Exile's Gate

It was a stranger that emerged from under that blond thatch of hair and straggling beard. With one of their cooking-pans full of water from the trickle of a stream that served them, with the borrowed razor, the lump of soap, and Morgaine's tortoise-shell comb, Chei had washed his hair and braided the sides of it and the crown of it, which the sun was drying to its straw color; and sat thereafter leaning forward and doggedly scraping the lathered beard off.

It was a lean face, sun-darkened above and a little paler where the beard had covered it. It was a well-favored face, and unexpectedly young—hardly more than two score years, if that: nothing of madness about it, nothing but a young man of whom no one would expect an older man's experience, and who showed a meticulous if oddly timed determination to present a better appearance to them. Chei was shivering the while, wrapped in his blanket as far as his waist, in the thin shirt above, and scraping his skin raw with a keen razor and cold water, his wet braids dripping water onto his shoulders and adding to his chill.

Perhaps it was his new freedom, given a horse, given the wind of his own hills blowing on his face.

A man of Andur-Kursh could understand such a feeling . . . who knew he would never come to his own highlands again; who found something familiar in the chill of the wind and the smell of pines and the ma

Chei came back to them, to return the razor and the pan and the comb, bringing his blanket with him and settling with a shiver at the tiny fire.

"Here," Vanye said, and offered him his own cup of tea—receiving a look of earnest gratitude in return, so natural an expression, of a face so changed and eyes so strangely shy of them now Chei had restored what must be his proper self—

—A golden meadow ... a parting. His cousin riding away, last friend, save his liege.

And there was something so like himself in this young man who attached himself to them, whose glances toward him were earnest and worried and wanting—perhaps nothing more than friendliness. A man could grow that desperate.

He remembered—remembered his house, and his brothers, and being the bastard son, gotten on a Chya prisoner in a Nhi house and lodged under the same roof as his father's heirs. Generally both his brothers had tormented him. More rarely his middle brother had mitigated that. And to him, in those days, that had seemed some sign that brother secretly loved him.

Strangely—in their last meeting, there had been something of that left, small as it had always been.

Now it was that desperate gesture Chei had made, that glance directed at him, which touched that recollection: see, this is myself, this is Chei, am I not better than what you thought of me?

It ached, deep as an old wound. On so small a thing, his heart turned around and found the man no threat at all—which was foolish, perhaps; he told himself so. He was always too forgiving; he knew that of himself, that his brothers had set that habit in him—a foolish conviction that there was always the hope of a hope of something changing, a misguided faith which had kept him in misery all those years.

And helped him survive all they had done to him.

He ventured a dark and one-sided smile Chei's direction, a gesture, a reassurance on the side Morgaine might not see; and saw that little shift of hope in Chei's eyes—ah, it was the same pool and the same poor desperate fish come to the bait: poor boy, he thought, Heaven help you, Heaven help us both, it was Morgaine who pulled me out. Who will save you?God, is it meyou look to?

He passed Chei the cake Morgaine passed him, cut a bit of cheese and passed that too, then a bit for Morgaine and for himself.

It was a small thing, the precedence of a guest, but it was not lost on Chei. His eyes lightened. He settled easier and adjusted the blanket about himself so he could lay his meal in his lap; it was a healthy appetite he had gained, too.

There had been food in the saddlebags Chei had appropriated: that went into common stores. It was rough-ground grain and a flask of oil and a bit of salt, all welcome. A sort of jerky along with it. A change of linen. And a pan and a cup, a whetstone, a rasp and blunt scraping blade, oddments of rope and leather, with a harness ring—valuable, all; a packet of doubtful herbs, the which Morgaine spread out beside her now, and asked Chei the name and properties of each.

"That is yellowroot," he said of one twisted, dry sliver. "A purgative." And of others: "Lady's-cap, for the fever. Bleeding-root, for wounds."

It had value, then. So had the blanket, since Chei had lost one of their two in the fire.

"The riders did not come from very far, or intend to stay long," Vanye said, "reckoning what they carried with them."

"No," said Chei, "they were a patrol, that was all. A few days and back to Morund land." He swallowed a mouthful of cake, and waved the back of his hand toward the hills. "There is always trouble."

"But now more of it," Morgaine said. "Very much more."

The hand fell. Chei's ebullience vanished as he looked at Morgaine. For a moment the fear was back, and what thoughts went through his head there was no knowing.

"I mean no harm to your folk," Morgaine said. "I will tell you something, Chei: whatI am I will not argue with you; but by what you have told me, there is no harm I will do you . . . unless you have some reason to love the lord in Mante."

"No," Chei said softly.

"Nothing I intend will harm your folk in these hills," Morgaine said. "Perhaps it will do you a great deal of good. Qhal have reason to fear me. You do not."

"Why—" Chei's face had gone still and pale. "Why should they?"

"Because I will be sure there are no more Gaults—no more comings and goings through the gates. No more of what gives them their power over you. Humankind has only to draw back and wait. In time, you will outnumber them. And of that—they know the end. Thatis why they war against you."

Chei surely knew that he had heard a perilous thing. For a long moment he hardly seemed to breathe; then his glance flicked desperately Vanye's way.

"It is true," Vanye said. But it was not, O Heaven, so simple as that, it could never be. And surely a man grown to his manhood in war—knew that much. Morgaine was lying—by halves and portions.

"What will you do?" Chei asked of Morgaine, bewildered. "What will you do, alone?"

"I shall shut the gate. I shall tell you the absolute truth: when I do that, Vanye and I shall pass it, and we will destroy it behind us, with all its power and all its harm. Serve me as you swore you would and I will give you that same choice: pass the gate or remain behind, in this land, forever. To no one else will I give it. I shall counsel you against accepting it. But at some time you may desire it, desperate as your situation is; and if you do choose it, I will not deny you that right, if you have kept your word to us."

For a moment Chei rested still, lips parted, eyes fixed on her. Then he broke the spell with a desperate, humorless laugh. "Against Mante?"

"Against Mante and against Skarrin who rules there, if that is what opposes us. Against anything that opposes us, qhal or human. Our motives are very simple. Our solutions are very direct. We do not argue them. We pass where we will and best if we meet no one and share no hospitality of your folk, however well-meant."

Chei caught up the blanket that had fallen from his shoulders, as if the wind were suddenly colder. His face was starkly sober.