The Limbreth Gate

EIGHT

Chess watched in trepidation as Jace worked loose the final strap on the saddle. She slid it from the horse's back, letting it fall to thunk in the dust at her feet. The horse shied away.

'Vandien isn't going to like this,' Chess predicted.

Jace turned on him. 'What would you have me do? Continue to enslave his beast, perhaps trade its freedom to feed us?' Worry entered her voice. 'What's come over you? Before, you would have been the first to weep at the cruelty of one creature enslaving another.'

'It is the custom here,' Chess replied. His eyes flickered uneasily. 'The horse will only wander the streets until someone catches it and puts harness upon it again. It will gain nothing by us setting it free, and we will lose the food it would bring.' He gestured toward the chicken coop. 'The bread Vandien left us is gone. We have to find a market and get something to eat soon.'

Low drifting clouds cast a blue haze over the moon. A dry wind whispered down the alley, stirring the grasses already brown, and sucking the moisture from the green ones. Jace ran her hand across the back of her neck. Sweat damped it and dirt and old skin rolled under her fingers. She pushed tousled hair back from where it stuck to her face. She longed for cool water and green banks of grass, for the peace of her farm. And Chess scared her.

'Do you think of nothing but your stomach, then? Does hunger make you forget what is right and wrong?' Jace bored her eyes into his.

The boy squirmed. 'But how can we be sure that what is wrong in our world is wrong here?' he asked stubbornly. 'Might not different worlds have different rules? In our place, we have no beast slavery, nor burning day. Here they have both. If day is right for this place, perhaps ...'

Jace gripped Chess's shoulder, pulling the child up straight and still. 'Hush!' she said savagely. 'What has this place done to you? Will you ever be as you were? Oh, Chess, Chess, if only it could all be undone.' Her words ran out and she stood looking down on her son's bowed head as if she were looking at a sadly broken toy. She could find no more words or reason to utter them. 'Come.' She took his limp hand. 'We have this he gave us to trade. We will go to the market and trade for food. You will feel more yourself with something fresh and green in your stomach. Come.'

He plodded along beside Jace unresistingly. He spared a single glance for the horse, who didn't comprehend his freedom. He was grazing quietly on the grass in the alley. His tail gave a long, slow switch.

As soon as Vandien had left them the night before, Jace had brought him straight back to the hovel. They had nibbled dry bread together and huddled in the hut, talking little but comforting one another. When the dawn began to poison the night sky, they had hastened within, to shut the door and stuff the cloak into the crack. At least now we know how long the darkness will last in this world,' Jace had told him.

In spite of last night's vigil, neither really trusted the darkness of this world. The very fact that it could be eaten by the day made it a treacherous thing, not the kind eternal dusk of home, but a turncoat friend that would lure them from shelter to betray them. 'First we shall go to the market,' Jace was saying to him. 'Then we will go to the Gate.' He could hear the light tremor of her voice and knew she was telling her plans aloud to make them more firm in her own mind. Chess cast his mind back to home and market time. He frowned in the hot darkness as he trudged along. It seemed so long ago; memories of that time seemed foreign and hazy, as if dust-covered. He remembered the market meadow by the darkly flowing river and the high calls of farmers greeting one another as they converged there. The rush baskets strapped on their backs were heaped with the specialties of their farms. Kallen, his uncle, would spread out a woven grass mat at his regular place, and from his deep basket he would spill a heap of ripe red quorts, their skins as hard as tree bark. Always he saved the largest and sweetest one for Chess. His big thumb would pop a hole in the skin, and he would hand it to him. Chess would sit on his own mat, sucking the cool juice and soft pulp from the quort as he tended to trading. Heaped about him would be the bundled produce of their farm; radishes, turnips, and rutabagas, their roots scrubbed to gleaming and their leaves crisp and green. The produce left on the mat at the end of market time, Chess would press upon their friends, laughing at their mock refusals and receiving from them their own excess. Market time was a time of plenty and sharing. The thought of a market, even in this barren world, cheered him. He hurried to match Jace's stride.

The huddled mud brick houses lining the dusty street peered menacingly at them. Jace flinched away from the yellow window lights at first, but soon came to find that they were tolerable, if she kept her distance and didn't look directly at them. They raised no blisters on the skin, but gave to everyday objects an unpleasantly sharp appearance, making their muted colors flat and harsh as they threw confusing shadows. Jace took Chess's hand and pressed it reassuringly, but felt no confidence herself. The street grew wider and they passed wide open doorways, with yellow light spilling out in wide bars. Loud voices, raucous or angry, surged out; Jace hurried Chess on. They did not walk close to the lighted buildings but kept well to the center of the street, hastening through the puddles of light as if they were slop spills. They turned a sudden bend and Jace dragged Chess into the shelter of a tall cart's shadow. They had come to the market, lit by dancing torches and thronged by such folk as did not do their business by day. Some, it was true, only preferred to shop in the coolness of evening, but many were there whose transactions would not bear the light of day.

Jace peered out around the corner of the cart. Her eyes widened and her nostrils tightened in horror and disgust. She was crouched behind a butcher's cart, its wood stained with old blood. Even the dark of night had not abated the cloud of flies that buzzed about it. The butcher himself stood tall on the cart's seat, loudly proclaiming the freshness of his wares. Jace swallowed down sickness. Her hand rose to cover her nose and mouth as she drew Chess on.

But now there was no shelter from the flurry of the market. They were caught in the tide of people coming to pick through wares or to set up their own stalls. Jostled by rough-looking strangers attired in the furs and feathers of fellow creatures, they were propelled into the whirl of the market. The invisible push and sway of the crowd took them from stall to mat to cart. Eager merchants held up swatches of cloth, snapped whips over their heads and flapped slabs of smoked fish before them. Jace felt bewildered and sickened by the coarseness of the shouting, by the belittling exchanges between merchant and customer, the bickering over prices and values. Somewhere in this din she must find sustenance for herself and her child. She stopped, forcing the crowd to flow around her. She fumbled with the hawk pendant Vandien had given her, looping the chain about her wrist as she clutched the bird in a damp palm. With dazzled eyes she squinted about for a place to trade it.

Of coins and money she had only the small knowledge that Chess had picked up in the tavern. It seemed a dubious exchange at best, to barter this bit of jewelry for pieces of carved metal that she would then exchange for food. Jace could not fathom the complication of it, and so she decided to bypass it entirely, and trade the hawk directly for whatever it would bring her. Gripping Chess's shoulder, she steered him through the press of the crowd. Each stall was a nightmare and a revelation. Here were chickens, their legs tied together, lying in bedraggled feathers upon a mat. Squealing piglets were caught up and thrust head first into sacks and pressed into the arms of buyers. Here a metalsmith dangled bright earrings set with gaudy stones, there a woman displayed a swirl of scarves on her arm. Past eggs stacked in unstable heaps on mats, past piles of hides both raw and cured, past shadowy folk who urged them to venture closer and see secret and mystic wares, the two tottered on. Jace finally caught sight of a stall hung with herbs both green and dried and festooned with strings of onions and roots. Just past it a gnarled old woman crouched on a mat among heaps of variously withered vegetables.

Jace battled her way to this backwater of the market and then hesitated, torn with indecision. She had only the one item to trade. She wished she had a better idea of its worth. Vandien had held it in high regard, but that gave her no indication of what she should ask for it. Ornaments of cold metal she did not know or desire, but she equated them vaguely with carved wooden beads for a child, or the garlands of sweet herbs the young men sometimes wove into their hair. She decided on the old woman with her heaps of vegetables; not only did she offer a greater variety of what Jace recognized as food, but there was a homely, familiar air to her in the way she crouched on her mat. Her long greying hair hung loose to her shoulders. She wore a simple sleeveless garment that would hang to her feet when she stood but now bunched about her on the mat. Jace was hopeful at the sight of the pale metal bangles on her wrist. Perhaps she favored these metal ornaments.

As soon as she paused before the old woman's mat, she was fixed with eyes as bright as stream pebbles. 'Fresh greens?' the woman creaked hopefully. 'Plump juicy root plants, pulled just this morning? Calms the stomach and soothes the bowels!'

'I wish to trade, yes,' Jace replied artlessly to the woman's chant. 'What will you give me for this?'

She opened her hand and dangled the tiny hawk before the woman, who scowled at it. This was not honest coin! Her old eyes darted suspiciously over Jace's strange garb and pale eyes.

'Don't need no fancy trinkets!' the old woman declared. 'Get along now!'

'Please!' Jace begged in confusion. 'It's all I have. Vandien said we could trade it for food. Please!'

But the old woman wouldn't even look at her. 'Fresh greens!' she cawed hopefully at a passing man.

'Please!' Jace begged again, proffering the tiny hawk. Both hand and voice shook. The old woman folded her lips and shifted on her mat so that Jace and Chess were out of her line of vision. Chess tugged at his mother.

'May I see what you have there?'

The soft voice fell on Jace like warm rain on a dry garden. A young girl leaned on the wooden counter of the herb and onionstring stall. She was smiling at them, her white teeth gleaming in the darkness, a slender hand extended to receive the hawk. Jace breathed out in relief and stepped quickly up to her. The girl's dark eyes widened and then narrowed again as she held the tiny bird aloft so that it hung from its chain. Her free hand pushed thick chestnut hair back from her eyes. She touched her full lips, then pursed them speculatively. 'It's not very big, is it?' she commented in a carefully neutral voice.

Jace shook her head. 'But it's all I have. Please, we have come to trade for food.' 'Why did not you take it to the jeweller's stall, to see what he would give you?'

'I am not familiar with the custom of coins. I would rather do my own trading in my own way.'

'You do not come from this city, do you? In fact, I would wager you have come a long and weary way.' The hawk hung heavy from its chain as it swung over the girl's free hand.

Jace gazed on the hawk with worried eyes, comparing its tininess to even one of the onions in the stall. 'But it is very cunningly made, and Vandien valued it greatly,' she countered timorously.

The girl smiled as if accepting an apology. 'No doubt. Well, such trinkets are valued by those who enjoy them. And it is cute. Thank you for showing it to me.' She offered it back to Jace.

Jace drew her hand back quickly, ignoring Chess's tugging at her sleeve. 'Please! It has no value to me, except what food it can bring. Will you not give us something for it?'

'Well,' the girl said reluctantly, as if caught between charity and the shrewdness of a bargain. 'But you can see I am a simple girl, with no use for such adornments. Besides, it is not at all what a girl would wear. See, it is nothing but a plain black bird on a bit of chain.' She shook it gently in front of Jace and set it back on the counter.

Jace shook off Chess as he grasped frantically at her arm. 'But see how brightly its little red eye winks! Can't you give me something for it?'

'Well.' Again the pursed mouth and the sigh. 'I am a soft-hearted fool, but I can't let a child as sweet as that one go hungry. But mind! and don't go telling it about that Verna at the herb stall will take such gewgaws for her wares, or I'll be besieged by an army of folk who would cheat me out of my living.' Swiftly Verna's hand swooped and fell on the tiny hawk; it vanished into a fold of her skirt. 'What would you like for it?'

'Only whatever you think is right?' Jace offered humbly.

Chess had ceased to grab at her. He stood beside his mother with a downcast face, his hands clinging helplessly to each other. He watched as Verna gathered together a small bundle of the limpest roots and driest herbs. She freed a few onions from a string and added them to the pile. It was enough to sustain them for a day, at most two. He bit hard on his lip as Jace caught them up in a fold of her sleeve, giving the woman repeated and grateful thanks. And then he was following his mother down the dusty street.

Night was deep now, and the crowd was thinning. Wheels creaked and boards clapped as merchants folded their stalls and hauled goods away. The evening trade was done. Only a few stalls, mostly dealing in weapons, potions and semi-legal merchandise, would remain open now to garner the trade of those folk that lived by night. Jace felt the air of furtiveness that seeped through the night market now. She hurried gratefully into the darkened streets, away from the blowing torches that lighted what remained of the market. Now they passed doors closed and dark. A few inns and alehouses still lifted their voices in the night, but Jace rushed Chess past these, keeping him to the safety of the shadows.

'That woman cheated you,' Chess said suddenly.

'Shush!' Then, 'What do you mean?'

'I have seen it in the tavern where I worked. It is the custom of this world. You offer what you have totrade, then you belittle the other's goods. Each seeks to get as much as possible for what he offers. She expected you to say that her roots were withered, her herbs without potency, her onions gone to rot.'

'As they are,' Jace conceded. 'But I would not be so ill-bred as to mention it. You must realize that what we gave her had little value to her. We must not complain that she gave us the least of her wares; to her, it was as if we wanted to give her a stone in exchange.'

'Mother!' Chess's voice rose a notch. 'That is how they barter here! She only wished you to believe she had no use for the necklace. In that way, she could give you as little as possible and you would feel grateful.'

'So swiftly you have grown hard and suspicious in this place. You would turn a cold eye on the food she gave us, food that will keep us for a day or so, in return for a trinket that was not even appropriate for her to wear.'

'Yet it was a good enough trinket that it was the only one Vandien wore!'

Jace hesitated, uncertainly considering what he said. But her faith in her own years and experience won out. One hand was gripping the sleeve that held the vegetables. But she caught Chess's hand in her other hand and held it tightly.

'Let us go to the Gate,' she said softly, letting the wind blow away their previous words. 'Maybe Vandien will be there. Maybe he has made a way for us to go through. Think of that, Chess! We might be home safely tonight. Come.' Privately Jace resolved that if Vandien had found a way for one to pass the Gate, that one would be Chess.

They came to the street that followed the city wall. With a quick glance to be sure all was clear, they darted into its shadow. Like mice they scurried along the base of it. When they sighted the dull red glow of the Gate, they slowed to more cautious steps. If Vandien had indeed won through to the other side, the Keeper would be looking angrily on all comers tonight.

Jace halted them completely at the low mumble of voices. A few more silent steps and the words came clear to her, but she paid them no heed. For at the same instant a breeze, so fresh and pure that it seemed a living creature, rushed up to her and enveloped her in its embrace. The clean scents of her home filled her nostrils, and she tasted the peace of the meadows and streams. It was like nourishing broth to starving children. Its moist kiss was no kin at all to the sterile dry wind that swept through the city streets and stirred the yellow dust.

Only gradually did the voices penetrate her mind. Jace had closed her eyes in the breeze's caress. Now she opened them and peered hopefully into the Gate.

But no Vandien watched to beckon her on. Instead she saw the grey-draped figure of the Keeper, his robes fluttering in the breeze. The hood had blown back from his face. Dark hair streamed from his flattened skull. An eyeless band of wrinkled flesh writhed above his nose ridge. But that which stood talking to him was no odder. 'Windsinger,' she breathed to herself, remembering old legends. For there was the long blue robe, the mysterious tall cowl and the scaled skin. Worry and frustration emanated from the Keeper, but anger alone lined the Windsingers face. Their voices came to Jace in broken snatches, their words blown away by the wind.

'How could he get through?' the Windsinger demanded. 'Of all the mortals on this side, why did you have to permit him?' 'Permit!' The Keeper spat out the word. His arms moved and his long fingers gripped at the night itself, striving to heal it. 'He was violent! You made no mention of any attempt like that! The Limbreth was totally disgusted. He broke contact with me to avoid the contamination! You gave no warning about any such as he! He ripped through! Do you understand what that means? Can you begin to grasp it? The balance is gone, our world bleeds into yours. The Gatherers have but to look and they'll know what we have done here! You fret about this man, but when the Gatherers come for you, will you even remember him? They can feel it. A breach like this cannot be hidden.'

Jace watched them silently. The anger was gone from the Windsingers face, replaced by fear and wonder. The blowing wind came from beyond the Gate. It fluttered the Windsingers torch to a red glow and a streamer of straggling yellow. The Keeper leaned against the wind as he worked, but Jace could not see what he struggled with. His actions were strangely difficult to follow as he was alternately hidden and revealed by flapping rags and tatters as scarlet as the torch and as black as the night. His hands and bared arms were thrust aloft, his muscles straining against invisibility.

'Do the Gatherers really care?' asked the Windsinger. 'Do they really take an interest in such as we?'

'They do,' the Keeper grunted out as he wove up the night.

'How long do we have before they discover us, then?' The Windsingers voice was hushed.

'Who knows?' the Keeper growled. 'While the Gate is here, it shouts aloud to them.'

'But if it should close? You said it would, but it seems no smaller than last night.' There was more than disappointment in the Windsingers voice; there was dread.

'We don't know if it can close. The Limbreth doubts that it can heal against such an imbalance.' The Keeper's voice held no sympathy. He was too immersed in his own misery and fear. 'Our world bleeds into yours. Who knows what damage it does us? Your day is stained with our blessed darkness, our winds of peace waste themselves in your streets.'

'You are the one that let Vandien through!' The Windsingers voice denied his accusing tone. She changed her tack. 'What about Ki? Does the Limbreth have her yet? If they are satisfied with her, I should like to at least settle the rest of our bargain. A calling gem was promised to me ...'

'Is it not enough that my Master has taken her from your hands? Our Gate is torn, and a rogue loosed in our world, and you come begging and whining for that which you could scarcely use properly. If I had the voice of the Limbreth! But I do not, and he bids me now to be respectful to you.' The Keeper paused, lapsing into a listening stance. The Windsinger shifted impatiently but waited. At last the Keeper turned his eyeless face back to her. 'Ki has not reached the Limbreth yet. The one you insisted we admit before her to test the Gate has slowed her progress. This is your own doing, so you must wait until it is settled. Once Ki is before the Limbreth and is proven to be suitable, all bargains shall be fulfilled. Does that suit you?'

'It sounds to me as if you hope that the Gate will close before then! Tell your master to be wary of cheating a Windsinger. I shall be back tomorrow. I want the gem then. Tomorrow will be the last time I speak gently.'

The rest of her words were gusted away by a blast of wind that drove the Keeper to his knees. He fought it as it rolled him onto his back and his grey legs waved bare and skinny as a stork's. The streetgrew suddenly darker, more fragrant, cooler. Behind her, Jace heard Chess snuffling in long breaths of it, gulping the air down as if he could drink it.

'... do about the dark seeping into this world?' demanded the Windsinger into a catch of silence. The Keeper shot her a venomous look that was no answer but a denial of culpability. Jace watched as the Keeper battled his way back to the center of the Gate, to once more lift his arms overhead and begin his incomprehensible weaving motions.

'Vandien isn't here,' Chess pointed out hoarsely.

'I know. Hush.'

'But I'm hungry,' he protested. 'Can't we go home now?'

'Home?' It took a moment for Jace to realize Chess was referring to the hovel they hid in. She felt a moment of panic. The boy was dangling over an abyss and slipping inexorably away from her. She took her son's hand, but knew she could not hold him. Not long. Not here. She gazed with longing at the Gate, but something obscured her vision. Even a glimpse of her own land was denied her.

'Come along,' Jace whispered, and they slipped away, moving from shadow to shadow as they wound their way through dusty streets back to the alley. They stopped only once, to drink water from a public well. Jace cringed at drinking the flat lukewarm stuff, but Chess drank deeply of it. After he had finished, he drew up another bucketful and laved his dusty face and arms. Those thin arms gave Jace a pang. The sun blisters had pocked them and privation had thinned them to bone and tendon and skin. Jace remembered them as round and plump, a little boy's arm. Now he looked like the few other street children she had glimpsed tonight, down to the ragged brown garment. When she touched the coarse cloth of it, he glanced up at her inquiringly. It was almost as if he didn't know that he suffered. His eyes went to the sky and he frowned.

'It will be coming back soon,' he warned her. And it was Chess who took Jace's hand to draw her down the street and into the alley, to the safety of the tumbled-down coop.