The Limbreth Gate Read online

  A woman’s sudden shriek of laughter spooked the donkey. A toss of his long-eared head and a hitch of his rump were all it took to send half a dozen of the ripe fruit tumbling from the overladen panniers. The farmer swore bitterly and with a jerk led the beast on to its own stall in the market. Chess remained crouching in the darkness, staring at the half-squashed fruit in the dust. The man did not want it, and no others seemed interested. He darted out of the shadows to snatch them up. Like a mouse with a crumb he fled back to the wall’s shelter with his loot.

  The juice ran stickily over his chin and his teeth grated on the rough pit. He ate eagerly, ignoring the dust and grit that adhered to the squashed side. Two and then three he devoured before he felt his hunger ease. Three remained in his lap, and belatedly he thought of his mother. Conflicting emotions still stormed in him, but love decided him, love as much a habit as a feeling. He would risk his mother’s wrath to share with her this bit of fruit, warm and sweet as a memory of their soft dark world. He rose with the fruit jumbled in his hands and slipped out into the street.

  ‘Ho!’ came the shout just as a heavy bootshod foot came down on his small bare one. With a cry of pain Chess dropped his fruit and hopped out of the way. But a heavy hand settled on his shoulder and gripped it before he could slip away into darkness. He smelled the sourness of wine and stared up in terror into a heavy grizzled face. Large brown eyes measured him shrewdly, but softened suddenly.

  ‘Did I break your foot, little man?’ the stranger asked, and the kindness in his voice was unmistakable. Chess could only shake his head, wordless. He stooped to retrieve his twice-bruised fruit, but a swipe of a large hand knocked it back into the dust. ‘No, little one, it’s all spoilt now. But don’t think old Mickle will send you home to face a scolding and a slap. I stepped on your foot and spoiled the fruit. So I’ll be the one to put it to rights. So!’

  The heavy hand on his shoulder turned him about. Mickle leaned heavily on him and propelled him through the market to the stall of the fruit merchant. Chess was speechless with fright. He had no inkling of what the man intended, and could only think of his mother alone in the dismal hut, and the rising of the terrible sun that must come eventually. If the drunk’s hand had not been so tight on his shoulder, he would have squirmed away and vanished into the darkness, to seek his mother again, no matter what scolding and disdain he might find. But Mickle’s grip was tight.

  ‘A dozen of your plumpest!’ he told the merchant loftily in a drink-furred voice. ‘Hold out your basket, boy!’ When Chess just stared at him helplessly, Mickle leaned down and squinted at his empty hands. ‘So that’s the trouble of it! No basket to hold out. No wonder you spilled the fruit, darlin’. Hold on to those peaches, farmer. We’ll be back.’

  The next few hours passed in a sort of delightful horror for Chess. Mickle purchased a basket, large enough to hold a dozen peaches and to spare. The room in the basket seemed to trouble him, so that he added a melon and two crusty loaves of warm bread. And then a bit of cloth, to cover it over and keep the dust from the fruit and the warmth in the bread. And a pair of sandals for the boy, so that the next time his feet were trod upon, they would have some protection. And then a brush, to smooth the wildness of his hair. When it was smoothed, so neat a head of hair deserved a hat, and a feather or two to make it perky. But then the tunic was too ragged for such a fine head, so Mickle must have a blue cloak to cover over the ragged brown garment. From stall to stall he wandered with him, with many a genial belch and lurch. His hand was ever on Chess’s shoulder. Mickle carried the heavy basket; Chess’s hands were curled defensively against his thin chest under the soft blue cloak.

  Mickle bought him gooey sweets that the vendor passed over to him in a curled leaf cup. After Chess had eaten one, he found his tongue and courage to ask, ‘Why are you so kind to me?’

  ‘What else should I be to a puppy like you? Eat your sweets, boy.’

  ‘I must be going home soon,’ Chess whispered, half afraid that this strange man would keep him against his will.

  But Mickle only stirred as if awakened, and with a glance at the night sky, agreed that he certainly must. With a gaspy belch, he looked about in sudden puzzlement. ‘Which way is home?’ he demanded of Chess.

  Chess’s heart thudded to stillness, and then went away at a gallop. Mickle’s hand possessed his shoulder. His buried memories of the innmaster broke upon his mind like fresh welts. But looking into Mickle’s drink-softened features, he saw no lust or secrecy, only the mild confusion of drink. After an instant of hesitation, Chess turned them from the market and toward the Gate. A certain craftiness, new to him, rose up as he asked, ‘Shan’t I carry the basket? You’ve carried it all evening and it must be getting heavy.’ Shame flushed his cheeks, so trustingly did Mickle hand it over to him, but the darkness hid his blushes. For now they were beyond the reach of the market’s torches, moving down the quiet wall street that led past the Gate. For Chess must visit the Gate, as he had every night since Vandien had left them; he still hoped Vandien would find a way to open the Gate for them.

  ‘Down Dark Street we go?’ Mickle asked questioningly. ‘So folk are calling it now, did you know? There’s a leak in the wall that lets in the dark and the cool, day and night, though none can say from where; even by day it’s grey here, and night brings blackness. But there is a marvelous coolness and freshness to the air. Some folk have moved away, saying the darkness is demon’s work, but as many have moved in, saying the coolness and freshness is a blessing from gods we have forgotten.’

  Chess nodded, scarcely noting his words. He waited for some unevenness in the cobbles, some stumble to loosen the grip upon his shoulder. Then he would be gone. Adrenaline hastened his breath; his leg muscles felt rubbery with readiness.

  When Mickle did stumble, his grip only went tighter on Chess. Chess’s heart sank into his roiling stomach. How long was it until light and heat? The Gate loomed up on their left before Chess expected it. But, no, it was not a Gate anymore; no red glow lit it. The sweet coolness of the air increased, and Chess smelled the flowers of his home; but the Gate was now only a rent in the solid wall of the city, exactly as if the stones had torn like scraps of weathered cloth. No Keeper stood within it and the tear was too narrow to admit or release anyone.

  Chess drew closer to it, unmindful of Mickle’s hand on his shoulder. Rags of darkness fluttered from the edges of the rent, coolly insubstantial to his reaching hand, but the night flowed out of the rent, thick and strong as gushing water. He forced his hand into it, feeling his skin tingle in gratitude for its fresh moisture. He leaned forward, pushing. Past his elbow, up to his shoulder. He had forgotten Mickle and the basket now. He turned his slender body sideways and tried to slip into the crack. His chest and buttocks rasped against stones, he butted his head against rough rocky edges. He would not fit.

  ‘It’s too small!’ he wailed, drawing away from it. ‘No one can get through that! We can never go home!’

  ‘Hum?’ Mickle’s questioning noise suddenly recalled him to mind. The grip that still rested on his shoulder was the clenching fist of this hateful hot place. Chess whirled on him, his small teeth bared in a sudden grimace of hatred. ‘Why won’t you let me go?’ he screeched. ‘Why are you keeping me here?’

  His anger forsook him and his strength went with it. He sank sobbing to the hard cobbles of the street, feeling the wind of his home wash over him without comfort. Even the tears he shed in this place were hot salty things that left stiff tracks down his face and stung his chapped lips. He huddled himself into a little ball, rocking. He had no home, his mother hated him, nothing was right, and he couldn’t understand why any of it had happened.

  Mickle knelt awkwardly beside him. He patted him clumsily with huge rough hands. ‘There, lad. There. It happens to all of us, sooner or later. It’s sooner for you, that’s the shame of it. Just when you need to go home the most, you find that you can’t. Well, I won’t claim to understand it. So you came from the other side
, is that it? I’ve heard tales of folk that did, not loudly told, but I’ve heard. Home. Well, there are homes and there are homes. I won’t say that mine is much of one, but it’s all we’ve got tonight.’ With a grunt, Mickle raised him in his arms. The basket dangled from one of his hairy wrists. He wrapped the new cloak clumsily about the boy. Chess found he had neither the strength nor the will to struggle away. He dropped his head against Mickle’s shoulder, smelling his beery breath and sweat.

  ‘Don’t let the sun shine on me,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t,’ Mickle promised solemnly. So thin this boy, and so scared. What, he wondered, would the Windsinger be wanting him for? And where was the other one?

  Jace could call no more. Her dry throat was rasped raw, but her mind still whispered. ‘Chess, Chess.’

  No sooner had Chess disappeared from sight than Jace’s anger had vanished, too. Her heart was heavy, her belly cold as she sat down on the step of the hovel to await his return. Anger was a rare emotion for Jace, and she was not accustomed to apologizing for words said in its heat, especially not to Chess. But now she groped, trying to think what she would say when Chess returned. But he did not return. Ashamedly, and then with rising fear, Jace had called him. She had made her way back to the tavern where he had worked, thinking perhaps he would return there for shelter and food after she rejected him. Sly peerings at the door and window cracks had discovered no Chess, and when she made bold enough to tap at a kitchen door and ask if the boy was there, the innmaster had flung foul words and a bowl of slops at her. She had fled, and then began a fruitless combing of the dark streets and alleys, calling Chess softly but with urgency. Twice she had visited the Gate, or the crack that was left of it. No Chess. The herb stall woman had not seen him. She did not know where else to look.

  Jace turned her steps back to the hovel, pausing one last time at the Gate and again at the public well. But there was no trace of him. Dawn began to stain the sky and Jace hastened for shelter, promising herself that Chess would be there, that he would have returned and be wondering where she was. The early morning light tickled and then stung her skin. Her eyes began to water in its grey glare, her breath to come in gasps. Then the hovel in the alley was before her, and she flung herself in the open door, crying ‘Chess?’ But she found only dust motes dancing in the horrid bitter light. Jace wedged the door shut and huddled trembling and alone in the dark.

  ELEVEN

  Rebeke’s heart was shaking in her chest. She stood still in the empty corridor, listening to the silence that pressed in on her ears. She longed to hurry past this ordeal, but haste was the mother of error. So she stood motionless before the plain door, stubbornly waiting for these foolish vestiges of Human emotion to wear themselves out.

  She came here seldom; only dire need could force her to it. She had lain awake and restless all the night, draining her thoughts of emotion, trying to let logic guide her. She was here because it was necessary; she had no other source for that which she must know. She could scarcely go to Yoleth and ask her for the secrets of the Gate and how to contact the Limbreth, and there was only one other who might know such things. That was why she went to him; she insisted to herself that this was the full truth. She rejected the notion that when all others turned against her or were as helpless as herself, she returned for comfort to her earliest alliance. Pride scoffed at such an idea. Pride would have made her forsake whatever bitter longings she might appease behind the door. Within that chamber, she would find no companionship nor loyalty, no help given for the sake of friendship. Dresh would never again give her any of those things. What he might have for her was information, if she asked correctly, and if he were weary enough of the void.

  No locks hampered this door. Rebeke set her mouth close to it and breathed a melodious word before she set her hand to it. The word was all she needed to enter, and all that was needed to keep others out. For behind this door she kept a wind of hurricane force, leashed, but ready to blast out the open door at any intruder. This the acolytes of her hall knew, but none dared to question what she kept behind so formidable a guard.

  The room was as barren and stark as any in Rebeke’s hall. The same black walls and floors framed it, there was the same sparse sprinkling of furniture: a small table and chair in one corner, a tall black stool in the other, and that was all. She set the basket she bore on the table and turned slowly. In the center of the black floor, with no curbstone or cover to protect the unwary, a round well gaped. The blackness within the well was darker than the walls of stone. Rebeke stepped to the lip of it and looked down. She didn’t sway or become dizzy, for she knew what to expect: a long cylindrical shaft of nothingness, with tiny shimmering lights at the far end filling a circle no bigger than a clenched fist. Within that far circle, blotting out some of the lights, floated the shape of the wizard Dresh. She sighed as she took a coil of fine blue rope from the sleeve of her robe and stared down at the spread-eagled body that rotated ever so slowly. She arranged the rope carefully in a circle around the well, finishing by making a loop at one end and threading the other through it. A wizard snare.

  The simple melody she sang now was as soft and sweet as a breeze over anemones. The wind that stoppered the shaft flowed up to greet her song, and the suction of its movement drew the floating body of the wizard. Rebeke stood at the lip of the well and looked down on him. His grey eyes were open. She looked deep into them, but he stared past her, bemused by whatever thought his mind had held the last time she had reimprisoned him. His chiseled lips were parted as if they still held words for her. Fine black hair floated softly around his face. Rebeke knelt and gripped the shoulder of his black doublet, and pulled him with ease to the lip of the well.

  As his hand brushed the brink of the well, he gasped loudly, a swimmer finally reaching air, and scrabbled violently for a grip. ‘Please, Reby!’ The words pealed out of him before his eyes regained comprehension; Rebeke’s soul twisted at the pain in them. For a moment both froze; then Dresh was dragging himself up from the well as Rebeke stood up and stepped back.

  He spoke no word as he clambered up, nor even looked at her until his boots were clear of the well and set on solid stone. Disdaining to stand, he drew his knees up and rested his arms upon them. ‘Well?’ he asked coldly. ‘Come to gloat again?’

  The splendid control of his voice had faded from disuse. How long since he had spoken? Rebeke cast her mind back to the last time she had called him. For him those months in between had passed as one long undreaming moment. How his heart must seethe still with the anger and despair of their last meeting. How many more times could she draw him up from the well for speech before one day she confronted a madman? Rebeke pushed the thought away. She did not do this out of any petty vengeance of pity; she did it out of need, and need must be answered.

  ‘I’ve come to ask questions, Dresh.’

  ‘Hmm. And you expect answers?’ His laugh was brittle. ‘You amaze me, Rebeke. You haul me up to answer questions, do you? But the sooner I answer them, the sooner you will banish me back to that nothingness. So ask away. But expect no answers.’

  ‘I see. You have saved us both a great deal of time.’ Rebeke stooped to pick up the end of the blue noose.

  Dresh remained as motionless as a bird before it breaks cover.

  ‘I will confess I hadn’t expected to find you so reticent, Dresh.’ Rebeke continued to draw up the cord, and Dresh watched his circle of freedom contract. ‘I even brought food and wine for us, for our talk might have been a long one.’

  His grey eyes did not leave the line on the floor. ‘You know as well as I that within the void I have no needs. I do not thirst, nor hunger, nor dream. I do not even belch or piss.’ His eyes flickered to her to see if she would shrink from his crudity. She did not. ‘Within the void, I do nothing and am nothing. My life is suspended. Think of it, Rebeke; I may live for thousands of years, with generations of Windmistresses coming to my well to haul me out for consultation, then lower me back into storage. I may become a
legend to the acolytes, the secret councilor, the …’

  ‘You shall not live beyond my life span. I have promised you already that your torment will not go on forever. I know what I have done to you, and you know who forced me to do it. Those topics are past discussion. I know your body knows no wants; I would not torment you with hunger or pain. But the senses can long for stimulation, after being so long disused; a sip of wine, a slice of spiced fruit, a bit of bread and butter…’

  Wolf lights gleamed in Dresh’s grey eyes. He clasped his hands together to still their trembling and looked at Rebeke. Silently. The room tilted slowly for her until she looked up into those eyes. His mouth was soft and grave and would be warm under her lips. Rebeke snatched her gaze from his.

  ‘Damn you! Try no tricks here, snake! I want to know all you know of the Limbreths, how to make a Gate into their world, how to close such a Gate, how to pass it, how to make first contact with a Limbreth before the Gate is made. And anything else you know that may be helpful.’

  Dropping the end of the rope, she crossed to the small table. From the basket she drew out two peaches. One she bit into; the other she tossed once, catching gently its warm fuzzy weight. She strolled back to the circle of the rope and drew her stool up to it. Stooping she took up the loose end of the line and set the untasted peach in her lap. ‘Well?’

  Dresh swallowed. ‘The Limbreths, or Limbreth. No one knows which. How did you ever get to be a Windmistress and remain so ignorant? The answers are all easy, requiring only that you forget your fixed ideas of how the world is made.’ He caught the peach she tossed him and bit into it immediately. He sighed and chewed slowly, swallowing reluctantly. ‘The Limbreth world,’ he resumed, ‘touches ours in one place, but that place can be nearly anywhere you desire it to be. Don’t ask me how I learned all this; you would shudder and be scandalized and throw me back down the well before I finished my peach.’ He took another bite. ‘To continue. We touch and yet are infinitely far apart. Not unlike ourselves, eh, Rebeke? To contact them is easy, however. Tell me, Rebeke, if you had an important thing to say to a Windsinger far away, what would you do?’