The Lost Gate (11 page)

Here is where King Prayard's life became complicated. For his father, King Oviak, having started a war with the Jarl of Gray and having then promptly lost it, was forced to accept a state marriage between his son, Prayard, and Bexoi, the sister of the victorious young Jarl. Bexoi had no shred of seamagery in her, and only the slightest talent as beastfriend.

It would be generous to say that Bexoi was talented enough with birds to call herself a Feathergirl—they would come when they were within earshot, and then only small and rather useless birds, not even geese or ducks that were large enough to be worth eating, or hawks or other birds of prey that might be trained to hunt.

To everyone in Iceway—and Gray, too, for that matter—it was obvious that the marriage with Bexoi was meant to put an end to the hereditary line of seamages that had culminated in Prayard, who was the most powerful Wavebrother in the recent history of Iceway. Prayard's and Bexoi's children would have sharply reduced talent, and far less likelihood of having affinities for the sea.

Prayard was a gracious man, and accepted Bexoi as his wife for the sake of the nation, even as he grieved over his own lost progeny. Not for a moment did he expect that any child of his and Bexoi's would be seamage enough to succeed him as king. Rather, he expected that the royal succession would pass into another house—whichever noble family of Iceway
did
produce a notable seamage in the next generation. In other words, it did not cross his mind that Iceway would have a ruler who could not command a fleet of sailless ships; rather, he took Gray's action in forcing this marriage to be an act against this particular royal family.

But the terms of the treaty did not stop with the marriage. For along with Bexoi there came to Iceway a host of Grayish “servants” and “stewards,” all of whom were assumed to be, and were in fact, spies and overlords, and sometimes both at once. And it soon became clear that Gray would not accept any change of the royal house. The Jarl's goal was not to end the power of Prayard's family, but to force upon Iceway a king who was half-Gray by birth and magically weak and misdirected into some channel other than seamagery: in other words, the perpetual subjugation of Iceway.

So the fortress of Nassassa, where King Prayard lived, became a constant silent war between the Icewegians and the Grays. Prayard gave every outward respect to his wife, even to the sharing of her bed at least once in every month; her lack of children was blamed entirely on Bexoi's barrenness and not on lack of effort by Prayard. She sat beside him in court, attended all his official meetings, and was given an ample allowance with which to support the large contingent of servants and stewards who constantly meddled with the government and business of Iceway.

At the same time, Prayard was well known to have a mistress—no, a concubine, Anonoei—who had given birth to two sons, Eluik and Enopp, whose resemblance to Prayard was constantly remarked upon by Icewegians who already regarded them as their father's heirs.

If Anonoei had been a seamage, or even a powerful mage of any sort, then those sons would long since have been murdered in some untraceable way by one of the Grayish agents in the queen's employ. Or, failing that, their mere existence would have provoked a war. But as far as anyone could tell, Anonoei had no magical ability at all, not even Bexoi's feeble beastmagic. She formed no clant, practiced no discipline, served no aspect of the natural world. She seemed to live for no other purpose than to please King Prayard and lovingly raise her boys.

Thus King Prayard could be believed, or mostly believed, when he declared to the Grays that his sons by Anonoei, though he openly acknowledged them, would not inherit the throne, but would merely be his support and comfort in his old age. Yet at the same time, the common people of Iceway, as well as the noble houses, constantly hoped that Eluik and Enopp would be trained in the early aspects of seamagery like most other children in Iceway, and would show great talent and be worthy to succeed their father. Then they could lead a fleet to avenge their grandfather Oviak's defeat and their father Prayard's constant humiliation by the Grays.

So the Grays in Nassassa kept constant vigilance to make sure that Eluik and Enopp never received any training in seamagery—indeed, they insisted that the boys should never so much as ride in a boat or see the waves beating upon the shore. Meanwhile, the Icewegians of the royal house kept equal vigilance to try to find some hopeful sign that despite all the outward evidence, the boys were actually getting that vital training.

It was into this castle of intrigue, distrust, resentment, and barely contained violence that a stranger came, who might have been a slight and slender man or a tall-grown lad, whose face was beardless yet whose eyes were deep with the wisdom of age, and who spoke not a word of any language for long enough that most people in the castle of Nassassa assumed that he was mute.

They had no idea how many centuries he had lived inside a tree, or how such a thing might even have been possible; they could only have known it if they had talked to a certain peasant girl from the high country.

The strange silent boy showed up one summer in the kitchen garden, wearing peasant clothing that did not fit and looking miserable and hungry. It was nearly night and Hull, the night cook, was up to her elbows in flour dust, kneading each of the prentices' wads of dough to see if they had the consistency right. Each prentice stood across the table from her as she worked his or her dough, sweating as much from dread as from the bread ovens heating up across the courtyard.

Young Jib, a promising soup girl, came and stood at the end of the table, waiting. Hull saw her at once and was irritated—how could anyone be fool enough to interrupt her when she was doughing? Yet Jib was doing exactly what she had been taught to do when a matter had some urgency but she did not want to break Hull's concentration. So despite her annoyance, Hull could find no fault with the girl.

Hull finished with the current wad by splashing a double handful of flour onto the table, then plopping the dough onto it with a distinctly wet-sounding splonk. “Have we given you a name yet?” she asked the prentice.

“No, Mistress,” said the hapless boy, who had dared to offer her a wad that was still spongy.

“Good,” said Hull. “Because if you thought that dough was ready for loaving, you'll never have a name in the King's house.”

The prentice blanched and immediately plunged his hands into the wad, kneading in the flour Hull had added. It would take more flour than she had put there, Hull knew—it would be interesting to see if the boy had sense enough to add even more. In fact the prentice was promising—his breads had a good flavor to them—but it did them no good praising them too much or too early in their prenticeship.

“Well?” said Hull, turning to Jib at the head of the table.

“A boy in the garden,” said Jib. “Or a man. In the dark it's hard to tell.”

“And this boy or man sent you in from the garden, your hands empty of the herbs I sent you for? Coriander? Rosemary? I don't even smell them on you.”

“In the shade garden, when I went for the cumin,” said Jib. “It was locked from the outside, and nothing broken inside, yet there he was.”

“What do you think, then?” asked Hull. “The peppers are bearing a strange new fruit?” But she was washing the flour and dough off her arms. She would go and see what was going on.

Jib made as if to lead her there. “Do you think I can't find my way to the shade garden without you to lead me, Jib? Go get the rosemary, and try not to find any strange intruders there.”

Jib hesitated for a moment, as if she thought to defend herself from the ludicrous idea that finding intruders was a matter within her control. Poor girl—like all the others, she was utterly without humor. Or, rather, she was unable to conceive of Hull having a sense of humor, which meant her jests were all counted as madness in the lore that grew up around her. Well, the mighty authority of night cook carried a heavy burden of loneliness. Again, an ironic joke; but since she didn't voice it, her entire audience—herself—was filled with mirth.

An intruder, with no locks opened. Hull refused to let herself feel any hope, though a person appearing in a locked room was a sign that had been drilled into her as a child. In this case it meant nothing—the shade garden would be easy enough to slip into, since the gossamer covering could be loosened at a corner—or torn with a fingernail.

Jib had relocked the gate when she left—Hull marked that as a sign that the girl had some sense. Hull could easily imagine one of the other kitchen servants leaving it open, so that Hull would find the garden empty and some assassin would then have free rein of the castle.

Hull unlocked the gate, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.

The boy—the man—sat on the ground in the middle of the garden, between planting beds. The full moon was much dimmed by the gossamer roof, as it should have been, but the intruder was plainly visible. He hugged his knees and looked at her impassively, then looked back down at the planting bed he was more or less facing.

“So is it the coriander that fascinates you?” asked Hull. “Or were you hoping for a midnight assignation with a fat old cook?”

The intruder did not look up at her.

Hull walked around the perimeter inspecting the gossamer where it was joined to the roof. No sags, no gaps. It was as tight as when she last had it tightened two weeks ago. If there was one thing the sailor folk of Iceway knew how to do, it was stretch a cloth tight. She glanced back at him from time to time—he made no movement and showed no interest in what she was doing.

She stifled her excitement. It was not possible. Even though her grandfather had taught her the signs, her father had taught her even more sternly that there were no gatemages in the world.

But the first sign, the very first, was a person appearing in a locked place with no sign of how he got there.

Not possible. Gatemages existed, yes—grandfather had been one, to his sorrow. It was
gates
that could not remain.

So the question now was not whether this intruder was a gatemage, but whether he had been discovered by the Gate Thief. Perhaps that's why he sat here in the middle of her shade garden, unable to leave because the gate he came in through was gone and he could not understand why.

“I know what you are,” said Hull. She approached him from the side, so he could see her but would not feel confronted by her. She took care to move at a middling gait—not so slowly that she looked furtive, not so quickly that it would seem to be an assault. “I know you came here by way of a gate no other can see. Did you make it yourself?”

He showed no sign of hearing her.

“Is your passageway still open? Can you leave the way you came in?”

He turned his head to look, not at her face, but at her knees. Then he looked back toward the planting bed. It was the basil starts that he seemed intrigued by.

“I will tell no one what you are,” said Hull. “No one. Didn't I keep my father's secret his whole life? But I'll tell
you,
so that we each know a secret about the other. My grandfather was a gatemage, and my father had a talent for it, too. My grandfather lived in the Forest of Mages, sheltered there from all kings, from all enemies, from all eyes. His gates were short passages within the forest, and all seemed well. Other mages, when they noticed or talked to him at all, gave him great respect, for he was the most gifted gatemage known in many a century.”

The intruder—a boy, a mere boy, he could not be an adult, his skin was so unlined—nodded slowly, though she could not tell if he nodded at what she was saying or at some unguessed inward thought.

“But then he decided to create a Great Gate. One that you make twice, coming and going. One that leads from this world to the Lost World of Mittlegard.”

The boy stopped nodding.

“Yes, he was that ambitious. He wanted to restore magery to its former greatness, for mages who pass from one world to another and then return come back not only healed of all physical ills except age itself, but also strengthened tenfold in their power. A hundredfold. So he gathered a dozen of the mages who had been most respectful to him and told them that he knew he probably could not succeed, but what if he did make the Great Gate, but then died? Or half-made it, and failed to return? Someone needed to be a witness of where it was. And perhaps if he made gate enough to pass through it himself, some might want to follow him. My grandfather was generous; he had forethought; he was a natural leader of men. My father said he was a fool, but that was after he had failed, of course.

“For he did fail, you guessed that already. Grandfather began to turn and turn, and then to spin and spin. For the gate he was making was not a mere jump between one place on the surface of the world and another. He was drilling down—or up, no one is quite sure—a great hole in the universe, a tunnel leading to a place on another planet that circles another star. It is the deepest secret of the gatemages, and why theirs is the most coveted and resented of all mageries.

“Though never tell an Icewegian that—to them, it's seamages or nothing, that's how short-sighted they are. Why, if a seamage could pass through a gate to Mittlegard and back again, he would be able to put ships inside great bubbles and float them underneath the surface of the sea so no enemy could see them! He could turn the sea into solid glass that you could walk on, or drain a bay of all water and then send it crashing back! Powers no seamage has had in a thousand years or more.

“But who believes those tales now? Too much time has passed. My grandfather left the Forest of Mages when his outself was taken from him. Did I tell you? That's what the Gate Thief does, when a gatemage is truly powerful. You know that Gatefathers and Pathbrothers make their gates out of a portion of their outselves—just like a clant. That's why an early sign of such mages is they can make no clant. For they must leave a tiny portion of themselves in every gate they make, and the greater the gate and the longer it is meant to last, the more of themselves they put in it.