Beyond the Gate (The Golden Queen) (Volume 2) (31 page)

There was no one on or near the road, no sign of Zell’a Cree. But in infrared Gallen’s mantle detected hot points of light on the ground, splashes of blood.

He stooped low and ran, following the trail. A dog began barking far ahead, perhaps a kilometer off, and Gallen wondered if his quarry were getting away.

He raced onward couple hundred meters, responding to the voice of Fermoth, a great hunter who whispered that he should be quiet, refrain from alerting his quarry, and Gallen found a bright pool of blood on the ground on the far side of a stone well. Zell’a Cree had rested here momentarily, dripping blood over everything.

More bright flecks beckoned farther on, and Gallen began stalking through dark alleys, over a wall. His prey moved like a fox—backtracking and zigzagging, and Fermoth whispered to Gallen,
Yes, yes, this is how I would do it. This is the direction I would go
, till Gallen wondered if the shared experiences of the Inhuman might not be a disadvantage to his quarry.

Gallen reached the far end of town and began circling back along a hill, at which point even Fermoth wondered what the quarry was up to, and Gallen began to wonder if Zell’a Cree was Inhuman after all.

Yet it was obvious that Gallen’s quarry was failing. Perhaps he was no longer thinking clearly. The droplets of blood were getting brighter, warmer. The man was slowing, weakening, until Gallen felt sure he was near, and that he would be weak, and dying, when Gallen found him.

Gallen felt confused. He was beginning to understand the servants of the Inhuman. Indeed, he thought that they might be friends, or that at least they thought themselves good. None of the voices inside Gallen were evil. They had just been people who were concerned with living their own lives, people who wanted to continue living. And though Zell’a Cree had killed Fenorah and was an Inhuman, he was also someone like Gallen who had become infected against his will. Gallen recalled the Bock’s warning, in which he told Gallen that at times he would have to choose whether to kill an Inhuman or spare it. And as he hunted, Gallen’s resolve to kill Zell’a Cree weakened.

Yet Fenorah had also been innocent, had not deserved to die, Gallen reminded himself. And Gallen could not understand how it was that basically good people could do this to each other.

After nearly twenty minutes, he reached an alley behind a store.

Blood was smeared on a white stucco wall in the moonlight, and Gallen could see droplets on the dusty road. He heard the sound of coughing ahead.

He rounded a corner, and a beefy man was there in the moonlight, lying on his side in the alley, his pale eyes looking almost white. Zell’a Cree. He held his wound and lay gasping, bubbles of blood dribbling down his chin.

Gallen held his sword point forward, carefully stalked up to the man, to the
Inhuman
, he reminded himself, and he stared into the man’s face.
We share so many memories
, Gallen thought, looking into Zell’a Cree’s eyes. The Inhuman struggled to run, moved his legs about feebly, and stared forward into the dust, his eyes blind. He breathed furiously, and small puffs of dust rose up near his chin. His face contorted in a grimace, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“Boots. Boots are inside building,” Zell’a Cree whispered to Gallen, as if it were terribly urgent, and Gallen could smell the tanned leather scraps outside the back door of the bootmaker’s shop. Indeed, Zell’a Cree’s right boot was tied together with a scrap of cloth. And Gallen suddenly realized that this man had circled back to town to get some new boots.

Now that Gallen had caught him, he considered stabbing him again, but didn’t have the heart. Gallen shared the memories of twenty lives with this man, and all of those people had lived extraordinary lives. They were not small-minded killers.

“Damn you,” Gallen said. “Why did you have to stab Fenorah?”

Zell’a Cree didn’t answer. Gallen suspected that Zell’a Cree had taken a mortal wound. Yet Gallen could not afford mercy. His friends’ lives might still be at stake. Gallen stuck his sword at Zell’a Cree’s throat, demanded, “How many of you are stalking us? Where are your men camped?”

Zell’a Cree did not answer, merely turned his head up at the sound of Gallen’s voice. Gallen put the sword to his chin, and asked again, “How many more are you?” Zell’a Cree said nothing, and Gallen wondered if he were past talking.

‘‘Join us,” Zell’a Cree breathed, “and we will stalk you no more.”

So Zell’a Cree still felt himself at war and would give up no information. Gallen respected that. He studied the creature. Zell’a Cree looked human, simply a beefy man with pale eyes that were much like Ceravanne’s. He could have been a baker or an innkeeper in any town that Gallen had ever visited, and Gallen felt ashamed at wanting him dead.

“What did you do, before the Inhuman converted you?” Gallen asked.

“I … farmed,” the big man panted. “Apples. I make, uh, cider.”

“I think you’re going to die,” Gallen admitted softly. ‘‘There’s little that you or I or anyone else can do to stop it now. I can let you die slowly, in your own time, or I can take you quickly.” He let the tone of his voice ask the question.

“Slowly,” Zell’a Cree asked. “Life is sweet. Savor it.”

Gallen was dismayed by the answer. How could life be so sweet that you looked forward to coughing up your own blood for five minutes? But the voices of the dead within him bubbled up, all of them clamoring, “Yes, yes, life is sweet.” They craved it, even a miserable few moments of pain.

Gallen looked back toward where he imagined the inn might be. He was tempted to leave Zell’a Cree on the road, head back to check on the others, but he was acutely aware that Zell’a Cree had lost his life at least twice: once when the Inhuman had converted him against his will, and once when Gallen had plunged a sword into his lung.

So Gallen sat down in the dust, prepared to wait with Zell’a Cree, stay with him to the end.

“Forgive me,” Zell’a Cree asked, grunting, his words raising small puffs of dust. “I never wanted to hurt you … anyone.”

Gallen wasn’t sure what to answer, but settled for “I know.”

The voices of the Inhuman rose within Gallen, crying out across the centuries. “Join with us.”

Gallen felt torn. For several minutes Zell’a Cree only lay breathing, gasping at an ever more frenzied pace, droplets of sweat rolling down his face into the dust. At first, Gallen feared the man, but Zell’a Cree made no move against him, seemed less and less capable of moving at all. He wheezed for a bit, and coughed until fresh blood began foaming from his mouth.

Zell’a Cree closed his eyes and began weeping, concentrated on breathing.

“Let me take you now, friend,” Gallen said. “There’s nothing left to savor.”

“Please …” Zell’a Cree mumbled after a long moment, “water. A drink first. Then kill me.”

Gallen looked about. His own water skin was back in the wagon, but there was a rain barrel under the eaves of the shoemaker’s roof. Gallen went to the barrel, found that it was nearly full. He sheathed his sword, cupped some water in his hands, and went back to the dying Zell’a Cree, put his hands down under Zell’a Cree’s lips.

The dying man didn’t take the water. Just lay there breathing heavily, lapsing into sleep.

“Wake up,” Gallen said. “I brought your water.”

“Unh,” Zell’a Cree grunted, twisted his head to try to get his lips to the water. Gallen held his hands down lower, and to his surprise, Zell’a Cree tried to sit up to drink, put a hand on Gallen’s shoulder as he steadied himself.

Gallen held his hands to the man’s mouth, let him drink it for a moment, and Zell’a Cree leaned back against the wall, his eyes focusing on Gallen. He seemed only a bluish shadow in the moonlight, all colors washed from his face, as if he were already fading into dust.

The cicadas and crickets began singing in the still night, and a little breeze whipped through the streets, raising the hair on Gallen’s back.

Zell’a Cree smiled weakly, stared up at the sky, and Gallen thought he would die now. “Thank you,” Zell’a Cree whispered as if addressing the universe, and then he looked into Gallen’s eyes. “It has been so long … so long since I have heard the voice of the Inhuman … but now, I know what it wants me to do.”

Gallen leaned closer, curious, and looked into Zell’a Cree’s eyes. “What does it want from you?”

Zell’a Cree reached up quickly, and there was the jingle of metal rings as he pulled at Gallen’s mantle. Gallen grabbed at the Tosken’s wrist, but like the Tekkar he was immensely strong—so their struggle lasted only a brief second, then the knowledge tokens flashed in the moonlight as Zell’a Cree ripped Gallen’s mantle free.

It went sailing through the air and clanked against the wall of the bootmaker’s shop, and Gallen gasped and drove his sword into Zell’a Cree’s neck.

For one moment, Gallen still could not feel the Inhuman’s presence. He was not lost in strangers’ memories, and for a brief few seconds he dared hope that the Inhuman would spare him, and he lurched toward his mantle in the moonlight.

And then there was a surging in Gallen’s ears, dozens of voices clamoring, as if a tide were swelling from a distant shore. His arms and legs fell out beneath him, and Gallen could almost imagine that someone had reached into his body and pulled his spirit free. He felt disconnected—the sounds of crickets and cicadas suddenly ceased. Gallen crumpled to the ground, barely conscious of the fact that his head bounced off the dirt street.

And he felt them come leaping and tumbling after him, the hosts of the Inhuman, the ghosts with their iron will. Until now, they had taken him gently, slowly, but now he could feel something akin to desperation emanating from the machine, the desire to crush him before he could resist.

Far away he heard a desperate shriek, a harrowing wail that shook him and demanded aid, but Gallen hardly recognized that it was his own voice.

It had been thirty minutes since Gallen jumped up and rushed from the inn. Maggie and the others had gone down to the stables where they found poor Fenorah lying in a pool of blood.

Ceravanne was still beside his body, weeping, while Maggie tried to comfort her. Orick had headed south along the outskirts of town with Tallea, sniffing Gallen’s trail.

At last Maggie went and stood outside the bam, hoping to see Gallen’s shadow against the white stucco walls in the moonlight.

A maid from the kitchens was up at the inn, beckoning to her, urging Maggie to “Come back indoors, where it’s safe!”

Then Maggie heard Gallen’s bloodcurdling scream.

Gallen’s voice rang out over the small town, echoing from the hilltops and from the buildings so that she couldn’t be sure where it came from. Almost, it seemed to rise from the earth itself, but she thought it might have come from a ridge to the west.

Maggie’s heart began pounding, and she looked about frantically. She wondered if it really had been Gallen’s voice—it had been blurred and distant, after all—but she knew that it was. It sounded like a death cry, as if he’d taken a mortal wound in the back, as Fenorah had done. She raced toward the sound for a moment, looked about hysterically, realized that anyone who could have killed Gallen could also kill her.

And yet it didn’t matter. If Gallen was dead, she didn’t really care to live anymore.

So she ran uphill, west toward the ridge, and began searching. For an hour she wandered through town, investigating every street, until she met Orick and Tallea coming up from the south of town.

“Maggie, girl, what are you doing out here?” Orick demanded.

“I heard Gallen scream,” she said.

Orick and Tallea looked at each other. “We heard a shout some time back,” Orick said, “but I couldn’t say it was Gallen’s. It sounded to us as if it came from the north.”

“No sign of Gallen?” Maggie asked.

“Whoever he was chasing,” Orick said, “knew how to cover his scent. He ran me in circles, and his scent didn’t stick to the dust. And Gallen’s wearing that damned cloak of his, which hides all smell. So we’ve lost their trail.” Maggie filed that information away. She hadn’t known that a Lord Protector’s cloak masked his scent.

“Maybe Gallen went back to inn,” Tallea said, and Maggie realized that she
had
been gone for over an hour. If Gallen were hurt, he’d have gone back to the inn, if he could.

And it seemed her last hope. So they went back to the inn, down to the stables. A maid from the inn had brought a lantern down, and Fenorah had been washed and turned on his back. A clean quilt was stretched out over him, but it was too short for the giant, so that it covered his feet, but not his face.

Shivering from a chill wind that was beginning to blow down the high mountain passes, the companions sat in the stable, waiting for Gallen’s return for several more minutes, until at last Ceravanne said in her clear voice, “All things pass away. It is time, my friends, to consider the possibility that Gallen is gone, and what that means to the quest.” She stood above Fenorah, and the lantern’s sharp light reflected from her angular face. She seemed somehow washed out, unreal under such light.

“Are you saying we should leave without him?” Orick grumbled, rising to his hind feet. He sniffed the air once again, as was his habit when he felt nervous.

“I hesitate to say it,” the Tharrin answered. “Gallen has not returned, and almost two hours have passed. I doubt he would stay away so long, if he were able to return to us.”

“And if he’s dead, killer waiting for us,” Tallea muttered, resting her unsheathed sword by letting its tip settle into the floorboards under the straw.

“And that means we have little choice but to press on as quickly as possible,” Ceravanne whispered. “But there is something else we must consider. If Gallen is dead, then his killer may have taken Gallen’s mantle. We will have someone with the powers of a Lord Protector hunting us, and he will have access to all of Gallen’s memories. He will know where we plan to go, what we plan to do.”

“So you want us to stay and see if we can find Gallen’s body,” Maggie asked, “just to make sure we get his mantle?” And she knew Ceravanne was right. Knowledge is power, and the Lord Protector’s mantle would be a powerful weapon if it fell into the hands of the Inhuman.