Megan Lindholm - The Limbreth Gate

'As we do here.' Vandien felt an unreasonable pleasure at recognizing the name from his childhood. 'If you scratch the gills, a milky liquid comes out. That is one way to know it.'

'Yes. An excellent food. Do you also have here the fool's deceiver?' Vandien shook his head in the darkness, but she picked up his response.

'Well, we do. It, too, will leak milky fluid from its gills if scratched. It, too, has the orange and green mottled cap, lacking only the orange circle inside the cut stem to be twin to the orange milk cap.'

Vandien's headache returned. The mycology lesson seemed moot to him at this time, other than an interesting comparison of what kindred worlds might share. He shifted under her touch; the pressure of her fingers increased lightly.

'I'm not good at putting thoughts into words. Chess and I live alone on the farm. For two as close as we are, words and explanations are not often needed. We are with each other so much that I can tell you the origin of every thought in his head. Or could, before.' Jace sighed, and Vandien expected her to fall silent and withdraw from him. But she cleared her throat and went on. 'In my world, we have the two kinds of mushrooms, so similar in form. One is a delight to the palate, a food to be found when others fail. The other is rarer, and likewise delights the tongue, until its slow poisons begin their insidious work. Yet I do not cease gathering the one for fear of the other. I just remember to be cautious. Nor do I think the less of the good mushroom, because the one that mimics it is harmful.'

'Your words take you to your meaning by a very roundabout path.'

'You are right. I will say it simply. I will not judge you by the evil of your fellows. But neither shall I shed the caution I feel need of here. That I will keep as a cloak to protect me until I am safely home.'

'That would be wise.' What manner of world had this grown woman come from, that she would phrase out to him so carefully a lesson known by the smallest street child? He thought of Ki in such a place and shook his head. How long before she realized she had been duped and came back to the Gate?

Jace's cool fingers were still resting on his arm. He covered them for a moment with his own callused hand. She snatched them away, as if even this friendly pat were a thing to be wary of. Vandien could not blame her.

'Rest now,' he advised her. 'At nightfall, I want to try this Limbreth Gate again. Do you think any have ever forced a way through? Without another coming to change places, I mean.'

'I think not.' Jace hesitated. 'The Gate is hard to see when your world is white. And no one may pass unless the Keeper allows it. Then the way opens.'

'I didn't see it closed last night.'

'You felt it. Like a fine cloth barring the way, did you not?'

'More like the birth membrane on a calf.'

'I have never seen the birth of a calf. But doubtless you are right.'

'You've never seen a calf born?' Vandien was skeptical. 'You let your cattle birth alone, in the fields?'

'We keep no cattle.'

'You eat no meat.' 'How can a sentient being put the carcass of another living creature into its mouth? It is an abhorrent idea. It defies all righteousness, all sensibilities.'

Vandien ignored the insults. His mind went back to chew at the Gate. 'If the Gate is impassable when closed, why have a Gate Keeper at all?'

'Perhaps he is only a cruel man that loves hurt.'

'Perhaps, but not likely. Jace, any Gate that opens and closes may be forced. Or tricked. He let Ki's wagon pass. Did he look within it?'

'He would not need to. Nor need he search. One cannot evade his knowledge. Eyeless he knows.'

'Bunk!' Vandien leaned back against the rickety wall, unmindful of the shower of dust it loosed down his back. 'There's never yet been a city Gate that I couldn't pass when I found needful. This won't be the first.'

His dark eyes narrowed, and then closed completely. Jace stared across at him, her luminous eyes puzzled and faintly revolted. 'You have no respect for rules, for the rightness of things and the balances that must be kept.' She made the observation as if noting that he smelled peculiar.

'None at all,' Vandien admitted freely. 'A balance is an invitation to a finger on the scales. Tonight I'll be that finger. If you'll ever let me sleep long enough for the plan to hatch.'

He slumped a little deeper. Jace stared at him, and moving slowly as if she were caged with a beast, she lay her own body down between Vandien and her child.

Ki was awakened by a whiffling near her ear. She pushed Sigmund's big muzzle away. Her eyes slid open and she lay still, staring up into a soft sky of deepest grey, one shade from black. Dawn's edge, perhaps? Yet she felt oddly rested and revived, as if she had slept for more than a night. Dreams tattered at the edges of her mind and she tried to knit them back together, but they unraveled before her waking eyes. There had been a castle at the foothills of the sky, trimmed in lace of light. She had known that Vandien was there, and not only him, but all her heart's desires. She had only to follow the road to the shimmering glow on the horizon. She tried to remember more detail, but could not. The dream eluded her conscious mind, seeping into deeper parts of her.

She sat up and stretched; hunger nibbled at her. Well , her last meal had been only berries and cold stream water. Before that, the Cinmeth at the tavern. That took it back to yesterday morning since she had really eaten. The only wonder was that she wasn't ravenous.

She mounted the seat of her wagon and slid open the cuddy door. The dark cuddy was full of the homey smell of Vandien, stored food and their possessions. She ducked past smoked sausages swinging from the rafters to climb down into her small home. She moved easily in this familiar clutter, drawing her belt knife and reaching for one of the dangling sausages. No. Not meat. Ki set her knife down on the shelf and stared at the sausages. Why had she never truly seen them as dead flesh before? She was filled with disgust. She ran her hand down the front of her long skirt to erase the smell of the oily meat. Some dried fruit and a wedge of cheese, she found, were all she wanted. Tea would be nice. She picked up her kettle. But the thought of building a fire by the side of that silvery stream, of roasting to death all the small plants and deep moss for the sake of a hot drink made her shrink. She thought, too, of bright orange flame stabbing the soft night, licking away the gentle darkness. She put the kettle back.

The silvery darkness outside the cuddy welcomed her back. It electrified her now as it had earlier soothed her. She nibbled alternate bites of fruit and cheese as she wandered around her wagon. The team was as restive as she. They came begging for a bit of the dried apple. Sigurd, rude as ever, nipped at Sigmund's face to try and claim more than his share. But she parceled it out evenly, with only a rebuking tap to Sigurd's velvety nose. She finished the last of the cheese and drank deeply from the stream.

An eagerness filled her. She wished Vandien had waited. Why had he gone on? The road ahead of her was silent and the sky just as grey as ever. The glimmer on the horizon was not dawn, but the same jewel-like glow she had noted the night before. A man on horseback could be far ahead by now. If she was going to catch up, she had to start now. At least there was no mistaking his route; she'd passed no crossroads. She wondered idly how the folk reached their cottages she had glimpsed earlier, and then shrugged it off. It wasn't her problem, though she could understand their reluctance to pound the sweet mosses into a hard-hearted road.

She whistled softly and the team came. They drifted into their places like great grey ghosts. As Ki reached and stretched for buckles and straps, she was unusually aware of their huge sleek bodies under her hands. Even the snappish Sigurd was unusually benign. The harnessing finished, Ki felt a surge of elation. She was on her way, to Vandien and whatever else awaited her. To those glorious beckoning gleams of mystery that fringed the horizon. Limbreth Jewels, her dream echoed softly. Ki smiled at the fancy. She was not sure what waited there, but it mattered less every moment. Vandien was only a part of it now.