Megan Lindholm - The Limbreth Gate

'Moon's,' gasped Vandien, 'blood,' he finished, the wet reins sliding through his hands. The team wasn't slowing and when the wagon stopped, it wasn't going to be on top of its wheels. Its normal top-heavy sway had taken on an alarming skating quality. The Limbreths loomed, monstrous and near; he looked up to the glimmering lights and realized he was on the flats, racing across to the base of the Limbreths. His hands took a fresh bight of the reins and he pulled steadily, sawing a little to get the greys' attention; he thought he felt them respond.

But Hollyika's pace never slackened, the speed of her black belying its great size. She ripped her sword free of its sheath and swung it in a glistening arc; her strident war cry floated back to him. She was insane.

Vandien mastered his team; the wagon rumbled to a halt. He wanted no part of her mad charge against the Limbreths; as soon charge a mountain. But Hollyika's enthusiasm was unabated. She raced toward the center of the row of Limbreths that sprang from the ridge like young trees from a nursery log. He saw her swing her sword and heard it thunk solidly into the Limbreth. The impact sounded like that between wood and metal, but the Limbreth didn't even shiver. The sword remained embedded, but Hollyika did not remain in the saddle. The black horse raced from under her as she whipped around her own sword and spun through the air as prettily as a tumbler at a fair. Her armor clattered as she lit and rolled to a stop. Her horse galloped on, and came gradually to a halt, stiff-legged and staring about in surprise. Silence welled up to refill the valley.

Vandien headed the team toward the fallen Brurjan. She showed no signs of rising, damn her foolishness. He didn't need to be fussing over her right now. Here were the Limbreths and Ki was nowhere in sight. He wanted to give his mind to that, not to some crazed warrior.

When he reached her and knelt by her side, she was conscious and not much hurt; her thick hide protected her where her armor didn't.

'Anything broken?' he asked her gently before touching her. But her dark eyes stared up past him, her pupils dilated, and breath hissed between her parted teeth. In a supple movement that startled him, she flowed all the way to her feet. 'Look at them,' she cried brokenly. 'Look at them!'

He turned his own eyes on the Limbreths that her spread arms encompassed. They were the same as they had been. But Hollyika was waving her arms and her face was bright. 'I told you! This is how I dreamed them! That, up on the ridge, that was the deceit! Look at them!' 'Let me see your head,' demanded Vandien, coming to his feet. She danced out of his reach, a mad look in her eyes.

Then he felt it. It seeped around him like a cool mist, a tenuous groping that was not physical. It slid over him, seeking for something he did not provide. He blinked, and for an instant beheld the Limbreths standing sleek-sided and momentous in their power; but as swiftly it was gone, leaving his vision blurred.

'Damn you!' Hollyika shrieked. She, too, had lost sight of them. 'Liars! Cheats! You made me want to die for you!'

With a lunge she gripped again the hilt of her sword to wrest it loose. It did not come. A blue halo flashed around Hollyika and sword both, flinging her away. Vandien was on her as she tried to rise, heedless of her temper as he gripped her shoulders. 'Sit still!' he hissed; suddenly he sensed the life that coursed through the monoliths, and his tongue was a dry stick in his mouth. It was not the massiveness of this being that froze him, nor this display of its peculiar powers; it was its foreignness. This Limbreth was more different from Vandien than he had ever supposed any living thing could be; it made Hollyika his sister by comparison. Even the grass at his feet was more kin to him than this creature rearing up hill-high.

'Your violence is not needed. I will speak to you if you wish it.' The voice rang faint in their ears but clear. While the words were in the air, the Limbreths shone with power, but as the sound faded, they were no more than mossy pillars again.

'Speak, hell!' roared Hollyika. 'I don't want you to speak at all, you pile of bricks! Understand only this: we have come for Ki.'

'Ki is not here.' No emotion, a flat statement.

'Did you think us as eyeless as yourself, rock? Where is she?' Hollyika's voice rasped.

'She is gone on, to better things than you could ever offer her.' Even in his present straits, Vandien had to smile. Had not he heard those very words from Hollyika?

'Pumped full of peace and goodwill, no doubt,' Hollyika snarled. 'How can you say she is gone on to better things? What could a piece of masonry know of comradeship, or the lives of moving things?'

The chiming voice of the Limbreth became stronger in an eerie way, ringing more in Vandien's mind than in his ears. 'What can a drop of dew like you know of the great world it falls upon? Ki came to me as a moth comes to the candle, knowing that to be consumed by my fire is not death but eternity. Are you jealous, little furred one? Your mind wriggles with nasty little uglinesses when I speak to you. No servant falls so low as the one who nearly attains the true path, and such are you. Will you try to turn Ki aside so that you can pretend that you lost nothing when you were seduced back to your petty organic survival? Both of you come here with your minds acrawl with temporal rubbish. Shall I make you a metaphor simple enough for you to comprehend? A child sits on a sunny doorstep, grasping at dust motes on a beam of light. That is the significance of your whole lives to one such as I. Ki at least shall have a chance to paint her thoughts from an enduring palette. Minuscule as they are, at least they shall last long enough for the great ones to peruse them. But yours shall wink out like the dust motes that vanish with the movement of a cloud.'

Hollyika snarled in response. Vandien made his appeal.

'But this does not sound like Ki's own will. Won't you give her the chance to decide her own path,whether to remain with you, or come home with me?'

'Home?' the Limbreth mocked. 'Home? A quaint idea. You have no home. It vanished in a puff of cosmic dust ages ago. Say, rather, that you will take her back to the niche of ecological and social pressures that the Gatherers designed for your kind. Ki's will has nothing to do with it. No one goes home from any world of the Gatherers. Why shouldn't she stay here and entertain me instead of them?'

Vandien was blasted suddenly by a vision of worlds beyond worlds; a sudden realization of his insignificance squashed him. When next he drew breath, he sucked in air as if he had surfaced from the bottom of a lake. Hollyika gazed at him curiously.

'Are you in health, man?' she demanded.

'I think, yes, I am all right!' Vandien gasped. 'Didn't you see it?'

'I saw you look up like a fool and gape as your eyes went wide and dead, and the muscles stood out in your face and throat. I expected you to fall down dead, but instead you took a breath.'

'But - what I saw -'

'Limbreth visions, huh? Never mind. Whatever you saw, you can't eat it or trade it for Ki. Thing!' she roared suddenly. 'We want Ki back. Give her, or take our vengeance!'

'I cannot give her, nor can you take her. Seek her if you wish. It is all the same to us. Perhaps a last meeting with you would give a sharper edge to her final vision. Do as you will; it is all immaterial. But do not expect our aid or protection.'

'Meaning you can't really stop us!' Hollyika taunted then.

They both felt the pause. Hollyika's sword clattered suddenly onto the plain. She was not swift to take it up. The horses pricked up their ears and tossed their heads, sensing a change. 'What is it, what is it?' Vandien muttered to himself and suddenly knew. The Limbreth no longer harkened to them, no longer paid any attention at all; its thoughts and will were withdrawn.