plump, a little boy's arm. Now he looked like the few other street children she had glimpsed tonight, down to the ragged brown garment. When she touched the coarse cloth of it, he glanced up at her inquiringly. It was almost as if he didn't know that he suffered. His eyes went to the sky and he frowned.
'It will be coming back soon,' he warned her. And it was Chess who took Jace's hand to draw her down the street and into the alley, to the safety of the tumbled-down coop.
