The Limbreth Gate Read online

  ‘Maybe I’m more grateful than I thought. Move over. Let’s see if there’s anything about you different from any other Human I’ve had.’

  Vandien took a shallow breath. All he could picture in his mind was her maw of teeth adjacent to his throat. It wasn’t erotic. ‘Thank you, but …’

  ‘But what? Put off by a little extra fur?’

  ‘No. Just tired. I’ve been following Ki on foot, you know. And …’

  ‘Boiled meat,’ Hollyika commented in disgust. She turned her back to him and settled in beside him. ‘This is a hell of a lot better than the grass or the wagon bed.’

  He could think of no reply. Her stentorian breathing filled the cuddy. After she had shouldered in beside him, her smell reminded him of new puppies in clean straw. She slept, but when he did, he dreamed of lionesses.

  FIFTEEN

  Vandien struggled up from a dream of drowning. He found himself wedged in a corner like a bolster, pinned down by one of the Brurjan’s outflung arms. He shifted under it, seeking a more comfortable position, and was warned by a grumbling growl. He subsided, feeling oppressed and crowded. For a moment he tried to settle, calming his breathing and focusing on sleep. But then his quick temperament boiled up against the restraint and he bucked himself to a sitting position, snarling, ‘Let me up.’

  ‘So climb over,’ Hollyika told him gruffly, and when he had awkwardly done so, she stretched out with a deep sigh, filling the bed more completely than ever. She burrowed under the covers, showing no signs of rousing. Vandien scooped up his clothes and stumbled out the cuddy door, dragging them on as he went.

  Sitting down heavily on the plank seat, he shoved his feet into his boots. His abrupt awakening had left him groggy and shaky. He glanced futilely at the sky, frowning in disgust. No way to tell how long he had slept. He considered trying to sleep on the turf, or in the back of the wagon. He shut his eyes in the warm dark of his cupped hands. But they opened again and he found himself irrevocably awake.

  So. Fire and breakfast? Too much effort. He clambered stiffly down, gathering up the remnants of his untidy camp. The bedding he had spread over Hollyika was damp and chill. He threw it into the back of the wagon, knowing Ki would skin him for it later. Or would she? He stood in the dark, thinking Ki had moved on, leaving him and the team and the wagon flung aside as careless as her clothing. Could she wink out of his life us suddenly as he had thrust into hers? He sat down in the back of the wagon to consider it. What if she had tired of him and his careless ways? A worm of insecurity gnawed at him. But they cared for one another. There was more to their partnership than work shared. They understood one another.

  The grey half light suddenly put him in mind of another barren hill camp. Then it had been just past dusk, and rocks had gnawed at his ribs as he lay on his belly watching Ki. He could almost feel the hunger and cold again. His clothes had been too thin and worn for the weather in the pass; it had been a full day since he had managed to snare that bit of a rabbit, and he had been forced to eat the meat warm and raw, for the rain made fire impossible. He had lain in the shadows and waited.

  All he had needed was a horse. His conscience had been a weary and broken thing, worn down by the nagging of his body. He was going to take only one horse from her. She could ride the other back down the trail and buy herself another. She looked to have the coin for it. What did she need of his pity? He could not keep the saliva from running in his mouth as he watched her putting together her simple meal. He had smelled the bubbling stew of dried roots and meats. He had watched her mouth as she drank the hot tea she brewed. The thought of that warmth had made him shiver.

  He had known he could take her down. She looked fit, but no larger than he. And he had known she was not as desperate nor as hungry as he; desperation would give him strength. He could take her down, have the food, steal the horse, perhaps find a cloak or boots in her wagon. He shifted in the dark, and his own breath sounded to him like a growl. He had felt the strength rising in him, fueled by the thought of food. He had imagined his own pantherish charge, taking her with a shoulder in the belly, pulling her down and then … what? Choke her unconscious? Beat her head against the earth until she stopped struggling? Stand on her with both feet while he tied her up?

  His grin had been narrow as a knife blade. Perhaps he could smother her with the reek of his long-unwashed body; it was as likely. Even if his physical strength had been up to it, he didn’t have the stomach for it. He would steal the horse after she slept, because he wanted very much to live, and he would slink off afterwards, feeling the taint of thief upon his name; but he would not add blackguard to it. He had raised his head slightly, watching her intently.

  Then the damn horse had wheeled, whinnying, and she had risen and seen him. Without a thought, he had sprung forward, knowing it was his last best chance to get a beast that would take him out of that forsaken pass and back to folk that knew him. But his heart hadn’t been in the struggle. He felt an animal, a fool, gripping at her, trying to wrestle her down when he knew full well that was no solution. She had flung the kettle in his face; he had found himself on his back with a knife at his throat. He had frozen beneath her, her solid weight squeezing the air from his lungs, knowing he was looking up at his death. Not only his last hope but all his hopes were gone. But he had not closed his eyes, because it was the last moment of his life, and he was going to see it all, no matter how bad it was.

  Their eyes had met. Hers were green, something he had not been able to tell from his previous vantage point; a rare color for eyes in this part of the world. She looked as if she had once smiled easily, but hadn’t for some time. There was anger in her face now, seasoned with fear, but no killing lust, no sense of her total power over his helplessness. By the time he had realized all that, he had known also that she wasn’t going to kill him, could no more draw the blade across his throat than he could batter her head in. She was as ridiculous as he. The absurdity of their present postures had suddenly rung in his mind as clearly as a great bell. He had laughed. She had scowled at him, knowing full well what was funny but refusing to let it amuse her - refusing him. That had been the challenge, for folk that could share a joke as ultimate as that one should share it, not perch on one another’s chests and pretend to be as dull as the rest of the world.

  ‘From that instant, I knew you, Ki.’ His own words broke him out of his reverie. He raised a finger to touch the smile on his face. ‘You’ll have to think again if you suppose you can be rid of me so easily.’ But the irony of the situation was not lost on him. Then it had been Ki with the wagon, and he had been the needy stranger who moved in on her so casually, disrupting her life. Now he was the one sitting on the tail of the wagon, and within a stray Brurjan was snoring in the bed. How had Ki felt about him then? As annoyed as he felt now, he imagined. He shrugged the thought off. This was different. Hollyika had none of his charm, his warmth and wit, let alone his engaging smile. His grin now was mocking. ‘In a pig’s eye,’ he said aloud to himself, and moved to gather up the kettle and bowl.

  Bribed with grain, the greys came to harness. The black horse came as well, nipping at the greys until they abandoned both grain and harness position. Vandien was forced to shake out a measure of grain for the black before he could calm the team and get them harnessed. By the time he was finished he was sweating and wishing he had stopped to cook breakfast.

  Within the cuddy, Hollyika still filled the bed. Vandien jumped down into the cuddy and began to rummage for a quick meal. ‘I’m ready to leave,’ he told her back as he sliced cheese and sausage on the small table. Bread and cheese and sausage; well, it was better than what he had had before he caught up with the wagon.

  ‘So go.’ Her reply was muttered beneath the covers.

  ‘I’m taking the wagon.’

  ‘Only a half-wit wouldn’t.’

  ‘But you’re still inside it. Are you going with me?’

  ‘Damn it, I’m asleep!’ Hollyika roared, shooting to a sitting pos
ition on the platform. Her head thunked neatly against the rafter and she dropped back to the pillow. With a savage Brurjan curse she rolled her great head to stare at Vandien with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Humans!’ she snorted.

  ‘Don’t glare at me! Yesterday you said you were headed back to the Gate.’

  ‘Well, where the hell are you going after you catch up with the Romni numbwit?’

  ‘Back to the Gate.’

  ‘So what difference does it make?’ Hollyika dragged the covers back over herself.

  Vandien shrugged, bewildered. ‘None, I suppose. I just had the impression you thought of Ki as a fool.’

  Hollyika rolled back quickly to face him, a crooked black-nailed finger pointing at him accusingly. ‘And that’s another thing that’s wrong with Humans. They always want to know what you THINK, what you FEEL, when all any sane creature needs to know about another one is what it is doing. I’m in the wagon, sleeping, so I must be going with you. Even a chicken could have figured that out, without a lot of nasty prying.’

  Vandien leaned back against the wall and made a noise at her through his teeth. Words failed him. He turned to go and was halfway out the cuddy door when her voice stopped him. ‘Did you grain Black?’

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked her with savage satisfaction. The cuddy door slammed behind him.

  Once he had the team and all four wheels back on the road, he stepped them up to a smart clip. The black kept pace with them easily. Vandien glared at him, but the horse nodded back at him as he matched the greys. Vandien leaned back on the cuddy door. Ki couldn’t be far ahead, and she couldn’t match this pace on foot. He just had to be patient. The cuddy door jerked open behind him and he fell back into Hollyika’s arms.

  ‘Shit,’ she commented dryly, looking down into his face. With a shove she restored him to his place. The greys, who had faltered in their pace, resumed the rhythm as his hands steadied on the reins. The Brurjan clambered out of the cuddy, squeezing out the narrow door to perch uneasily on the plank seat. The seat wasn’t large enough for her; she dug in her nails to keep her place. Her breath smelt of fish.

  ‘What’s a Limbreth?’ he asked her.

  She barked a short laugh. ‘Damned if I know.’ She was silent for a while, mulling. Vandien let her take her time. ‘You know, you’re right. It’s the water. The longer I’m clear of it, the better I can figure.’ A frown wrinkled her brow and nose. ‘The Limbreth came to me in a dream. Last thing I remember of Jojorum is drinking with the Human Rousters in my company. The shank of the evening had been eaten, and we knew we wouldn’t be called on to do much the rest of the night. So it was time to drink and then to sleep. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I did, and I dreamed. I dreamed of a treasure of shining jewels. Funny jewels. I always think of reds and greens when I think of gems, bright individual colors that flash. But these were heaped in mounds and ripe for the taking, pastel glowing things, like fungus in the dark. The image doesn’t even appeal to me now. But then it was like a magnet drawing me, and I had to go for it, fast, before someone beat me to it. So Black and I went.’ She paused. ‘Damned if you aren’t right again. I went through a Gate, but not a proper one. I’ve been working Jojorum for the better part of a year now, and there’s no Gate in the wall where I went through. But I went through one, and fast.’

  The silence lengthened to a stop in the talk. Vandien risked prodding her. ‘That still doesn’t tell me what a Limbreth is.’

  She was unruffled. ‘No. Well, in the dream, I knew that the gems had belonged to the Limbreth, but now they were for me. The Jewels of the Limbreth I heard, plain as blood. Let me see. I remember a bridge, and we stopped for water. I must have slept there. That’s when it becomes very muzzy. I can recall perfectly what I thought, but not why I believed it. I knew that the Jewels of the Limbreth were not gems, but were things like peace, joy, and fulfillment. Ha! But then it was a wondrous thing to have realized, for the Jewels were still expressly for me. All I had to do was come for them, showing myself worthy along the way. I think that’s when I let Black go, and dropped my gear and started eating grass. Nothing makes much sense after that, but then, what would you expect, eating grass?’

  ‘And Ki? I believe she passed through the Gate looking for me, supposing I had gone ahead of her. But now?’

  ‘Now she goes to seek the Limbreth. Don’t blame it on me, for it was only partly my encouragement. I believe that no matter why you come through the Gate, sooner or later, you seek the Limbreth. Have you felt no pull yourself?’

  ‘No.’ Vandien hesitated, remembering his lassitude when he bathed in the stream. ‘But I have drunk none of the water here, and eaten only a little of the fruit.’ Briefly he told her of his encounter with the farmers.

  ‘Nice folk,’ she growled. ‘If it had been me, I’d have crammed that stick through his ears and set his house afire. But then what can I expect of a boiled-meat Human? No spirit.’

  Vandien looked sideways at her, trying to tell if her lips curled in a smile or in disdain. He gave it up.

  ‘Why don’t you whip up these nags a little?’

  ‘I don’t know the road. Once they get the wagon rolling, it takes a bit to stop them. Damn near ran you down in the dark, and it’s not much lighter now. I’d hate to find Ki with the wheels.’

  ‘Hm.’ It was as noncommital a reply as Vandien had ever received. He peered up the road. The grade was definite but steady. The team was pulling well; no sense in straining them. Ki had always cautioned him that they worked better in steadiness than in stress. Ki. What wouldn’t he give to have her on the wagon seat next to him instead of this hairy Brurjan?

  She poked him in the ribs, and Vandien wondered if she had guessed his thoughts. But she pointed ahead to the gleaming lights, suddenly larger and closer. They had crested the long rise at last and were looking down into the Limbreth’s valley. The team checked of its own accord. Vandien stared down in puzzlement. Hollyika beside him was shaking her broad head in denial. ‘That’s not how I dreamed them,’ she muttered to herself. ‘That’s not right at all.’

  Vandien grunted. He slapped the wheelbrake into position, bracing his foot against it as he stared down into the grey valley before him.

  The road ran as straight and true as ever down into the center of the valley. Tall black stones sprouted unevenly from a ridge in the fine cobbled surface of a flat central plain. Grass sprouted at their base, and ambitious bushes were thrusting up through cracks in the smooth cobblestones. The black stones were tall, but worn and weathered, and the glowing Jewels that crowned them seemed dimmer here than they had as beckoning lights on the horizon. Massive were the Limbreths, yes, but power and majesty had fled them; like the mummies of ancient kings, their loyalty had seeped away.

  ‘They weren’t like that before,’ Hollyika growled. ‘They were tall and full of might, promises and secrets and wealth and joy; they held them all, and more beyond my mind to comprehend. They called to me, Vandien, with a lure sweeter than warm blood. Now this. Was it all a cheat, my long dreaming on the road here? Was it all a deceit of the water and the night?’

  ‘Or is this the deceit?’ Vandien wondered aloud. He turned to Hollyika, but she was gone. Her armor clattered harshly as she dragged it out of the wagon bed. The horse went to her guttural command. Vandien did not blame her. She had been teased on to see these Limbreths she had dreamed of. Well, she had seen. She had no call of friendship to answer, no promise to a child waiting outside the Gate. Almost he wished he could turn back with her. ‘Travel in safety,’ he wished her. She cursed rust and damp as she struggled with stiff leather.

  ‘I damn well intend to!’ she answered him suddenly. Her horse’s scarlet hooves rang on the road. ‘Let’s go!’

  Massive as a mountain, she came from behind the wagon, mounted and armored. ‘Let’s wake them up down there! Come on!’ She didn’t wait for him, but dashed forward, smacking Sigurd on the haunch as she went. The sloping road was before him and the black horse at his si
de spooked him. When the greys lunged, the brake screamed and gave way.

  Long afterwards, that ride came back to Vandien in dreams, more awful than any dream of falling. The smooth road unwound straight before him, offering no resistance to the thundering wheels; the Limbreths grinned up at him like jagged teeth. The team raced away from the wagon, moving as fast as he’d ever seen them go; his soul shrieked out to them not to stumble. They gained momentum as they went, until scenery blurred away on either side of him. Steady in his gaze was Hollyika, perched on her saddle like a parrot on a limb, screeching as she charged ahead. Helmless, her crest was canted up and forward in the well-feared warning of Brurjan aggression.

  ‘Moon’s,’ gasped Vandien, ‘blood,’ he finished, the wet reins sliding through his hands. The team wasn’t slowing and when the wagon stopped, it wasn’t going to be on top of its wheels. Its normal top-heavy sway had taken on an alarming skating quality. The Limbreths loomed, monstrous and near; he looked up to the glimmering lights and realized he was on the flats, racing across to the base of the Limbreths. His hands took a fresh bight of the reins and he pulled steadily, sawing a little to get the greys’ attention; he thought he felt them respond.

  But Hollyika’s pace never slackened, the speed of her black belying its great size. She ripped her sword free of its sheath and swung it in a glistening arc; her strident war cry floated back to him. She was insane.

  Vandien mastered his team; the wagon rumbled to a halt. He wanted no part of her mad charge against the Limbreths; as soon charge a mountain. But Hollyika’s enthusiasm was unabated. She raced toward the center of the row of Limbreths that sprang from the ridge like young trees from a nursery log. He saw her swing her sword and heard it thunk solidly into the Limbreth. The impact sounded like that between wood and metal, but the Limbreth didn’t even shiver. The sword remained embedded, but Hollyika did not remain in the saddle. The black horse raced from under her as she whipped around her own sword and spun through the air as prettily as a tumbler at a fair. Her armor clattered as she lit and rolled to a stop. Her horse galloped on, and came gradually to a halt, stiff-legged and staring about in surprise. Silence welled up to refill the valley.