beside and around her; she had only to open her eyes and see. The hard smooth road beneath her feet was a part of the Limbreth, as was the cooling water that flowed for her. The path of purification and the waters of awareness, others had called them. This the Limbreth let her know, for they were kin now, and it could speak in her mind.
At the base of the Limbreth, Ki sank down to rest in blessed peace. The sheer sides of the Limbreth rose in a pillar too large for even four Humans to circle with joined hands; its surface was hard and smooth as the road, but unseen beneath it seethed and bubbled the same silvery waters as flowed in the river. Its lofty crown of the flickering, glowing Jewels pulsed gently with the emanations of the Limbreth's thoughts, shining into Ki's mind as they dappled her flesh with glowing colors.
'I am here!' she told it, rejoicing.
'And I am here, as I always have been.' In the Limbreth's simple reply, Ki felt its years; it had always been and it remembered all. It would remember her always, also. Whatever else might happen to her, this moment gave her immortality in the Limbreth's memory. She felt a touch on her mind and that touch took up her sentience and gave it back to her, reordered and refreshed. 'Rest now and think,' the Limbreth instructed her. 'Go again through your life. Ask me what you will and I will answer you. Know yourself as well as I know you. You will be able to see how your own choices have always destined you for me.'
Ki let her mind drift lazily on the current of her thoughts, marveling at all she had known without knowing. The Limbreth had charted all her moments and correlated all her knowledge in those brief moments, flowing through her consciousness, leaving its shining trail through all her memories. She looked back over her years and felt the Limbreth at her shoulder as she did so; the Limbreth explained the feelings that had baffled her and cataloged the needs that had gnawed endlessly at her, and gaps in what she knew about herself were filled.
Even her most private moments and thoughts had been gently handled and brought to order. Ki looked back over a life that was suddenly a harmonious whole, no longer a string of events that varied from dull to shattering. She saw how they all fit together, and how unknowingly she had shaped the most devastating of her tragedies. Saw, but no longer flinched from seeing. Memories too painful to recall were given back to her, their poison drawn. Then one fine spring morning rose into her mind, and it was like seeing the keystone of the arch. The weather had been mild and the small campfire long cold on the morning she had arisen and toddled from her blankets. She had wandered away from the caravan encampment, drawn by sweet singing, and followed the blue-gowned stranger.
The Limbreth numbered for her the days among the Windsingers. She saw them through her baby eyes as immensely tall and gracious beings that cared for her and dressed her in a little white robe. Then her mother had come, wearing Ki's own adult face, to steal her back. Ki remembered her joy at the reunion, and then knew terror again as her mother and a scarlet Harpy fought over her to their mutual deaths. Then Aethan came for her, to take her home to the wagon.
It was only one memory, buried under the callus of years, but it gave order to all others. Had she not gone to that sweet call, the Windsingers would not have known her. They would not have sent the Harpies to kill Sven and her babies nor would she have had to face a blue Harpy in the Pass of the Sisters; Vandien would never have scarred his face taking its claws in her stead. Dresh would not have used her as a pawn against the Windsingers. Nor would the Windsingers finally have disposed of her by putting her through a Gate - if only she had not followed the singing. But all those things were as they had to have been, in order to lead her to this moment before the Limbreth.
The Limbreth was silent, but Ki felt the quiet as a probing question. She puzzled, waiting for her emotions to rise. She thought of the callous ways in which the Windsingers had twisted her life. She should resent them for separating her from her husband, children, and friend, and finally setting her adrift from her own world. They had sent her here as a gift to the Limbreth, as if she were a cow or a sack of beans. She should be full of plans for vengeance.
Nothing. The peace of the Limbreth flowed through her. All of that was past. No action of hers could alter the past; but she could shape her future, take her exile by the Windsingers and turn it into a thing of beauty and wonder, and her life would have a meaning.
'That is good,' the Limbreth told her. 'You are ready.'
'I am ready,' Ki assented.
'You know yourself. Now I must teach you the world.'
Another touch upon her mind, this one soft as melting butter. Ki saw all as the Limbreth knew it, and the Limbreth was old and unchanged since the Gatherers had first brought it here. Its own far world had gone into rosy darkness and then deep cold, and the Gatherers had brought it here that the Limbreth need not perish. The Gatherers, free of time and space, took from every world a few of each kind of being, and brought them to these linked worlds, putting each with kinds similar enough to share a world, and bidding them only to keep their species intact. To the simpler races they did not make themselves known, but to the old beings, such as the Limbreth, the unchanging ones who knew something of the scope of time, they occasionally came and spoke. The others lived out the days of their lives in their own ways, unaware of the miracle of their continuance. Ki saw that now, and her concept of the world was enlarged and renewed just as her memories of her life had been. She knew herself, and she saw again her niche in the order of things and the insignificance of her brief life. To the Limbreth she was a moth newly hatched, and doomed to die before the night ended. The knowledge freed her. What were wagons and cargoes, coins and friendships, when set in such a framework? Like the tailings of an earthworm, in a moment they crumbled back to common dirt and could not be distinguished from it. Nothing so brief could hold any obligations; but she might freely choose to pay her debt to the Limbreth, to the extent thather small being was capable of.
The bridge she had crossed to come here had been the work of one from beyond a Gate, called by the Limbreth to a higher goal. Wrought from the very stuff of the Limbreth itself, it was as eternal as they were, a monument of that fluttering moth to the black night of time. The essence of a mortal being had been poured into that structure and physically immortalized by it.
'What will you do?' the Limbreth asked her gently. The night held its breath as she sought for her answer.
'I would like.' She stopped.
'Yes?' prodded the Limbreth.
'I would make a garden. A garden of life, not merely a garden that lives. A garden that grows from the seeds of wisdom you have given me. One would pass through it on the way to the bridge. That is what my soul would do, but ...'
The Limbreth shone gently upon her. 'Do not be daunted. I am neither stone nor water, as you perceive me. The vision shall be yours and the working of it. But the skill will come from me, as will the material to bring it to life. I am the fertile sod, the rains, and the wind that spreads the pollen. Go, now, and begin.'
Ki started to step away and then felt a glow of warmth from the Limbreth upon her back. She waited.
'You have given me a new story, one that pleases me greatly. I am old, and the older I get, the more every new thing is savored. I shall not forget an instant of your life, Ki. You have been but an instant, but you have filled it full. Your garden will reflect it.'
Ki turned eyes onto the road that went back up the hill. She had not rested, and her journey had been long. And now she had as far to go again, to return to her chosen spot. She felt the amusement of the Limbreth. Was not this its world? Did not the road do as it was bid? Let Ki follow a new path, one that would take her back swiftly to her destination, avoiding all distractions.
The new road unrolled before her feet like a flung carpet. Moss carpeted it for her as swiftly. It flowed like a shining stream, an effortless straight path to follow. Weariness fell from her and a desire to reach her chosen spot and begin blazed up in her. She would pour herself into it. She sprang away as lightly as a hart, racing down the road as she had never run before.
THIRTEEN
Yoleth crouched by the dark Gate; little remained of it. Stooping, she peered through the fissure in the wall.
