The Limbreth Gate

'Listen to me!' Ki gasped out the words, spitting aside strands of hair. She was panting with the effort of speaking while face down across Sigurd's back. 'I have words for you.'

'Say them,' Hollyika ordered tersely, and silenced Vandien with a glare.

'The Limbreths speak to me, and through me to you. They bid me make their will known to you, unenlightened as you are.' Ki paused, and Hollyika rolled her eyes at the dramatic wording. But Vandien leaned closer, brows knit, for the voice that spoke was strangely unlike Ki's, as if someone else did speak through her mouth. Though, he reflected quickly, he had not often spoken to her while she was flung over a horse like a sack of grain.

'The Limbreths have decided to grant you their mercy. It grieves them, for you both turn aside from the graces and knowledge they offer, and from a chance to make more of your lives than merely a time to eat, rut, and sleep.'

'They left out fighting.' Hollyika gri

Ki drew breath. 'You may go. They will make it very easy for you to regain the Gate. If you set me free to return to them and to finish the task we have begun. They do not desire to hamper you in pursuing your petty goals; all they ask is the return of their consecrated servant, that she may finish the task she set herself.'

'And if we don't? What if one of our petty goals is taking her back to the Gate with us?'

'Then you will fail. Do you think the road is bad now? Defy them, and see what it becomes. The folk of this land will rise up against you, in numbers you ca

Hollyika snorted merrily. 'Lovely logic. We should set you free and go our way, so we all get what we want. The only thing they do not mention is that you are to run back to your own death at their hands. So, it's all one to us, whether you die doing the Limbreth's bidding, or by being spitted on a farmer's staff.Vandien. Pass me the waterskin.'

He unlooped it from where it was strapped on Sigurd's back. Hollyika took it from him, and slid from her horse, her boots sinking deep in the muck. 'Drink or drown,' she told Ki. As Vandien opened his mouth to protest, Hollyika stared him down with baleful eyes. 'If you get off that horse, I'll break her neck. This is no worse than that sludge you forced down me. Where was your sensitivity and mercy then? Look the other way, if you must.'

But he couldn't. The Brurjan moved close to Ki, trapped her head at an awkward angle in the bend of her arm, and forced the neck of the waterskin between her teeth. She pinched Ki's nose shut and squeezed the waterskin. Ki gasped and spluttered as best she could, choking, and then gulping the water to clear the way for air to her lungs. But another spurt of water followed before air, and most of it went down. Hollyika released her. Ki choked and gasped and sneezed violently. 'Too bad we can't get food into her the same way,' Hollyika observed calmly. 'It might bring her to her own senses again. But we've no time to stop, and no dry wood or pot for you to use to brew up another of your disgusting messes. The longer we stand here, the more time they'll have to carry out their threats. Let's be on.'

'The Gate can't be far,' Vandien agreed wretchedly as he eyed Ki. Her eyes had sagged shut and the rain dripped from her face. 'I remember that I ran from the Gate all the way to the bridge on foot. We've come a good gallop from the bridge already. I think the Limbreths know we are nearly out of their reach, and are trying to bluff us out of our captive.'

'Come on.' Hollyika remounted. The black slogged ahead of them and Sigmund fell in behind him, and a tug on the lead rope brought Sigurd at their heels. Vandien tried to sit so as to make no shift of weight that would throw the great horse off stride in the dangerously mucky footing. The rain streamed down endlessly upon them from a blacked sky and the road dwindled to a trail of mud between trees. In vain Vandien looked for some sign of the fragrant flowering trees that had arched his path when first he came through the Gate. All was blackness ahead, no sign of the Gate's red mouth. The trees that hedged the road now were black leafless things with long raking thorns jutting from their reaching branches. The path was narrower than Vandien remembered, and not well trodden. Roots humped up in the middle of it to make the weary horses stumble. Twice swift ru

Slower and slower they plodded. Sigurd bunched up on Sigmund's heels, and Vandien became aware of Ki's voice speaking. How long she had been talking he didn't know, but she was speaking to him. Her tone was calm and reasonable, her words weighted and barbed.

'... Dragged me from one of your impulses to another. Never content to let me live my own life in my own way, were you? In the Pass of the Sisters, you turned death aside from me, even though I was ready to accept and even welcome that end. But no, all-seeing Vandien decided it wasn't right for me then. You moved in on me, upsetting my life and routine, making me more than ever a stranger among my own people. You with your loud and rowdy ways, never aware of when a man should be silent or when gravity is more seemly than a callous laugh. How often have your foolish ideas slowed me when I had a goal to hasten to? You with your fine words of companionship and sharing; do you call this respect for one another's wishes? The only reason you want me is so that there will be someone to play mother tothe child you still are. Someone to be responsible for your silliness, to look to the morrow and make your decisions for you. There is no caring in that.'

Vandien bowed to her words and to the rain. They fell on him, eroding him. The greys plodded ever slower; he could not keep his eyes from darting back to her. Every word fell coldly and clearly in his ears, demoralizing as the rain. The pain was almost hypnotic. Much of what she said he could not deny. He absorbed the abuse numbly.

'You damn fool! Do I have to put a lead on your horse too, so we all go like a line of blind beggars?' Hollyika pushed her horse into his, and gave him a quick shot to the ribs that was neither gentle nor jesting. 'Wake up! I'm as weary as you, but we have to push on. I looked back and couldn't even see you in this muck. Do you want to get lost?'

'Aren't we already?' Vandien asked dully. Hollyika didn't answer. She had become aware of Ki's low monologue and was listening in fascination. 'She's come back to herself a bit,' she said as Ki paused for breath. 'Seems a bit sharper and nastier than what a Limbreth would inspire her to say. A bit more personal, too. When you're in their hands, personal memories blur to a mist. But she seems to recollect your times together well enough. Whew! What a bastard you've been to her; wonder why she kept you. Listen, you!' This last was to Ki in a grim voice. 'Shut your mouth for a minute and listen to me. You hoped to get him to slip you loose, didn't you? A few kicks in the pride like that, and most men would let go. But I don't have any pride for you to trade on, and I'm the one who holds you. Pass that on to your Limbreths. And pass them this, too. I've thought things out rather thoroughly, riding through this crud. Here's the offer. They let us find the Gate, then we let you go. But if we don't find it damn quick, I'm going to start taking blood from you. I'm hungry, and my control slips when I'm hungry - and from you, too, if you try to interfere. Get your hand off that rapier hilt. I'll take the lead rope now. If you don't pay better attention, the only thing you'll loose is yourself. Move!'