The Fatal Gate Read online

  Malien’s breast heaved. “I’m sorry. I love her with all my heart … but this isn’t the answer. She’s too far away.”

  A sickening dread overwhelmed Karan. What was taking Yggur so long? She could hardly breathe; she felt as though she was choking. “Hurry!” she gasped.

  The western side of Shazabba, where she believed the Whelm had taken Sulien, was seven hundred and fifty miles away and even at the fastest pace of this unreliable craft it would take at least three days to fly there. In three days—maybe even three hours—the Whelm could have contacted Gergrig and betrayed Sulien to him.

  Shand pelted into the glade, followed by Nadiril, his ancient bones clicking. He carried a storm lantern and Lilis was beside him. She looked bitterly disappointed in Karan. Join the queue.

  “Karan,” called Nadiril. “Without the sky ship we’ll never find the Merdrun in time.”

  “And if we don’t, Santhenar is lost,” said Shand, reaching up with both hands. “Millions will die because of your selfish choice.”

  “How dare you lecture me,” cried Karan, “after you betrayed us.”

  “You can’t put Sulien before the lives of all my people,” said Malien, “and all the others on this world.”

  “Sulien and Llian and I gave everything we had to keep the enemy out of Santhenar, and all we’ve got for it is abuse and demands for more sacrifice. Damn you!”

  Nadiril raised a long, fleshless arm and fear shivered through her. Was he trying to stop them? Could he?

  He conferred with Malien and Shand and they pointed at the rear of the sky ship. The wooden rotors, powered by subtle aspects of the Secret Art, went still. The nose of the sky ship dipped and drifted downwards.

  Karan looked over her shoulder. “You said you could fly the damned thing,” she screeched. “Do something!”

  Yggur turned frosty grey eyes onto her, unblinking, and she shivered. He was a strange, dangerous man who had recently suffered another mental breakdown, and he had never been her friend. His big hands moved the three levers gently, as if sensing out the purpose of each via his enigmatic arts.

  “Shouldn’t I understand what I’m doing first?” he said mildly.

  The nose of the sky ship dipped until the floor of the cabin sloped too steeply to stand on. “They’re pulling us down!” Karan’s sweaty hand slipped on the vertical rail beside the cabin door; she lurched forward and almost fell out.

  “Shut the door and sit down!” he snapped. “You’re distracting me.”

  She pulled it closed, hauled herself up to a seat and clung to it, panting. The rotors were making a ticking sound.

  “Sulien’s got no money, no food, nowhere to go. And the Whelm—”

  “Your whining isn’t helping.” Yggur pulled on the right-hand lever and the nose of the sky ship jerked upwards until it was level again. “Ah!” He thrust forward the stubby lever on the left, with the red knob; the sound of the rotors rose to a roar and the craft surged forwards.

  “I’ll make you pay for this, Karan!” raged Malien.

  Karan sank back in the seat and closed her eyes. Malien was kin, and an old friend, and Karan had betrayed her trust.

  The sky ship headed into the darkness, south-west, and Yggur’s jaw was knotted as he sensed out the workings of the craft. It was not something she could comprehend. Karan’s gift for the Secret Art, blocked at the age of twelve, had recently been rewoken, but after more than half her life without it, it was unlikely ever to be much use to her. The basics of mancery had to be learned before the mind was fully formed.

  It reminded her of a more immediate problem—Sulien’s powerful gift for the Secret Art. Since first seeing Gergrig far across the void, which was astounding in itself, her gift had grown in all kinds of ways. But where had it come from? No one knew.

  Karan did not understand Sulien’s gift and had no idea what to do about it. She could not block it; never would she do to her daughter what had been done to her, but neither could she tutor Sulien in it.

  But she dared not give the job to anyone else—could anyone be trusted to guide and protect Sulien in so deadly an art while the Merdrun were hunting her with all their strength and cunning and mancery, determined to see her dead before the secret could be extracted?

  Karan could not ignore Sulien’s gift either. She was too clever and determined a child; she would explore it on her own, and that would be like giving a dagger to a baby. An untrained gift was a danger to its owner and everyone around her, and it would draw all manner of unsavoury people towards her—to say nothing of the Merdrun’s mancers.

  Sick terror overwhelmed Karan, that there was nothing she could do to help Sulien; that it was already too late. She fought an overwhelming urge to scream—being a sensitive, she felt things far more deeply than other people. It built up in her, and up; she rose from her seat, her mouth opening, eyes wide, fists clenched—

  Whack! The back of Yggur’s hand struck her across the face and she fell and hit the floor on both knees.

  “Pull yourself together,” he said coldly. “Do you want to save your daughter or not?”

  3

  I … HAD … A … BREAKDOWN!

  Karan fought an urge to thump Yggur over the head. She rubbed her throbbing cheek, glowering.

  “Think about how we can get her away from the thrice-cursed Whelm,” he said.

  They had served him for many years though they had never given him the respect owed to their true master—the Whelm had not thought him ruthless enough, and perhaps they had despised him for his past breakdowns. When Rulke contacted them twelve years ago the Whelm had abandoned Yggur and never looked back.

  “But by the time we get there …” She could not say it, dared not think it.

  He squinted through the front window into the darkness. “How high are the mountains directly behind Alcifer?”

  “Maybe five thousand feet.”

  He thrust the left-hand lever forwards, hard, and jerked on the black knob; the rotors howled and the sky ship shot up. Karan clung to the edges of her seat. With a gesture he extinguished the lightglasses on the front and side walls, leaving the cabin illuminated only by one small glass at the rear.

  “As I understand it,” said Yggur, “the Whelm can’t contact Gergrig directly. They can only do so via your daughter’s ability to make sendings and mental links.”

  “I think so,” said Karan.

  “Then they’ll have to force her to link to Gergrig before they ask him to become their master. What are the dimensions and limitations of Sulien’s gift?”

  “I don’t know; it’s still growing in unusual ways.”

  “What can she do?” he said impatiently.

  “There are two parts, physical and psychic. With her physical gift I’ve seen her do things like boil a carafe of wine at a touch, and burn someone who was trying to hurt her. But she may be able to do much more—”

  Yggur grunted. “And the psychic?”

  “The far-seeing and far-sensing you know about. She’s also a sensitive, much stronger than I am, and sometimes she senses when people are about to do dangerous things.”

  “Such as?”

  “When Llian—” She choked; she felt sure he was dead. “When Llian was overwhelmed by the summon stone in Carcharon, and drawn into the mad fantasy that he could destroy it, Sulien cried out to him from hundreds of miles away, No, Daddy!”

  Yggur frowned. “Llian hasn’t got a sensitive bone in his body, yet she sensed what he was about to do and made a sending to him?”

  “Yes,” Karan said softly.

  It was painful to think about him too. She had chosen to go after Sulien rather than Llian, but had a sick feeling that she’d made the wrong choice and now it was too late for him.

  “That’s powerful.” said Yggur. “What else has she done that I should know about?”

  “The second last time I went to Cinnabar, a couple of days ago, the magiz caught me. She was forcing a link to form between me and Sulien, so she co
uld kill her and drink her life, and there was nothing I could do.” Karan’s voice sounded harsh in her ears. “But then …”

  In the dim light Yggur’s long head was just a shadow as he turned towards her. A stray ray touched his grey eyes, making them shine like moonbeams on frosty leaves, then they faded. “What?”

  “Sulien cried, Leave … my … mother … alone! I sent to her to stop but the magiz yelled, I’ve found the brat, Gergrig! And then …”

  “What?” said Yggur.

  “Sulien exploded with fury and a searing light burst right in front of the magiz’s eyes. They turned blood-red and she was blinded for a while. It saved my life.”

  After a very long pause, the sky ship rocking in the mountain air, Yggur said, “How could Sulien, a girl of only nine, attack the Merdrun’s mightiest mancer from so far away?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Has she been trained in the Secret Art?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Until six or seven weeks ago,” Karan said slowly, “we didn’t know she had a gift for it.”

  “But there must have been signs,” Yggur said accusingly, as though Karan had been negligent in her parenting. “After all, she’s a triune like you. Why didn’t you check?”

  “Before she was born, Llian and I had suffered two bloody, terrible years. The Time of the Mirror scarred us both; I still have nightmares and flashbacks, and he gets panic attacks. We just wanted Sulien to live the life of a normal little girl.”

  He grunted. “Gifts like hers are dangerous, especially if they’re untrained. When you get her back—”

  “I’m never going to get her back,” Karan cried, the agony exploding in her. “Gergrig will order her killed.”

  “Don’t be stupid. He won’t tell the Whelm to kill her.”

  “Why not?”

  “How could he trust them to carry out such a vital task? Once he has a new magiz—which could take time—he’ll order her to drink Sulien’s life.”

  “She might be doing it already.” Karan strangled a sob.

  “For pity’s sake stop whining,” he snapped. “I’ve had enough of it to last me a lifetime.”

  Karan had had enough. “And you’ve done enough whining to last me a lifetime,” she snarled.

  “How dare you!” he cried, abandoning the controls and standing up to tower head and shoulders over her.

  “You’ve spent most of the last two months wallowing in self-pity, criticising everyone and offering nothing, yet it was your reckless abdication last year that gave Cumulus Snoat the opportunity to tear Meldorin apart.”

  “I … had … a … breakdown!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m still suffering from when Rulke broke into my mind—possessed me, drove me out of my wits …”

  “That was a thousand years ago! Get over it.”

  “The mind is its own master, you little fool! You can’t tell yourself to snap out of it.” He thrust his face so close to hers that, as he roared, drops of spittle spattered her.

  He was so powerful and intimidating that Karan felt the urge to run up the back and hide under the hammocks. She wiped her face and forced herself to meet his eyes.

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” she said softly. “My father was killed when I was eight, and that very day I saw my mother’s mind break. I lived with it for four years, until she took her life and left me all alone. I circled the pit of madness myself once, while I carried the cursed Mirror of Aachan; circled it and fell in and was lucky to escape. But I did, and it strengthened me, and I will never go there again.”

  Karan softened. A trauma that made one person stronger could break another, and it had nothing to do with size or physical strength or intellect—it simply happened. Yggur was still in great pain.

  “I’m sorry,” she added. “If there’s any way I can help you, I will.”

  His head jerked back and she saw his yearning, that someone could lift the burden from him. Rulke had ransacked Yggur’s mind from the inside, the most terrible violation anyone could experience, and Yggur had borne the burden of it for a thousand years.

  He turned away and took the controls. “I’ve tried everything,” he said harshly. “No one has ever been able to help me.” He looked through the oval window into the dark, jaw clenched, then said, “We’ve got days to fill before we get there. Tell me the rest.”

  Karan’s mind was a blank. “The rest of what?”

  “What happened when you went to Cinnabar a few hours ago.”

  Had it only been a few hours? It felt like months. She realised that no one knew what had happened there; after she’d been flung back to Alcifer there had not been time to tell anyone. She gathered her thoughts.

  “Malien made a spell to send me to Cinnabar, to stop the magiz from opening the Crimson Gate, but before I could trigger the spell the magiz dragged me back there, to the icy plateau at the top of the mountain where the gate stood, intending to drink my life and Sulien’s.

  “The Merdrun broke through the defenders’ ring fortress and were about to take the gate when I discovered that two gates had once stood there side by side—the Gates of Good and Evil crafted by Stermin in ancient times. But the Azure Gate, the good gate, had been toppled and buried long ago.

  “Before I could move, the enemy captured the Crimson Gate, caught me, and the magiz used the power of all the lives she’d drunk to open the gate. Gergrig stormed it with his greatest warriors, leading the charge, but they all went mad and hacked each other to pieces. He retreated back to Cinnabar, the only survivor.”

  “Why?” said Yggur.

  “The gate was a trap; the Charon must have set it up nine thousand years ago when they gave Cinnabar to the defenders. The Charon had toppled the Crimson Gate and buried it, then disguised the Azure Gate with a permanent illusion, making it appear crimson. But the Azure Gate had been the ennobling gate, changing the people who chose it, just as the Crimson Gate had corrupted those who passed through it.

  “The conflict between the ennobling gate and the Merdrun’s own corruption had been too great for the troops who entered the gate; it drove them insane. And since their entire lives had been devoted to killing, in their madness all they could do was kill.”

  “But the gate was opened,” said Yggur.

  “Gergrig was furious that they had been duped. He cast down the false gate and raised the true Crimson Gate, but the magiz had exhausted her power, and the only way she could get more was by drinking powerful lives—mine and Sulien’s. But first she had to beat me in physical combat … and she nearly did.”

  Karan shivered. It was frigid at this altitude and it reminded her of the unbearable cold as the magiz had cast her down onto the ice, tore her clothes open from breast to belly and prepared to gut her.

  “I shoved my fingers into her open mouth and cast the one spell I was confident would work, a simple freezing charm I’d used as a little girl before Tensor blocked my mancery. At any other place the spell would probably have failed, but it was easy there. And the magiz had no way to block it because it had been cast inside her defences. It froze her from the inside out, but unfortunately …”

  “Enormous power is released on the death of a great mancer,” Yggur said thoughtfully, “and she contrived to open the gate with it.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Nothing else could have done it,” said Yggur. Then added, “And our allies don’t know any of this?”

  “I only had time to tell them that the enemy were coming through the gate somewhere, and that Shand was the magiz’s unwitting spy.”

  “I overheard. That was badly done, Karan.”

  “After the way he abused me and Llian the past six weeks,” she muttered, her cheeks glowing, “how else was I supposed to tell them?”

  “Without malice! He’s long been your friend, and he’s also going through a difficult patch.”

  “The moment I mentioned the spy in our midst, he looked at you.”
r />   To her surprise, Yggur laughed. “I’d expect no less.”

  “The Merdrun are somewhere on Santhenar and we have no idea where,” she said bitterly. “It’s all been for nothing.”

  Yggur shrugged, one shoulder rising higher than the other. “Maybe, maybe not. How many Merdrun are there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Ten thousand. Maybe more.”

  “I don’t see how ten thousand can threaten Santhenar.”

  “They’re tougher than Charon, and a hundred Charon took Aachan.”

  “Special circumstances. It would never work here.”

  “On Cinnabar, over and again I saw single Merdrun soldiers take on three, five and once ten of the enemy, and cut them down. They’re … superhuman.”

  “I doubt that, but they’re bred and trained for a single purpose—war. And no doubt reinforced by mancery to make them seem even more terrible.” He pushed the red porphyry knob forward until the sky ship was racing, the air whistling around it. “And how many thousands more of them are waiting their turn, back wherever they come from?”

  “We’ve been invaded by the most vicious army the void has ever seen,” Karan said in a dead voice, “an army so powerful that even the mighty Charon were terrified of them, and we don’t have a clue where they are.”

  “But we do know they want Sulien dead,” Yggur said softly.

  4

  SHE’S OUR BARGAINING PIECE

  Where is she, Idlis? What have you done with her, traitor?

  For Sulien to detect the Whelm’s mind-speech, they had to be close. She did not hear any reply, but Idlis’s anguish, as they battered him mercilessly, was like a spike digging into her back. She did not like him, for he was a hard, creepy, unknowable man. Yet he had been a faithful friend to Karan and always kept his word, and Sulien felt his pain.

  All night she had groped her way through the cold rainforest, struggling through knee-deep moss, clinging ferns and masses of slimy toadstools that squelched underfoot and stank of rotting meat. She was desperate for sleep but had not dared to stop. The Whelm hunting her would not rest.