Shadow Gate, Page 3

  “Curse it.” She tugged her stolen pack more tightly on her shoulders and ducked under one wing to come up at the saddle from behind. The wings rose over the mare’s shoulders, sprouting out of a deep barrel chest thick with muscle. She made awkward work of mounting but fixed her legs into the straps—

  The horse leaped.

  She shrieked as she lurched sideways, grasping the post to stop from falling as the mare beat with heavy wing-strokes into the sky. Then she started laughing with relief and nerves as they rose higher, and the men came into view. One loosed a single arrow, which fell harmlessly back to earth, although she wished it might loop back and stick him in the chest.

  The mare’s flight seemed snail-like compared with the effortless sail of her eagle. It passed through the edges of several promising thermals, but unlike an eagle, it did not catch them and rise. It flew no faster than a horse could gallop, its thin legs imitating the gait as if it were running along an invisible road. Slow, slow, slow. Below, the company continued its dogged pursuit, scrambling up the trail.

  “We’re in for it now,” she said to the horse, who flicked an ear. “Cursed if I don’t think they’re out looking for me in particular, although why I should think so, I don’t know. I must have escaped that woodsmen’s camp after all. Maybe these are friends of theirs, or the very men from that camp in pursuit of me. Lord Radas might have put them on my trail. But the one man said Walshow. That town lies beyond High Haldia, up in Heaven’s Ridge. That’s well to the north of the Liya Pass and far away from Iliyat.”

  Above the trees, where they flew, she had a better grasp of the land around her. She knew she was no longer on the Liya Pass, and nowhere near the vale of Iliyat, where Lord Radas ruled. And she certainly wasn’t anywhere near Copper Hall. She had seen country like this during the year she had flown her apprentice’s circuit as a newly trained reeve: in the high mountain escarpments of Heaven’s Ridge. Steep ridges and peaks dominated the northern and northwestern horizons, a wall to separate the Hundred from the dangerous lands beyond. She and the mare flew above the foothills, a wilderness known to reeves as a haunt of bandits and other folk tossed out of their home for criminal behavior; it was also the remote nesting territories where eagles mated and raised their young out of sight of human eyes.

  How had she gotten here, hundreds of mey away from the place she had died?

  If she had died. Yet she could not shake that horrible dream of walking to Copper Hall. It had seemed so real. Yet if she had died and become a ghost, why did she get cold? Why did her hands and feet get scratched? How could these men see her? That twenty gods-touched men would have flocked together in the barren backcountry defied belief, because the temples prized any man or woman gifted with the spirit sight, even the ones who were cracked in the head like the old man Mokass. It was almost as if she had been a ghost then, and no longer was. How could that happen?

  They lost sight of their pursuers. The mare shifted balance for a ponderous turn. Marit’s legs ached as she clung to saddle and post. To be harnessed under an eagle was a very different sensation from sitting astride a horse; the view was worse from the horse, for one, with those wings getting in the way of her sight. The rise and fall of the wings distracted her until a light glinted ahead, halfway up a black cliff face rising out of a wooded hill. As the horse flew straight for the rock wall, Marit realized that she had no reins and could not control its flight. They galloped through the air straight at the escarpment, and the shadows opened to reveal a cleft and a wide ledge. The mare sailed in. Its hooves struck stone. Marit hissed between gritted teeth as the horse stamped to a halt.

  She dismounted, staggered, and dropped to her knees. The mare folded its wings and ambled to the back of the cleft where a fountain burbled from a deep fissure in the cliff. It lowered its head to drink. Across the broad ledge a pattern glittered, whether in sunlight or the growing edge of shadow. It was like a crystalline labyrinth grown into the stone, a twisting pattern whose like she had seen before.

  Gods preserve her. The mare had brought her to a Guardian’s altar.

  Aui! What did it matter now?

  She rose. No one and nothing stirred. She set a foot on the entrance to the labyrinth, then the other. The pavement pulsed as if she were feeling the heartbeat of the Earth Mother. She paced its measure. With each change of angle in the path’s direction, the world shifted. She saw far beyond the isolated ledge into distant landscapes: surging ocean; a fallen stone tower above a tumble of rocks lapped by soft waves; rain pattering in tangled oak forest; a vast gleam of water—not the sea—bordered by dunes; a high peak slipping in and out of streaming cloud; a homely village of six cottages beside a gushing river; a pinnacle overlooking a wide basin of land surrounded by rugged hills; a dusty hilltop rimmed by boulders where a presence tugged at her . . . and she faltered.

  “Here you are,” said a man’s voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  She did not move, sure that to take one step back or one forward would break this inexplicable link. She saw no face, only a suggestion of gold light, but she felt him as strongly as if he were standing behind her. She hid her own face by pulling up the hood of her cloak.

  “You must be confused,” he said. “I can help you. What is your name?”

  Cursed if she was going to say that out loud to a stranger! She recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. A sour-sweet smell drifted within the lines, making her want to sneeze.

  “I’m hesitant to say,” she said, measuring her words. “Who are you? How can I know I can trust you? Where are you, and how is it you can speak to me? I have many questions.”

  “All shall be answered as you gain your strength. You’re just awakening. Here, now, let me introduce myself. I am Radas.”

  The name pierced her like a dagger to the heart. She was cold, then hot, breaking into a sweat.

  But another man might be named Radas. It wasn’t an uncommon name. “Where are you from, Radas?”

  “I am lord of Iliyat. I have the resources to help you. Only stay where you are, and I will come to fetch you.”

  The hells he would!

  Lord Radas of Iliyat had ordered her death. He was responsible for the murder of her eagle. He was a killer, and she smelled his corruption even here, not knowing how far away he was or, indeed, how they could be talking at all.

  She had flown ten years as a reeve. A lie to buy herself time to edge out of a bad situation was nothing she couldn’t handle easily. “I will wait for you here. How long will it take for you to reach me?”

  She felt him nod, but she understood that he could not physically reach her from where he was now despite the magic that allowed them speech. “I have men in the area, searching for you. If you see them, you’ll be safe with them. But they won’t be able to reach you at the altar. That’s where you must meet me. Stay where you are. It will take me two days to get there. You haven’t told me your name?”

  How persuasive he sounded! If it weren’t for knowing he was responsible for the murder of her eagle, if it weren’t for remembering how crisply he had ordered the men under his command to rape, mutilate, and then kill her, she would never have suspected what manner of man he was just by the pleasant tone of his words.

  “I’m Ramit,” she said. “I’m so very confused. Can you tell me what has happened to me?”

  “All in good time. You mustn’t rush these things. Some explanations are best accomplished face-to-face.”

  I’ll just wager they are, she thought, and found herself shaking as she took another step, as the dusty hilltop vanished and a damp vista of marshland overhung by low clouds came into view. Cursing furiously, she strode to the center of the labyrinth, ignoring the landscapes flashing dizzily past. She stumbled down to the crevice, where water trickled into a basin from which the mare had been drinking. She unhooked the bowl from her belt and held it under the spring. Still trembling, she lifted the bowl to her mouth and drank her fill. The cold water burned her lips and throat. S
he started to cry, gulping sobs that doubled her over. Dead, slaughtered, and that poor chained Devouring girl dead by her own hand after being abused in ways that Marit was sure were worse than what little the girl had voiced aloud. Dead, lost, wandering.

  Alone.

  Panic swelled like a black cloud, ready to swallow her. She clawed for the steady heart that had taken her through so many years of reeve’s work; she fought past the tears, and found her strength.

  Enough!

  She had no time for this. Two days she had, if he had been telling the truth. Knowing what manner of man he was, she knew he might as well have been lying.

  She wiped her face with the back of a hand as she rose and looked around. What magic sustained the Guardian’s altar she did not know. How the maze wove its sorcery into the angles of its path she could not guess, because there was actually only one route to walk once you started on the path. The many landscapes visible from within remained invisible now that she stood at the center, but by an odd trick of the view she could see from here at the center a complete vista of the ordinary land around her, all the approaches to this pinnacle, even those that ought to be blocked from her view by spurs and heights.

  A pair of hawks floated on a thermal far above. To the west, on an impossibly narrow path, a mountain goat picked its way along the slope. A thread of smoke rose beyond the nearest hill, but it smelled of sheep and a drowsy shepherd strumming a simple tune on a two-stringed lute. A family of rock mice skittered below thickets of sprawling heath-pink. Stunted pine trees grew low to the ground, and spiny broom poked its first flowers from their hairy sheaths. The wind moaned along the height. Otherwise, the land was empty. She was utterly alone.

  The mare waited beside the burbling crevice, watching her with interest or, perhaps, disdain. Beside the horse, a bridle hung from an iron post hammered into the rock.

  With some difficulty, she slid the harness over the mare’s head and, after a few problems with the ears, got it correctly settled and buckled. She had grown up in a village, and while her own family hadn’t been wealthy enough to own horses or even a donkey or mule, as a girl she had hired out on occasion to the stable master at the local inn and learned the rudiments of harness care and use. Those skills had aided her when she had first come to the reeve hall, after Flirt had chosen her.

  Flirt was dead.

  The wind stung her eyes. A weight crushed her chest, a haze of grief rising to fill her vision and weaken her body. But she could not succumb now. She could let Flirt’s death overwhelm her, or she could use it to make her strong enough to do what must be done. First, evade Lord Radas. Second, observe, and decide what to do next. This simple plan must sustain her as she walked into an unknown landscape: her life after the death of her eagle, or her death after her own death.

  She led the mare to the edge of the cliff. The sheer drop did not dizzy her. Reeves learned quickly not to fear heights. Or maybe the great eagles never chose as reeves any person likely to fall prey to that particular fear.

  The mare balked, wanting to stay.

  “We’re getting as far from here as possible, do you understand me? That man killed me, or tried to kill me, even if he wasn’t the one who wielded the knife. I’ll never trust him, and neither should you.”

  After a pause, as if considering her words or deciding whether it was worth a confrontation, the mare opened her wings. Marit mounted. They flew.

  THE MARE DID not want to take her in the direction Marit wanted to go, but Marit held the reins, and forced the issue. Beyond the eastern hill in the direction of the thread of smoke lay a box canyon utterly without life or interest beyond dusty green thickets of spiny hedge-heath and bitter-thorn. The smoke came from a pile of brush smoldering at the very end where the walls fenced you in, an excellent spot for an ambush. They came to earth, the mare tossing her head and snorting. Whispers hissed from thickets along the slopes, but no one appeared. The sound might only have been the way the wind clawed through the buds and leaves, but she had a cursed strong feeling that whoever was there had seen her.

  It might have been the passage of a drizzling rain, quickly laid down and quickly vanished as soon as its hooves touched earth. It might have been the way the mare turned, once on the ground, and headed straight out of the trap with a determined gait despite branches of bitter-thorn raking her flanks and tearing a pale gray feather from her wings. Those wings, folded tight, protected Marit’s legs.

  “That’s the second warning you’ve given me, or maybe the third,” said Marit, bending low in case some cursed fool decided to loose an arrow or fling a spear.

  As they cleared the canyon and found themselves in a rugged intersection of hills and ridges with the suggestion of a valley opening away to the southeast and the sharp spine of the high mountains to the west, Marit wondered if she had imagined the ambush.

  “You choose,” she said to the mare. “Anywhere but north.”

  The mare took flight, bearing due south according to the sun. Steep hills were easily cleared. Almost before Marit realized they had come upon human life, they sailed over a high meadow where a flock of sheep grazed. The youth watching over the flock plucked strings, head bent over a two-stringed lute.

  The mare trotted to earth out of sight of the meadow, and Marit left her with reins loose, hoping the horse wouldn’t stray. She cut through a stand of pine, thick with scent, and brushed through knee-high grass at the meadow’s edge. The lad played intently, biting a lip. His concentration gave him charm. A handsome dog emerged from behind him and ran toward her with ears raised, interested but not particularly suspicious. The dog raced around her as she advanced, and a startled bleat from one of the grazing sheep caught the boy’s attention. He looked up as Marit paused a stone’s toss from him.

  His eyes opened wide. Equally startled, she took a step back.

  He grinned and set down the lute. “The hells!” He whistled, and the dog pattered over to him. “Usually he barks,” the boy added. He was old enough to be sent to the high pastures with the sheep but not quite old enough to be called a man. “Where did you come from?”

  “Just over the ridge.” The box canyon wasn’t all that far from here, truly, although she wasn’t entirely sure how to reach it traveling on the ground. Reeves sometimes lost that skill, seeing everything from on high.

  “You’re not from around here. Are you hungry, or thirsty? I’ve got plenty.”

  “I would appreciate a bit.” Reeve habit died hard: you ate and drank whenever opportunity offered, as you didn’t always know in the course of a patrol when you might have leisure to eat and drink again.

  He shared a cursed sharp cider and a ball of rice neatly wrapped in nai leaves, poor man’s food but filling nonetheless.

  “I’m surprised to see anyone up here,” he said with nice manners which, together with his pleasant features, would make him a favorite among women when he got a bit older. He was water-born, judging by the pattern of tattoos ringing his wrists. An attractive youth, but forbidden to her because she was also water-born. “We’re about as far west as folk live. You can see how the mountains rise.” He indicated a barrier of grim peaks to the west. “Nothing beyond that but the flat salt desert.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  He laughed. “Not myself. My uncle claims to have climbed the Wall, to see onto the deadlands. He said they stretched for a thousand mey, farther than he could see even from the mountains’ edge, nothing but pale gold to the flat horizon. Maybe it’s true, or maybe he just said so to impress the woman he wanted to marry. He did bring back a shard of an eagle’s egg. From a nest, so he said. Said he climbed to it, and fetched it out. But he did talk blather. I bet he just found it on the trail, fallen from a high place.”

  He carefully asked no questions, plying her with highlands hospitality, offering a second flask of cider. He was an open lad, sure she wasn’t a bad person because the dog—whose name was Nip—tolerated her. She was just utterly stunned to be having a commonplace conv
ersation.

  “I see you’ve a lute there. Have you always played?”

  “Surely I have, since I could pick one up. Would you like me to play for you?” He was sure she would like to hear him; everyone always enjoyed his playing.

  She nodded, settling more comfortably cross-legged beside him. He plucked a pair of tunes and hummed a melancholy melody that made her eyes water. Thin clouds chased across the high landscape. As the sun passed into shadow, she shivered at the unexpected draft of cool air seeping down from above and pulled her cloak more tightly around her torso.

  “Listen, ver. I’m called Marit. I’m lost, truth to tell, and I got lost by running from a nasty pack of bandits who aren’t too far from here by my reckoning. I’m not sure it’s safe for you. You might be safer walking back to your village, wherever you came from, and warning them that dangerous men are wandering out here looking to make trouble.”

  He shrugged with a peculiar lack of concern. “We’ve had trouble for years with that crew, most of them out of Walshow and other places north of here. But we’ve made our own defenses.” With a sly grin, he indicated Nip. “You’d be surprised what that dog can do when he’s roused. We’ve learned to defend ourselves. It wasn’t so bad before, when I was a nipster—a toddler, like. The elders say it was peaceful then. Still, the troubles are all I’ve ever known. But your bandits won’t be finding this pasture. I’m surprised you did.”

  “How long have bandits been wandering up here? How can they feed themselves? How do you know they’re come from Walshow? How far is it to Walshow from here?”

  He snapped his fingers. Two more dogs appeared out of the grass. They were bigger than Nip and had massive muzzles and powerful chests. They loped over to sniff at her, then slipped away to resume their patrol. “You’re a reeve, aren’t you?” he asked. “We see them now and again, hunting around here.”

  “Do you? Where do they hail from?”

  He shrugged. It was obvious he was telling the truth and never thought once of lying to her. He didn’t even feel he needed to lie, he was that confident. “I don’t know. They keep to themselves, although it’s true that a time or two we’ve had a bit of help from them when packs of men came drifting down out of Walshow.”