Beyond the Gate

Chapter 32

In the recesses of his mind, Gallen lived through the days of Druin after the fall of Indallian. He rode his huge war-horse through the forests in his youth, and suffered the pangs of lost loves, he fought many battles and learned to crave blood as much as he craved the wider world. He united many people, before he was crippled by a spear in the back.

As an old man, he became frustrated in his designs. Many admired him as a man of learning, for he could do little more than lie in his bed and study. He became devoted to the welfare of his people, yet he dreamed of walking again, of visiting the stars.

He learned to hate the walls of his bedchamber, and so he sent messengers to the City of Life and hired travelers from other worlds to come and be his tutors. He began acquiring metals to build his starships, and studied the designs.

When word reached him that the Immortals planned to stop him, he built cannons to guard his city, and great were the battles waged against him, until in ruin he was forced to put aside his weapons.

In old age, his men took him to the City of Life, and there sought the rebirth. And the judges found him unworthy. Still, they took pity on him, and gave him back his legs, sending him away. He took his gift, but turned and cursed his judges.

Thus Druin wandered far, and never visited his realm again. So it went, life after life, Gallen saw the portion of meanness in character that the Dronon had chosen to hide.

And then Ceravanne’s mantle showed Gallen other lives, the lives lived by some of those who had won the rebirth-Tottenan the Wise, from the race of the Atonkin, who felt no desire to dominate other peoples. He spent his days buying old swords and melting the steel to be used in building nails.

And Gallen recalled the life of Zemette, a shipbuilder of weak mind but great heart, a man who somehow understood by nature how to be happy, who used all of his money to buy slaves from the southlands, so that he could set them free.

And Gallen lived the life of Thrennen Ka, a Derrit who sought to teach farming to her own people.

Over and over, the lives came to him, and he was shown an equal portion of the divine and the damned. And while the dronon whispered to him that all men were equal, and therefore should serve their new dronon overlords, Gallen saw that all men were given time to make of themselves what they would, and that while some became vile, and others merely consumed, always there were a few who earnestly strove to make the world better for all, and such people were rewarded in the City of Life. And thus Ceravanne’s mantle sought to make Gallen a wiser man, full of hope and experience, and then it left him.

When Gallen finally woke, raising his head so that Ceravanne’s mantle jingled, Orick came to his side. There was a noise reverberating through the darkened hive, and the shadows jangled to the querulous notes of people waking to a new world in wonder.

And when the Harvester woke, Ceravanne hungered for a private conference with her sister. So they sat close together and held one another and cried. Gallen sat listening to the women talk.

“I’ve killed with my own hands,” the Harvester whispered, almost a wail. “I need cleansing. Can you feel it?”

“Five hundred years will not suffice, “Ceravanne agreed, not concealing the worry in her voice. “I would come with you, aid you if I could. But one of us must stay here. The Swallow must return as promised, and bring peace with her.”

“I know that you still hurt for the Rodim,” the Harvester said. “Your healing is not complete. How can we bring peace, when we feel none ourselves?”

Ceravanne opened her mouth, but spoke no answer for a moment. “We are our bodies,” she whispered at last. “Neither of us can escape our guilt. And both of us must seek to establish peace in our turns. You go to Northland, to the Vale of the Bock.” Ceravanne went to her pack, fumbled out a small seed. She held the unborn Bock up with evident care, as if it were a great treasure. “Plant this in the Vale. And there you can find peace for both of us.”

The Harvester took the seed, held it up in wonder, then grabbed Ceravanne, hugged her fiercely, and whispered, “Thank you. Thank you. Look for me again in summer, in some distant year, when both our hearts are lighter. A Bock will come with me.”

They held each other, crying softly for a moment, and Gallen petted Orick’s head, stroking it softly. There were cries in the land again, the sound of Tekkar awakening, and Gallen was looking off into the distance, into the shadows of the corner of the room. He did not mention Maggie’s name, though his heart was heavy for her.

Then the main door to the throne room squeaked on its hinges, and Gallen glanced over, expecting to see some Tekkar.

Maggie poked her head into the room.

“Maggie!” Orick shouted, bounding toward her. “I thought you got killed.” Orick reached her, sat on all fours and licked her hands, wanting to jump up and hug her, but knowing she would fall over if he did. She bent forward and kissed his forehead. “Very nearly, but the AI ejected me before the car blew.”

She stood looking at Gallen across the room, and neither one of them spoke or moved for several long seconds.

“I was afraid for you,” Gallen said at last.

“I love you, too,” Maggie said, her lower lip trembling, and they rushed into each other’s arms.

He was surprised how, even now, her touch could be electric. He kissed her, looked deep into her face, and was surprised at what he saw. There was a peace in her eyes that had never been a part of Maggie Flynn before, a new clarity and softness.

The hallways leading to the Harvester’s chamber had begun to fill with people, and Gallen could hear them talking reverently, saying, “The Swallow, yes, she’s in here.” They stood outside the doors, afraid to come in, until Ceravanne rose to greet them.

They slept that night under the bright stars of Tremonthin, with the Tekkar camped around them. The people knew the Swallow from ancient memories downloaded into their skulls, and they showed her great reverence. The Tekkar vied for the honor to become her protectors, and chefs brought her their finest meals.

Maggie looked about, and it was hard to miss the adulation shining in the eyes of the people. But all of it was for Ceravanne. Gallen, Maggie, and Orick were all but strangers in the city, people who were obvious friends to the Swallow, nothing more.

The Harvester had dressed in black robes and a hood to hide her face, and she went out into the darkness beside the river, and for long she stood alone in the moonlight.

And so at last when Maggie and Gallen staggered off to sleep in a thicket, Maggie listened to the sounds of the night, and for the first time on this world, she slept unafraid.

In the morning, they had a short funeral where they buried the Bock beside a small river. And because the Swallow herself came to the funeral, everyone from the city of Moree turned out.

Ceravanne spoke his eulogies, praising the Bock so that everyone within listening range felt as if they’d lost something important without ever knowing exactly what it was.

An engraver carved a large stone from the river’s bank for the Bock, showing a treelike figure with his hands raised toward the suns, and they left it over the gravesite, beside the road, where folks would reckon it a significant landmark in the city for a thousand years.

Ceravanne offered to send Gallen and Maggie back to Northland in a flyer, but after a brief conference, they all decided that they were in no hurry. The dronon would be hunting for Gallen and Maggie across the worlds, and Tremonthin seemed as good a place to hide as any.

Orick voiced the suspicion that both Maggie and Gallen were loath to leave because they shared so many memories of this land, and Maggie thought back through the lives she’d lived here, and did not deny it.

And so Ceravanne gave them a fine cart and a pair of horses, and Gallen, Maggie, and Orick prepared to head to Northland with the Harvester.

They were in no hurry, but Maggie found that there was a great weight upon her. She needed to go north, to the City of Life, to petition the Immortals in Tallea’s behalf, seeking her rebirth.

Ceravanne came to give her final farewell to them before they departed. She thanked them profusely for their help, and wished them good fortune. She gave them many gifts from the hands of the people of the city-warm blankets for their journey, good food and clothes, a bag of coins.

She wept as she hugged them goodbye, and then she was hustled off into the city by her Tekkar guardians, all dressed in their black robes, their faces hooded from sunlight.

They walked away in a tight knot, almost as if Ceravanne were a prisoner rather than a dignitary, and something about it gave Maggie the chills.

And in the afternoon sunlight, Maggie watched them heading back to the dark catacombs of Moree, leaving Maggie, Gallen, Orick, and the Harvester to make their own way back across the seas to Northland, and whatever destinations might lie beyond.

In the bright sunlight, Maggie watched Ceravanne waving goodbye from up a slope, a streak of lightning in her blue dress, with her platinum hair, all against the dark lines of the hills of Moree, and Maggie felt a profound sense of distress. Though Ceravanne’s mantle had perhaps tamed the hosts of the Inhuman, Ceravanne herself was staying among the Tekkar, men who by their very nature were little more than monsters.

Maggie looked up at Gallen in frustration. “Why is she staying with them?” she asked in dismay. “That’s no proper reward for her labor.”

“She is staying with them because she must dismantle the armaments in Moree, tear down the starports,” the Harvester said softly. “She is going back with them, because governing them will be her greatest challenge. And if she is to rule this land in peace, she must first get them under her sway.”

“But … but Maggie’s right,” Orick grumbled. “She’s lost! A lifetime of work is all she has before her. What kind of reward is that?”

“Perhaps by your human perspective she has lost,” the Harvester whispered from beneath her dark hood, so that her soft words seemed to hang in the cool air about her face. “But Ceravanne is not human. She desires to serve, and now she has won that opportunity.”

And you have lost yours, Maggie realized, studying the hooded woman.

Now Maggie saw what was really troubling her. Ceravanne had won only a new kind of captivity, just as Maggie and Gallen had. By defeating the Lords of the Swarm, she and Gallen had sought to win freedom, but all they had won was a responsibility that was too great to bear. She looked into Gallen’s face, and by his troubled look, she knew he was thinking the same.

Even now, the Lords of the dronon Swarms were hunting for Gallen and Maggie, and perhaps might soon be searching this planet. But Tremonthin was a big planet, easy to hide in.

So they headed home at a leisurely pace, while the fall grew steadily colder. A week later, when they crossed the Telgoods in their travels north, there was snow on the peaks, and a bitter nip in the air.

All during their journey home, they found peace in the land, and a new sense of brotherhood among the people of Babel. Where before they had received distrustful stares when they drove through a town, now they found merchants smiling and alehouses full of people who laughed and were quick to joke or sing or tell some outlandish story.

Indeed, Maggie found herself falling more and more deeply in love with the land, and one night, when she and Gallen had snuggled in a cozy bed at an inn, and a fire was burning in their hearth, she asked him as she had once before, “Gallen, if we ever escape the dronon completely, would you want to live here?”

“We’ve already lived in Babel for more than seven thousand years,” he whispered, and she saw that strange new peace in his eyes. “It’s my home. Yes, I could live here ten thousand more.”

And Maggie curled tighter against him, and felt that one thing at least had been settled. Now, if only she could figure a way to escape those damned dronon. But she feared that she would never be rid of the threat, not until they’d killed her.

And on their journey, though Maggie and Gallen continued to fall more and more deeply in love, and Maggie found greater contentment, she worried for Orick. In all of their travels, they had not found a single bear who could speak. Oh, on the trip home they once saw a bear walking along a lightly forested ridge in the wilderness, but when Orick called out to it, the creature growled stupidly and ran away, for it was only a simple animal, without Orick’s genetic upgrades.

A month later, when they reached the city of Queekusaw on the ocean shores, the whole land was blanketed in white, and snow was pounding the land. They left Babel on a slow freighter in the afternoon, on dark and wild seas, and Maggie watched the gray city fade behind a blanket of soft white.

They had a rough sea voyage, and Maggie took sick, vomiting every day. Five days later she was glad to be in Northland, where muddy roads were the greatest inconvenience a traveler had to contend with.

When they landed, they bought a new wagon, and that night, as they headed north, Orick, who had been very quiet for several days, came to Gallen and Maggie.

“Once we get to the City of Life and petition the judges there to give Tallea the rebirth, what is your heart set to do?”

“I don’t know,” Gallen said honestly. “Everynne has warned us that the Lords of the Swarms are searching for us, so no place is safe. And some of the servants of the Inhuman escaped in that starship during the battle at Moree. They might tell the dronon where we are-if Thomas doesn’t. For a while, anyway, we’ll have to keep moving, search for safer worlds. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” Orick growled, plainly very troubled, “you’ve been a good friend to me, Gallen. But I’m starting to wonder. I’m thinking maybe I should go home, to my own kind.”

“But Orick,” Maggie whispered, “I’m not sure there are more bears like you.”

Orick sniffed, and Maggie petted his snout, rubbed the thick black fur behind his ears. It was a cruel thing to have to say to him, but Maggie knew that Orick was terribly lonely, and she knew that the she-bears in Tihrglas would never give him the companionship he deserved.

“Still,” Orick grumbled, “I need to go back home.”

“Then I will take you there, my best and dearest friend,” Gallen said, and Gallen took the huge bear by the ears and kissed his forehead.

It was a long and lonely drive northward. The seasickness didn’t seem to leave Maggie for several days after they landed, yet soon things got back to normal and they arrived in the City of Life near mid-winter. It was a vast city, with great bubbles rising up at the spaceport on its edge. Tall white buildings with lofty spires gleamed against the mountains. A wide and deep river poured through the city, and white snow geese swam, mirrored in its black waters.

There, the group checked into an inn more like something they would find on Fale, a stately building with fountains at its feet, with vast clean rooms and a beautifully constructed hearth where the fire was already laid.

Maggie said goodbye to the Harvester, who had kept her distance and never really become a close friend all during this trip. “Perhaps I will see you sometime,” the Harvester said, surprising Maggie with the sentiment.

“Where will you go now?” Maggie asked.

The Harvester pointed east to the mountains. “I have friends in the Vale of the Bock. Ceravanne gave me a seed from my friend, so that at least he will bear offspring, though he will never be reborn. I will raise his child as if it too were my son.”

“Then may you find peace,” Maggie said, and she gave the woman a hug, then the Harvester drove off alone in the wagon toward the snow-covered mountains.

Straightaway, Maggie, Gallen, and Orick took Tallea’s hair sample along with the gem of memories from Gallen’s mantle and sought out the Hall of Rebirth-a vast building made of crystal that held more than three hundred thousand workers. There, they presented the items to the judges, along with their petition for Tallea’s rebirth.

Because of the unseasonable weather, there were few travelers in the city, and three judges, an ageless man and two women, each dressed in white and wearing the platinum mantles of their profession, said they would be able to consider the petition that very evening.

“You can come back in the morning, and hear our decision,” one of the judges said.

“Fine,” Orick grumbled. “But I’ll be waiting out on the steps to hear your word tonight, if you don’t mind. I’ll come in just when I see that you’re closing your doors.”

The judges glanced at one another, as if considering the propriety of this inconvenience, and Maggie went back to the inn with Gallen for a bit.

At sunset they returned to the Hall of Rebirth and found Orick waiting. A light snow had begun to fall again, powdering the streets, and the weather seemed only cool. Orick, with his thick pelt, didn’t fret about the weather, but after a bit, Maggie found herself stamping her feet, trying to keep them warm.

After an hour, one of the judges came running from the building in his thin white gown, came and took Maggie by the hand, then bent low and put one hand on Orick’s shoulder. “Why did you not tell us who you were?” the judge said.

“Would it have made a difference in our petition?” Gallen asked.

“No,” the judge said, “but at the very least, I would not have had you standing out here in the snow. Twice these past two weeks, the Vanquishers from the Seventh Swarm came to search the city for you. Apparently, the Dronon are scouring the worlds for news of you. Right now, they’ve headed farther south, to a warmer clime. Still, I expect that they will return. You are in grave danger!”

“We know that they’re hunting us,” Orick grumbled, “and we’re getting damned tired of it! Now, what about Tallea?”

“We have reviewed her memories, and I am happy to report that she will be reborn.”

“How soon?” Gallen asked. “We don’t want to leave the city without saying good-bye.”

“Just as I am equally sure that she will want you to wait for her,” the judge said. “Still, she poses a problem for us. She seeks a new body, one that will have to be modified to meet her desires, and then we will have to force-grow it in the vats for a week.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, “she wanted to be a Roamer.”

“How soon?” Orick urged the man.

The judge breathed heavily. “Eight days, maybe ten. I will have the technicians begin within the hour, but it cannot be hurried any faster.” Maggie knew from her mantle that, indeed, the judge was offering to perform a near-miracle.

“Thank you,” she whispered, hugging him briefly. “Now, you had better get back inside before you freeze.”

“Tell me where you are staying,” the judge whispered. “I have friends who were in the resistance. They will know best how to help you stay hidden.”

Gallen told him where to find them, and then they headed back toward the inn. They had not gone two blocks before two burly gentlemen in dark cloaks stepped out of a doorway, their warm breath making a cloud of fog around their faces. One of them whispered, “We’re friends.”

He walked up ahead, taking point, and looked at each cross street, then waved them along. Maggie had felt secure for weeks, but her guardians’ behavior unnerved her. For the next four kilometers, they found themselves under such guard, and when they reached the hotel, no less than a dozen such men could be seen loafing at the street comers, watching from roofs.

When they got to their room, Gallen took off his cold winter cloak and hung it in the closet. “It sounds as if we’re hotter on this world than we’d anticipated,” Gallen said, trying to sound nonchalant.

He went and looked out the window, to the lights burning in the buildings, the snow falling, and Orick went and stood looking out with him.

“Eight days. Eight days from today is Christmas day here on this world, you know,” Orick said. “I figured it up on their calendar.”

“No one here will be celebrating it,” Gallen said. “There are no Catholics here.”

“I will be celebrating it,” Orick muttered.

“We all will,” Maggie said. “That is the day that Tallea is reborn … if we’re lucky.”

“Ah, that would be grand,” Gallen said. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

And so, that following week they spent some time searching for gifts for one another in the shops of the City of Life. The shops carried no fantastic goods, like the near-magical items one might find on Fale. Instead, there were only good woolen coats dyed with bright colors, shoes that would last. Fine cheeses from all comers of the world.

On Christmas Eve, in the kitchens at the inn, Maggie cooked a ham and made rolls and Christmas pies all filled with red cherries and topped with white sugared cream. It was a huge feast, fit for a bear, and by the end of it, Orick’s snout was plastered with jam and cream.

Early on Christmas day, they exchanged gifts. Gallen got fine new scabbards for his knives from Orick, and Maggie and Gallen had scrounged together to find Orick a handsome new leather-covered copy of the Bible, for Orick had been obliged, in his haste to escape Tihrglas, to leave his Bible at home.

“Where did you get this?” Orick exclaimed, and Gallen said, “I told you that there were no Catholics on this world. I didn’t say that it completely lacked Christians.”

“But Ceravanne had never heard of them,” Orick said. “How is it she never heard of them?”

“We found the Bible at the spaceport,” Maggie finally said, unwilling to keep the bear in suspense. “Travelers from many far worlds come through there. One of them had sold it to a man who trades in … curiosities.”

Orick and Gallen then gave Maggie their gifts-a light perfume of exotic flavor, and a green silk nightgown. Both of them were fine, indeed. When they were done, Orick asked, “All right, Maggie, don’t keep us hanging at your elbow. What did you get for Gallen?”

“Oh, nothing much,” she said honestly. “It’s a small gift.”

She presented him with a little package’ wrapped in bright red paper with a white bow.

He opened it. Inside was a pair of booties and a receiving blanket. Orick looked up, his eyes wide with surprise.

“I got sick on the ocean, all right,” Maggie said, “but I never did really stop feeling queasy. I checked with the doctors here. It will be a boy.”

Gallen grinned, and looked away wistfully. “No blood kin left,” he whispered, “so you’ll make your own.”

“I will,” Maggie said, “with your help. And I’ll have a dozen of them if I want.”

Gallen grabbed her and kissed her roughly, and Orick smiled and left them alone.

It was a pleasant day, with cold suns rising up through the clouds, and a sky filled with streams of light. Later that day, Orick sat Gallen and Maggie down and read to them from his new Bible about the birth of Jesus in ancient Jerusalem, with King Herod seeking the lives of infants, and angels announcing the birth of the King of Heaven.

That afternoon, there came an insistent pounding at the door. Maggie answered it, and one of the guards stood outside. “You’ll want to be leaving the city tonight,” he said softly. “The dronon are back.”

“We can’t leave yet,” Maggie begged. “We’re waiting for a friend to get out of the rebirthing vats.”

“I checked on it,” the guard said. “They’re taking her out early. Her body will be a little younger than she wanted, but they’re downloading her memories now.”

“We can be there right away,” Maggie said. She didn’t need to tell Gallen and Orick the news. Both of them were already racing around the spacious room, grabbing clothes to pack.

This will have to be a hasty farewell, Maggie realized, and she fretted for Tallea, a young girl who would be traveling alone through the winter, heading south.

In a matter of minutes, they were hurrying through the dark streets. A chill wind had picked up, and it blew frozen snow through the air. Clouds were moving in from the south, a horrendous dark storm.

They reached the great halls, which were closed for the night, just as the snow began to fall. One of the judges had come out to meet them. He was appropriately dressed in a long gray cloak and a sagging peaked hat with a broad brim.

“There you are!” he called as he saw them running up the broad stone steps from the street. “Your friend is reborn, and she awaits you!”

He waved up toward a darkened doorway, and Maggie saw movement behind the thick glass. The door opened a crack, and something hairy moved in the darkness.

Maggie had expected to see a young woman covered with the soft reddish-brown fur of the Roamers, as she remembered them from previous lives. But this creature was more heavily furred than she’d imagined, and its pelt was far darker.

Tallea lowered to all fours, and Maggie heard Orick gulp in astonishment.

“She’s a bear!” Gallen said.

“Yes,” the judge said. “When we read her memories, we found that at the last moments of her life, she had a change of heart. So we made her the body she desired.”

The young black bear was small, and appeared to be only about a year old. She walked down the steps carefully, as if unsure of herself.

But when she was within twenty meters, she suddenly hunkered down and ran toward them at great speed, hit Orick full tilt and knocked the bigger bear over on his side. He grunted, and she jumped up on him playfully, and bit his ear. “Orick! Orick!” she shouted. “Being a bear is great! Why, you’re strong as an ox and all dressed in leather!”

“Well, I’ve never minded it,” Orick grunted, not quite sure what to think.

Tallea hugged his neck, wrapping her paws around him, and licked his face. He licked her back shyly, and Tallea growled in his ear, her voice husky with desire. “Ah, Orick, you and I will have a grand time. That is, if you’ll have me?”

The little she-bear looked up at him with big brown eyes, and Orick glanced at Maggie and Gallen imploringly, as if they would tell him what to say.

“Do it,” Maggie said.

“She’s not like the she-bears on your world,” the judge told Orick. “She loves you as fiercely as any Caldurian can, and she will stay by your side always.”

Orick got up on all fours, then very gently, very passionately; licked the young she-bear’s muzzle with his long tongue, softly at first, then more fiercely, and Maggie found herself vaguely disturbed at how sensual a bear’s tongue could be.

And after the bears exchanged long, sweet kisses, the guard came through the dark and stood at the foot of the steps. “The dronon are coming,” he urged. “We must hurry away.”

“Where are we going?” Tallea asked.

“I don’t know,” Orick said, though Maggie was sure that Gallen had told him the name of the world. But for the moment, that information seemed to be driven from his mind. Orick just stared at the young she-bear.

“To new worlds, and safety, I hope,” Gallen said, and he took Maggie’s hand. They hurried down the broad steps and into the streets.

The new falling snow swirled around them in the darkness, and covered their tracks. Within moments, no one would ever have guessed that they had passed along that road.