The Limbreth Gate. Megan Lindholm

bowed forward in a permanent cower. Vandien flipped up a small coin and let it fall ringing on his tabletop. The boy didn’t turn to the sound of it. So strange a behavior was this for a serving boy that Vandien wondered if he were deaf. Hastily he tossed down the rest of his Alys and held up the glass.

      ‘Lad?’ he called.

      The boy flinched and turned at the same instant. He came to Vandien’s table as reluctantly as a kicked dog. Vandien liked Jojorum less and less with each passing moment.

      ‘I’m looking for a friend,’ Vandien began gently. The boy’s eyes went wide, his pupils filling them with blackness. ‘If you haven’t seen her, tell me so. I won’t be angry. She is slender, a bit shorter than myself, green eyes and brown hair, wearing a yellow blouse.’

      Already the boy was shaking his head in a terrified manner, so that his fine pale hair stood out around his face like a halo. His eyes whipped back to the door, but his danger came from another direction.

      ‘Wretch! Don’t shake your head, fill his glass! He didn’t come here to look at it empty, and I don’t feed you to deny the customers. About your work, or do I take a fist to you?’

      The boy’s whole body jerked in apprehension, his face crumpling into tears even as the promised blow fell. There was a solid smack of flesh against flesh, and a loud grunt of surprise from the innmaster. Vandien’s capable fingers tightened on his soft white wrist until the flesh stood out between them in red bulges.

      ‘Child beatings always detract from the pleasures of drinking. Do not you agree?’ His tone was conversational, but Vandien’s fingers continued to tighten until the innmaster made a sound, half grunt, half gasp, of agreement. The boy was white, sagging against the table, his shock at being defended almost as stunning as a blow.

      Vandien rose without releasing the innmaster’s wrist. The man still stood half a head taller than Vandien, but Vandien was road hard and whiplash limber. For the space of three breaths the innmaster’s eyes met his. Then they dropped before his black stare, to dart about the table legs.

      ‘The little snake has always been trouble to me. Don’t let his sweet looks deceive you. I give him a bed, clothes to his back; he repays me with lies and trouble.’

      Vandien picked up his empty glass. He held it before the innmaster’s nose. ‘Innmaster, my glass is empty. See to its refilling. And bring a glass of red wine for my friend.’

      The innmaster wanted to snarl at the boy, but he was stopped by the coins in Vandien’s free hand. Vandien kicked out a free chair and nodded the boy into it. Seating himself again, he dropped his landlord’s wrist as if it were a piece of fresh offal. For a merest blink the man stood still, rubbing at his smarting flesh and eyeing Vandien. But Vandien smiled back at him affably. It was late at night; none of his regular patrons were willing or sober enough to aid him. To summon the city guard at this hour would require a bigger bribe than the innmaster was willing to pay. He turned and strode back to his kitchen, trying not to hurry. Moments later, the other serving boy appeared at the table, filling Vandien’s glass and bringing a goblet of red wine as well. He picked up Vandien’s coins and then stepped well away from the table.

      ‘Begging your pardon,’ he said softly. His lips trembled, but he glanced at the kitchen door and went on. ‘My master bids me to tell you this. If you want the boy, he has to be paid for, same as anything else in this tavern.’

      Vandien gave him a level stare, and a wolf’s smile. ‘Actually, it’s your master I lust for. Tell him I bid him to come to my table, so I can pay him what he’s worth.’

      The boy nodded stiffly, and scurried away. Vandien turned his eyes to his white-faced companion. The lad was on the edge of his chair, nearly slipping away.

      ‘Sit down,’ Vandien told him. ‘And drink that down. It may give you some color. Now. Before we were interrupted, we were talking. I was telling you I was looking for a friend.’

      Again the boy’s eyes went wide, and Vandien saw his error. ‘No. Nothing like that. There is a woman I travel with, a Romni woman I was to meet here. But she seems to have left without me. She has green eyes and brown hair …’

      The child put his head down on his arms and began to sob softly. Vandien looked at him, sighed, and swallowed half his Alys. ‘Well, we can talk about my friend later, perhaps. Don’t be upset, now. Listen. Have you ever heard the story of the woman who walked to the moon by following its shining path across a lake?’ The boy did not stir. His sobs were only slightly less. Vandien drew his story-string out of his pouch. ‘I’ll show it to you. See, here is the moon …’ The string looped and settled on his fingers, forming his people’s sign for moon. Vandien began telling his story softly to himself.

      Four stories passed. The boy’s head was still pillowed on his arms, but he looked about, and Vandien had talked half the wine into him. He seemed calmer. Vandien began another story, but his voice dragged. He kept losing his place in it. His story-string tangled on his fingers. He picked at the knot, trying to remember what story he had been telling. He could no longer taste the Alys he quaffed. That numbweed was potent stuff indeed. It mattered little now if his hip were numb or not. He wouldn’t have felt a dozen small jabs. He continued to work at the knot.

      His forehead bumped the table. He jerked himself upright and forced his sandy eyes open. The boy regarded him gravely from across the table. ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ he ventured to ask.

      ‘It’s either too much to drink or not enough sleep,’ Vandien told him fuzzily. He couldn’t tell if the boy heard his reply or not. His grey eyes had strayed back to the door. ‘Now it’s my turn to ask,’ Vandien ventured. ‘Who is supposed to come in that door soon?’

      ‘My mother.’ The boy’s voice went flat and dull. His eyes were beyond pain as he turned them to Vandien. ‘That’s what she promised me. The blue woman said that if I told her to go through the Gate, my mother would be able to come in and find me. So I did. She was looking for you, and I sent her through the Gate. I’m sorry.’

      ‘What?’

      The story came slowly, in bits and tatters. Vandien felt his jaws tighten. He forced himself to nod and tried to keep his fears from the boy. The boy’s description made the blue woman a Windsinger. Ki had been sent through a Gate on a ruse. Into what? Rousters? Windsinger’s magic? Or simple death in the dark?

      ‘Tell me again about the Gate,’ Vandien urged. ‘Why didn’t you just run home to your mother?’

      ‘The Keeper wouldn’t let me. And my mother couldn’t get through the Gate either. I tried once. I crept away from here once and ran down to the Limbreth Gate. My mother saw me and ran to meet me. But we couldn’t get through. We couldn’t even get into the Gate. Then the terrible light came, and my mother told me to run away, back to shelter.’

      Vandien straightened himself, alarm horns blaring in his mind. This was no nightly ritual of waiting for his mother, nor a question of Rousters keeping his mother out of the city. His sleepiness drained away; a touch of sobriety rebuked him.

      ‘My mother even offered to trade herself for me. She told the Keeper that she would come in the Gate, if he would let me go out. To keep the balance. But the Keeper wouldn’t let her. He was afraid folk on this side would believe my mother’s words. They pay no heed to one such as I.’

      ‘What could she tell us that would so upset the Keeper?’

      The child leaned forward to whisper the great secret. ‘The Jewels of the Limbreth are not for this world. Only for ours. One of your kind cannot seize the Jewels and bring them back here as a treasure. For your kind, the Jewels seize.’

      ‘My kind seize the Jewels?’ Vandien was wishing desperately that his head was not so fumed with Alys and the drug dart. Into what had Ki been sent?

      ‘No! No, the Jewels seize them,’ the boy said, as if reciting a well-known story. ‘They have no moderation. They do not bask in the peace and revelation of the Jewels. The Limbreth smiles upon them, and the Jewels seize them.