The Limbreth Gate Page 22

  ‘And us? Do you believe we would go unscathed?’ A rising note marred Cerie’s controlled voice.

  ‘No. I don’t think that we would. But that is the chance I would take, just as Yoleth put us all at risk when she helped to open the Gate. I cannot let this pass; I cannot let Yoleth believe she can dare more than I. She - no, all the Council - must see me as ruthless as herself. Let them respect me for the danger I can create, if not for my skills.’

  ‘And until then, we all hang in the balance.’ Anger vied with fear in Cerie’s voice, and Rebeke put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  ‘We will not dangle for long. I urged the Limbreth to decide swiftly; three of our days I gave him. The Limbreth scoffed at me, of course. I was told that I misjudged the importance of myself and my world, if I supposed the Gatherers would even be interested. But in the same breath, the Limbreth claimed suddenly that any trade was impossible, because of the state of the Gate. They fear to use it, they said. I gather that they have opened it in that location too many times, and Vandien tore it when he went through; what is left of it is like an old, reopened wound, thick with scar tissue. But I believe they can open it one more time. My will is very strong, and I could help more than any other ever has in the making of a Gate. We can open it, even if it may be for the last time; in fact that suits me. If I can force this trade, I want no chance of future ones. I do not fancy Limbreths with an acquired taste for Windsingers. Let the Gate between our worlds heal and scar over permanently. I shall not mind at all.’ Rebeke picked up her glass of wine and drained it, refilled both their glasses and drank again. ‘I am still wearied, Cerie. And I ask myself, do I have the courage and the will for this struggle? The closer I come to it, the more I question myself. A Windsinger, I believe, should be above this sort of skullduggery, but I am not a full Windsinger yet. Some of my weakness I can blame on my coming to my training late in life, and some I shall blame on my youth’s companions. But most I shall blame on the times we live in. Perhaps by my ruthlessness I can create a world and time when Windsingers can be all they should be. Perhaps the girls who now wear white and lisp their platitudes by rote will someday say, Rebeke, she was a wicked old thing, but the first true Windsinger in a long time!’ Her tone was as light as a jest, but Cerie did not smile. She clasped her hands inside her sleeves to still their trembling and agreed, ‘These are, indeed, dreadful times to be living in.’

  SEVENTEEN

  The road had gone bad. Vandien leaned forward on the seat, peering past the sweating greys. But he couldn’t see what had caused this sudden marshy stretch, nor how far ahead of him it lasted. Hollyika, of course, was nowhere in sight.

  Vandien sent shivers of encouragement down the traces to the team. There was an irony to this, he realized, as there had been to all his journey beyond the Gate, but it didn’t make him smile. Usually he was the one who got impatient with the wagon’s slow pace and galloped ahead to spy out the lay of the land, while Ki sat on the high seat and sweated the team through the tough spots on the road. Now he sat with his shirt sticking to him as the greys slogged forward through sucking black mud.

  The road had taken them down the length of the Limbreth valley, past their soldierly row and then around a shoulder of the hills; after that, with every plodding step the team took, the road seemed to get worse. The grass and moss on either side of this part of the road were yellow-grey, withering away. It was the first blight that Vandien had noticed in the Limbreth world. He chewed at the ends of his untrimmed moustache as he watched the greys hunch their shoulders against their collars. The road had been hard and good, right up until the moment they passed out of sight of the Limbreths. Their gems still glowered dimly in the sky behind them. One wheel lurched suddenly down into a soft spot. ‘Damn!’ roared Vandien, but the team dragged on steadily and the wagon walked up out of it. Vandien wiped sweat from his forehead and peered up the road. It was veering back to the hills in a steady climb; that grade and the softening roadbed might be more than the team could handle, and there was no sign of the road getting better.

  The black horse reappeared, loping easily toward him, clods of turf and mud flying from his scarlet hooves, Hollyika riding high and graceful. The Brurjan’s head was canted back to peer over her shoulder.

  ‘Hollyika!’ he called to her. ‘I’m going to pull up for a bit and let the team breathe.’

  She made no reply, but brought her horse in a graceful loop to pull up beside the plank seat of the wagon. The weary team snorted gratefully at the stop. Vandien put his face into his hands and rubbed his eyes. The eternal dimness of this place made him feel permanently sleepy. Just once he would have liked to see this place under a ray of sun. ‘How long is the road this bad?’

  She shrugged and flashed a Brurjan grin on him. ‘Not far. Then it gets worse where the road starts to really climb.’ Black shifted his feet, making wet plopping sounds. ‘The sides are no better than the road itself,’ Hollyika replied to his questioning glance. ‘Underground stream, maybe. I can see your wheels sinking even as we talk.’

  ‘Limbreth mischief, I think.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She tossed her broad shoulders again. ‘It doesn’t matter what causes it, it’s what we have to go over.’

  ‘Yes.’ Vandien looked deep into eyes on a level with his own. They were keen, dark, and wise in their own hard way. Vandien asked abruptly, ‘Why is she going on? To what?’

  ‘To whatever the Limbreth told her to do.’

  ‘But what about me?’ He could not stop the hurt and outrage from slipping into his voice. ‘As if she had never known me, or worried about these horses, she just goes on.’ His own dark eyes bored into Hollyika’s. ‘When she was with you, did she speak of me at all?’

  Hollyika shifted slightly in her saddle. ‘If you would let me,’ she began in a low and reasonable voice, ‘I could take you inside that wagon, put you on your back, and make you forget all about Ki. For a time, anyway.’

  He turned his eyes from her, shaking his head in consternation. ‘That’s not what I want,’ he said, not knowing how to explain.

  ‘I didn’t say I wanted it. I was simply saying that, given the opportunity, I could do it. I could keep your mind and your senses so full of me that you wouldn’t for that time think of Ki, no matter what you felt for her. Afterwards, she would come back to your mind. Perhaps.’ The hard flash of teeth again. ‘Right now, the Limbreth fills all her mind and senses. What she felt for you in the past is covered up, blotted out by another presence. Can you understand what I am telling you?’

  ‘I think I do. I think you are saying, very politely, that Ki never even mentioned my name.’ I’ll never say Brurjans are without courtesy again, he thought sadly.

  ‘Hell, who was listening? We were both full of the Limbreths, speaking only to them, though we thought we conversed with each other. I don’t remember half the things I said, let alone what the Romni babbled. When the Limbreth filled me, everything else was just background. I felt good. All through me. When I thought of things I had been fond of in the past, like Black, I was grateful the Limbreths had enlightened me as to the nature of love, and how I must let him go his own way, if I truly loved him. And I must go mine, on to the Limbreths, to be fulfilled and find peace. Do you get the drift of it? But I believed it then, and Ki is still full of it. This is more of that think and feel crap you Humans wallow in. Look, Vandien, she’s gone away from you. You know that. You know what she is doing. She is getting further away from you. You know what you want. You want her to be with you. So you know what to do. Go and get her. It’s all so much simpler without the I think and I feel shit.’

  ‘But what about what she wants? Aren’t I supposed to care at all about what she desires?’

  ‘Hell, no. Ki can do that for herself. When we find her, you can say, I want you to come with me. If she says no, you can fight with her. Whoever wins, wins. It’s simple.’

  ‘It must be nice, being a Brurjan.’

  A strange look, and then
the flash of teeth again. ‘It’s nice to be anything, when you are it, instead of thinking about it. Look, we don’t have time for this. Need any help with the harness?’

  Vandien sat up straight and ran his eyes over the team. ‘It looks fine to me.’

  ‘Sure it’s fine, if you don’t plan on going anywhere.’

  Vandien looked over the side of the wagon; the wheels had sunk still deeper into the muck. He measured it with an experienced eye. ‘It looks bad, but the greys can still manage. It’ll be slow, but they’ll do it.’

  ‘Through that?’ Hollyika was skeptical as she pointed up the road.

  ‘I think so, and I’m willing to try it. I’ve slogged this wagon up worse hills than that.’

  ‘Have you? And I’ve charged through formations that offered more resistance than that. But even together I doubt that we can do both at the same time. Look at them.’

  Vandien followed her gaze. At first the darkness baffled him; he caught a movement of light so faint it seemed a trick of his weary eyes. He squinted and then made them out by the gleam of their hair and the flash of their eyes; a group of farmers with some kind of long tools over their shoulders. ‘They must be a harvest party, going from farm to farm.’

  ‘No.’ Hollyika’s voice was flat. ‘I rode right up to them, calling greetings they didn’t answer. But as soon as I came within range, they started swinging those rods. You want to drive a wagon up a muddy hill through that?’

  Vandien’s eyes went from the farmers to his wheels. A sickness touched his heart. He looked down: the mud touched hubs now. No mud could sink a wagon that fast! But it had. Given levers, brush, and a lot of time, he could have gotten it out; but he had none of these. ‘I can’t leave the wagon,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘Why? Has your ass grown tight to the seat? Those farmers are moving faster than you might expect. You either leave the wagon, or your body. Hell, we’ll be lucky to get the horses through.’ Even as she spoke, she had dismounted and begun to free the team from the wagon. Vandien watched her, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. The colors of the gaily painted wagon were dim under these skies, and it looked only awkward, uncomfortable, out of place. But this awkward uncomfortable thing had somehow become his home; too many things had happened inside its tiny cuddy for him to leave the wagon here. But he had to leave it, and the knowledge wrenched and clawed at him. Then he set his teeth, took a breath, and let it go. Silently he turned and went into the cuddy, and as he looked around its crowded homeliness, the pain tried to grip him again, but he ignored it. His rapier. There was that to take, and food for them both, and the waterskin, and a set of clothes for Ki. He resolutely ignored the trinkets and gewgaws of their life together. Practicality made light luggage. To what he had he added one sack filled with grain from the back of the wagon, and loaded it all onto the suspicious Sigurd. Hollyika had fashioned a lead rope for Sigurd and shortened the long driving reins on Sigmund’s bridle. As he scrambled up onto Sigmund’s back, Hollyika nodded grudgingly. ‘At least you learn fast.’

  The figures of the approaching farmers were no longer veiled by dusk. Vandien counted eight of them, men and women, as they strode resolutely on. Their faces were tranquil, their eyes fixed before them. They didn’t call to Hollyika and Vandien, or speak to each other. They came on silently as dreams.

  ‘They don’t look too formidable,’ Vandien grumbled softly. Anger began to heat in him; had the Brurjan tricked him into abandoning Ki’s wagon?

  ‘Follow me,’ she growled. She leaned forward in her saddle and the black leaped suddenly to a gallop. Straight toward them she rode. Much heel-thudding nagged Sigmund into a ponderous canter, the disgruntled Sigurd trailing behind. The warrior pulled steadily away from them.

  And the farmers came steadily on down the road. Vandien fixed his eyes on them as he clung to his mount. They had raised their staves. But they did not scatter, nor even take up a defensive stance. No light of battle changed their eyes or faces. There were no cries of fury or challenge. Bunched in a group, they strode down the road to meet the charging horse.

  ‘Make way!’ Hollyika roared, but they only waved their staves. Then she was among them and Vandien was sickened. The horse crashed through, silent bodies flung to either side, though he heard a few whacks as blows of the staff struck the rider. Two figures sprawled in the road, but no outcry arose. Those standing milled for a moment and began to close ranks. Vandien was too far behind Hollyika; now they were ready to meet him, eyes cold. Sigmund threw up his head and tried to wheel aside from this Human barricade. A staff came down solidly on Vandien’s shoulder; he clung to Sigmund’s mane, realizing he was the only target, not the horse. Another blow smote his hip, numbing his leg to the knee. The farmers surged around him. Then Black and Hollyika crashed suddenly through the press. ‘Ride on, stupid!’ she screamed at him. He had a fleeting impression of flying scarlet hooves felling farmers. Then Sigmund took charge, leaping into the gap she had cleared and surging forward under Vandien; Sigurd crowded behind. He and the greys were clear and fleeing down the sodden black road.

  He heard the splattering hoofbeats of Black as Hollyika caught up with him. Vandien glanced over at her, but kept a tight grip on the flying grey mane before him. The ponderous gallop of the beast below him was thunder in his ears. He did not know much of Brurjan facial expressions, but he thought she looked grim and ill. When they crested the first long rise, she pulled in the black. The greys dropped their pace to match with no signal from Vandien. Hollyika kept them all at a striding walk. Just as Vandien opened his mouth to speak, she turned to him. ‘They won’t be following,’ she said bleakly. He shut his mouth.

  The road ran on. At first they rode on the margins of the road, until the already soggy mosses and grasses turned to morass. The lands on either side of them as they struggled up the hillsides were wild places; the road and its banks were swamps now right up to the edge of brush that prickled and stabbed the horses when they tried to ride through it. ‘ Ki could never have come this way,’ Vandien asserted, to which Hollyika replied, ‘She must have.’ So on they went, and on, until finally, incredibly, they reached the top of the final hill and looked down into a grey valley full of shadows. Vandien’s body told him they were deep into night.

  In silent accord they halted, looking down at the valley full of dusk before them. The road was straight from here, still flowing with mud, true, but implacably straight. It cut through woods and pasture, field and meadow, now clear, now veiled, until it finally emerged to intersect with the far black ribbon of another road. And gracing that stretch of road was a bridge. No , the bridge, the one he had so admired the first time he had seen it. No road had intersected with that road then; he was sure of it. ‘But it does now,’ Hollyika observed aloud. ‘Limbreths.’

  She urged her black and they began their descent, the horse’s haunches braced under him, half walking and half sliding as he went. Vandien let a space develop between them, and then took the greys down. It was steep for only a short way, then it gave onto the gentler slope of a hillside pasture, grazed by some tiny hooved beasts that thundered off into the trees at their approach. The far road and the bridge were hidden from them again in the more immediate barrier of brush and trees, the brambly trees edging ever closer to the road. Water flowed over the top of the muddy path and the horses’ hooves slid and squelched in it. A short distance more, and the trees began to arch over the stream that the horses now followed. If Hollyika noticed the change or found it alarming, she said nothing. Vandien did not deign to speak either. She was right. Sometimes it was simpler just doing, without worrying about what came next.

  The trees thinned and then gave way. With a tingle of uneasiness, Vandien realized that the stream led them now through cultivated fields. The gleaming red fruit hung in shining globules on the vines. Sigurd snatched at the foliage hungrily, snorting with weary displeasure when Vandien jerked him on. The greys were dispirited, heads adroop, moving with slogging steps. Even Holly
ika slouched in her ridiculous saddle. Vandien found it more and more difficult to keep his eyes open. Sigmund’s trudging stride rocked him gently and he swayed with it. With a jerk he pulled his head up again. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, trying to wake himself up. A dark hummock far off across the rows of crops was a farmer’s cottage. He started at it and the milling of folk around it. ‘Hollyika!’ he called softly.

  She reined in her black and dropped back to be even with him. ‘Pay no attention to them,’ she commanded in a harsh whisper.

  ‘They’re staring at us.’

  ‘They look both more and less than angry, don’t they? Pay them no mind. Five dark trespassers must be an unusual sight. Don’t borrow trouble ahead of time. Keep riding.’

  Her black pulled ahead of him again, and Vandien, alert now, stepped up Sigmund’s weary pace. He tried to look at the cottage and the shining folk gathered there without turning his head. There was quite a group of them, their hair lambent in the soft twilight, and in every hand stood a tall stick. His stomach turned over. He could not blot from his mind the silent sprawled figures they had left in the road; he wanted no more of that.

  Black hesitated, and then stepped awkwardly down into a gully. Vandien brought Sigmund to the brink of it and waited. Hollyika sat lightly on her horse’s back, moving like a part of him, swaying with him as he placed his hooves and clambered up to the other side. They had regained the original road and it was sound under his hooves.

  Vandien nudged Sigmund on, and the draft horse went down like a landslide. He had barely lurched and staggered into the ditch before Sigurd came down behind them; then with another lurch they had all regained the road. Vandien glanced back the way they had come: the passage they had made through the crops was plain behind them. He sneaked a glance at the farmer’s hut. The crowd was gone. Vandien twisted around, trying to see them.