Gate of Ivrel

Once, when he was a child, Handrys and Erji had lured him into the storage basements of Ra-morij, and there overpowered him and hung him from a beam in the deep cellars, alone in the dark and with the rats. They had only come after him after the blood had left his hands and he could not find the strength to scream any longer. Then they had come with lights, and cut him down, hovering over him white-faced and terrified for fear that they had killed him. Afterward they had threatened worse if he showed the cruel marks the ropes had made.

He had not complained to anyone. He had learned the conditions of his welcome in Nhi even then, had learned to clutch his scraps of honor to himself in silence, had practiced, had bit his lip and kept his own counsel, until he had fairly won the honor of the warrior’s braid, and until the demands of uyin honor must keep Handrys and Erij from their more petty tormentings of him.

But the looks were there, the subtle, hating looks and secret contempt that became evident when he committed any error that cost him honor.

Even the Chya tried him, in the same way—scented fear and went for it, like wolves to a deer.

Yet something there was in him that yearned to like the lord of Chya, this man so like himself, that showed kindred blood in his face and in his bearing. Roh was legitimate: Roh’s father had virtually abandoned the lady Del to her fate, captive and bearing Rijan’s bastard, that must in nowise return to confound the purity of Chya—to contest with his son Roh.

And Chya both feared him, and scented fear, and would have gone for his throat if not for their debt to Morgaine.

Late, late into the long night; his not-quite-rest was disturbed by a booted foot crunching a cinder not far from his head, and he came up on his arm as Roh dropped to his haunches looking down at him. In panic he reached for the sword beside him; Roh clamped his hand down on the hilt, preventing him.

“You came from Leth,” said Roh softly. “Where did you meet her?”

“At Aenor-Pyven.” He sat up, tucked his feet under him, tossed the loose hair from his eyes. “And I still say, ask Morgaine her business, not her servant.”

Roh nodded slowly. “I can guess some things. That she still purposes what she always did, whatever it was. She will be the death of you, Nhi Vanye i Chya. But you know that already. Take her hence as quickly as you can in the morning. We have Leth breathing at our borders this night. Reports of it have come in. Men have died. Liell will stop her if he can. And there is a limit to what service we will pay this time in Chya lives.”

Vanye stared into the brown eyes of his cousin and found there a grudging acceptance of him: for the first time the man was talking to him, as if he still had the dignity of an uyo of the high clan. It was as if he had not acquitted himself so poorly after all, as if Roh acknowledged some kinship between them. He drew a deep breath and let it go again.

“What do you know of Liell?” he asked of Roh. “Is he Chya?”

“There was a Chya Liell,” said Roh. “And our Liell was a good man, before he became counselor in Leth.” Roh looked down at the stones and up again, his face drawn in loathing. I do not know. There are rumors it is the same man. There are rumors he in Leth is qujal . That he—like Thiye of Hjemur—is old . What I can tell you is that he is the power in Leth, but if you have come from Leth, you know that. At times he is a quiet enemy, and when the worst beasts have come into Koriswood, the worst sendings of Thiye, Liell’s folk have been no less zealous than we to rid Koris of the plague: we observe hunter’s peace on occasion, for our mutual good. But our harboring Morgaine will not better relations between Leth and Chya.”

“I believe your rumors,” said Vanye at last. Coldness rested in his belly, when he thought back to the lakeshore.

“I did not,” said Roh, “until this night, that she came into hall.”

“We will go in the morning,” said Vanye.

Roh stared into his face yet a moment more. “There is Chya in you,” he said. “Cousin, I pity you your fate. How long have you to go of your service with her?”

“My year,” he said, “has only begun.”

And there passed between them the silent communication that that year would be his last, accepted with a sorrowful shake of Roh’s head.

“If so happen,” said Roh, “if so happen you find yourself free—return to Chya.”

And before Vanye could answer anything, Roh had walked off, retiring to a distant corridor of the rambling hall that led to other huts, warrenlike.

He was shaken then by the thing that he had never dreamed to believe: Chya would take him in.

In a way it was only cruelty. He would die before his year was out. Morgaine was death-prone, and he would follow; and in it he had no choice. A moment ago he had had no particular hope.

Only now there was. He looked about at the hall, surely one of the strangest of all holds in Andur-Kursh. Here was refuge, and welcome, and a life.

A woman. Children. Honor.

These were not his, and would not be. He turned and clasped his arms about his knees, staring desolately into the fire. Even should she die, which was probably the thought in Roh’s mind, he had his further bond, to ruin Hjemur.

If so happen you find yourself free .

In all the history of man, Hjemur had never fallen.