Megan Lindholm - The Limbreth Gate

The city had confidence in its walls, or no longer cared. At the top were no jagged potsherds or broken wooden spikes. There was only a wide flatness big enough for a man to lie on. Vandien panted for an instant, then wiped his sweat and the dust from his eyes. He looked over the wall.

Nothing. Well , nothing different from what Ki and he had seen approaching the North Gate. A flat expanse of yellowish plain interrupted by scraggly trees and thorns. Nearly out of eyeshot in the darkness were the humps of houses and low growing masses that indicated a farm kept alive by well and bucket irrigation. Only to the north of the city could one glimpse the far shining band of the river that brought the trade and kept the city alive. During late winter and early spring the river became a flowing plain of water, bringing new soil and fresh life to the farms by it. The long hot summers shrank the river into submission. Farmers that chose to live closer to the city walls rather than endure the annual flooding had to turn to buckets and wells to survive. It was a harsh land he looked down on; Vandien could not imagine calling it home.

He lay flat on the wall and hung his head over. The ground looked hard, the sand and dust blowing across it loosely. There were no marks of a wagon's passage, or any sign of regular passage of folk through a gate. Vandien was perplexed and still as he let the slight dry wind ruffle the damp curls on his forehead and cool the sweat on his back. Over the wall, he conceded, was not the same as through theGate. If only he could find the damnable Gate.

The city streets were still empty. Vandien swung his legs over the side and scrabbled his toes for a hold. His raw toe bumped and he stifled an oath. As he inched his body backwards off the wall, he considered making a light and catlike leap down into the street below. Then he considered lying in the street until morning with a broken ankle, and eased his body a little farther down the wall. He went from having his ribcage hooked on the edge of the wall to hanging by his forearms, and then to a crumbly and wrist-straining hand grip. His feet skidded down the images, rubbing grit into his raw toe and scraping ankles and shins. But at last one toe got a precarious grip on an exposed lip of stone. He braced himself on it and let go with one hand, to ease another questing foot farther down.

But suddenly there was no wall at all beneath that foot: it swung forward into an empty but only semi-yielding space. Finger grips and toenails failed; Vandien fell, back first, in a gut-wrenching downward arc. He landed on a lumpy mass that collapsed under him. He lay still, trying not to be sick. The wind had been knocked from his lungs, he had struck his jaw against the wall and the front of his body was scraped raw from the slide. His joints crackled as he closed his hands. Whatever he had landed on was still poking him in the back. A red haze of pain obscured his vision as a nettlelike tingling singed his skin.

When he could, he began to move. But his muscles seemed to resist his will. He was able to straighten his legs, but slowly. He wondered what damage he had done to himself. The very air seemed to resist him, as if he were entangled in a giant but invisible spider's web. With a gasping heave he hauled his body to a sitting position. Dazedly he looked about.

He was sitting on the threshold of the Gate and the lumpy mass beneath him was the Keeper. Vandien's mind swung. There had been no Gate here when he climbed up, but he had fallen into the middle of it. It was impossible. The Keeper groaned and began to stir. Vandien tried to roll off him; he was lucky he hadn't broken his neck. Then, as his sense came back to him, he realized he was sitting on the opportunity he had sought.

A force was gently pushing him back to his side of the Gate; Vandien fought it. He leaned against his invisible bonds, striving to push them to their limits. The tautness of them against his face was like a smothering stretch of fine linen. The tingling grew worse, nigh unbearable. Vandien eased back a trifle and felt it follow him. He also sensed the easing of the force. The more he pushed, the more it resisted.

It felt like a membrane; so, he reasoned, why not treat it as he would a stubborn birth sack that was strangling a new calf? Vandien leaned forward against the force, stretching it to its full limit, and then drove his fingers stiff against it. His hands were small for a man's, no larger than Ki's, but the callused palms and scarred knuckles attested to their usefulness. He tried to get a grip on the barrier, tried to twist his fingers into it and rip it. But it was thicker, heavier, slicker and stronger than he expected. It eluded his grasp and his fingers could not rip it.

The Keeper was stirring now. Any second he would return to full wakefulness, and then Vandien would have two opponents to battle. If he was going to break through, he had to do it now. One outstretched hand kept the tension on the wall; the other reached for his belt knife.

He stabbed the blade into it. He had expected to plunge the point of his knife through it. But his initial stab bounced back into his hand. He tried again, pushing the blade in steadily, leaning on it with wrist-cracking force. The haft began to burn against his hand, but the blade sank in. He forced it to the full length of the blade, gasping at the effort it took. The barrier showed no sign of parting. Vandien tried cutting with a sawing motion. But his blade was smooth, lacking the serrated edge for this to be effective.The Keeper raised a hand to his head and groaned dully. Vandien sawed frantically.

His knife suddenly went through and his hand followed it. The sensation was the same as puncturing a large skin of cool water. His hand plunged into the coolness; he felt more of it ebbing and squirting out at him.

The Keeper rolled over with a sudden gasp, as if the spattering coolness had revived him as well. 'Stop it!' he shrieked wildly. 'You've broken the seal! You'll unbalance us!'

Unheeding, Vandien pushed his forearm into the other side while he worked the fingers of his other hand into the rupture as well. The Keeper clutched at his bare feet. Vandien kicked at him, using the gained impetus to force his second hand the rest of the way through. The thick nails of the Keeper's hands scraped down Vandien's legs as he kicked free of him. Like a diver preparing for very cold water, Vandien steeled himself with a deep breath of air. He butted his head against and then into the torn wall. The sensation was unpleasant in the extreme, like plunging his face into a congealing gut pile. He could neither expel nor take in breath. His vision wavered. He struggled, bucking his body, feeling the Keeper finally get a good clutch on one of his ankles.

Vandien was suffocating. What if this wall never let him through? What if he became entrapped between, like a fish in aspic? Panic was inspiration. The Keeper had captured one of his feet. Vandien shot out the other one in a tremendous kick that caught the Keeper in the chest, breaking his grip and propelling Vandien forward.

Vandien felt the vague stirring of birth memories, and then cold air on the top of his skull. He felt his shoulders constricted by the wall. With a wiggling surge, he forced his way out into the cool dark air. His chest was squeezed, and then he was falling, hands braced to catch himself as he somersaulted through the Gate. He tumbled into an awkward heap on a smooth straight road.

From behind him came a muffled cursing. Vandien leaped to his feet, ready to run. He had a dim vision of the Keeper trying to hold closed the torn curtain between the worlds. His ragged clothes were stirred as if by a powerful wind; his hood fell back to reveal a band of white and wrinkled skin where Vandien had expected eyes. The torn barrier fluttered with a snapping sound backed by a rushing noise like a river heard through windstirred trees. Vandien felt the motion as it rushed past his face toward the tear. At least he need fear no pursuit; for a time the Keeper would have his hands full. He slid his knife back into its sheath and turned his steps down the long straight road.