C. Cherryh - Gate of Ivrel

They were not Hjemurn, or of Chya. Men of Leth, the bandits from the back of the hall: he recognized the roughest of them.

There was quiet for a moment. He had had most of the wind knocked from him, and bent over a little to try to breathe, lifted his head again to keep a wary eye upon their captors.

They were prodding at Roh, trying to force him to consciousness. Morgaine they let alone, she with ankles bound the same as he, and now with her back to a rock, glaring at them with the warmth of a she-wolf.

One of the bandits had Changeling in hand, drew it partway, Morgaine watching with interest, as if in her heart she urged the man on in ignorance.

But riders were coming up the hill. The sword slammed into its sheath, in guilty hands. The bandits stood and waited, while men on horses came into the clearing, horses blowing frost in the starlight.

“Well done,” said Chya Liell.

He dismounted and looked about the clearing, and one presented to him the things that had been taken, all of Morgaine’s gear; and Changeling , which Liell received into respectful and eager hands.

“Chan’s,” he said, and to Morgaine paid an ironic bow. He considered Roh, half-conscious now, laughed in pleasure, for he and the young lord of Chya were old enemies.

And then he came to Vanye, and while Vanye shuddered with disgust knelt down by him and smiled a faithless smile, lordly-wise, placed a hand upon his shoulder like some old friend, and all too possessively, “ Ilin Nhi Vanye i Chya,” he said softly. “Are you well, Nhi Vanye?”

Vanye would have spit at him: it was the only recourse he had left; but his mouth was too dry. He had a Lethen’s hand in his collar behind, holding him so that he was half-choking; he could not even flinch, and Liell’s gentle fingers touched and brushed at a sore place on his temple.

“Be careful with him,” said Liell then to the Lethen. “Any damage or discomfort he suffers will be mine shortly, and I will repay it.”

And to those about them:

“Set them on horses. We have a ride to make.”

The day sank toward dark again, reddening the snows that stretched unmarred in front of them. They moved slowly, because of those on foot, and because of the thinner air. Liell rode first. He had taken back his own black horse and his gear. Changeling hung from his saddle, beneath his knee.

Several Lethen riders were between him and Morgaine, and two men afoot led Siptah, as two led also the horse they had borrowed for Roh, who had no strength to walk; and the black mare that Vanye rode was Liell’s grace, personal, offered with cynical courtesy—exchange of the mare for the one he had stolen.

And bound as he was, hands behind, even feet bound securely by ropes under the mare’s ribs, he could not even stretch his legs against the torment of the long ride, much less be aid to Morgaine. She and Roh were in no better case. Roh hung in the saddle much of the time, giving the appearance of a man who would as likely collapse and fall if the cords let him. Morgaine at least seemed unhurt, though he could guess the torment there was in her mind.

Liell was qujal and knew the ancient science. Perhaps he could even read the runes of Changeling , and then Thiye, whom Morgaine had called ignorant, a meddler in sciences, would have a rival he could not withstand.

They came among trees again, pines, rough brush, sometime outcroppings of black rock. And the trees began to be twisted and stunted things, writhing out of all true shape for their kind. Bare limbs held tufts of sickly needles, bare trunks described horrid, frozen evolutions.

And in the snow they saw a dead dragon.

At least so it seemed to be—an object leathery and twisted, and the horses shied from it. It was monstrous, frozen in its death throes so that it was yet less lovely. One membranous wing was half unfolded, stiff and stark. The other side was bare bone, taken by other beasts.

The Lethen described a wide path about that corpse. Vanye stared back at the thing as they passed and the bile rose in his throat.

Other things they saw dead too. Most were small. One resembled a man, but the wolves had had it.

The light faded in this place of evil. They moved among the twisted pines in twilight, and went carefully. Men had bows ready, eyes constantly scanning the forest.

Then the trees thinned out, quite abruptly. Upon the great shoulder of the mountain was a lesser rise, and upon that were broken pillars, fair-colored, rune-graven, out of place among the black rocks of Ivrel’s cone.

And the Gate.

It was vast, unlike that of Aenor-Pyven or Leth at Domen: metal uncorroded by the years, casting a web of shimmer that had depth, stars winking in a black arch against the twilit white side of Ivrel. The air here worked at the nerves. The horses fought to shy off, men that rode dismounted, and prepared to wait.

Morgaine was helped down first, her ankles freed, and she was made fast against one of the few twisted pines that grew this near the Gate. Next Roh was similarly treated, though he strove to fight them. Finally Vanye was lifted down, and he thought that they would do the same with him, but instead Liell ordered him brought forward in the line.

He kicked a man, threw him to the ground writhing in pain, and a Lethen hit him, kicked him down and laid a quirt to him: Vanye tucked down against the blows, unhurt by reason of the mail, save where the quirt hit neck or hands.

And of a sudden Liell was by him, cursing the man, other Lethen hauling Vanye up, and the man that had struck him cringed away.

“No hand on him!” Liell said. “No harm to him. I will kill the man that puts a mark on him.” And carefully he unlaced the cloak from Vanye, and gave it to a man, walked all about him, full circle. Then he made to lay hands on him and Vanye flinched back, constrained to bear it in patience while Liell gently probed bones, as if to see whether they were sound or no. In bitter humor he cherished the ache in his skull, the worse pain in his legs and joints where the ride bound to the saddle had bruised him—his only revenge on Liell. It was a sorry, sad thing, he thought of a sudden, that he had been taken so easily, and it was no comfort at all that Roh was about to pay dearly for his idiocy.

And by that time, there would be nothing left of Nhi Vanye, though his body would continue to move and live, housing for Liell-Zri, which would take revenge upon Roh, upon Morgaine.

That image struck him as Liell began to climb that last distance, and they began to force him up the long barren slope. It took from him what courage he had left, such that he would have fallen if not for the men on either side of him. He stumbled on the loose rocks, Liell striding sure-footedly beside him, up in that clear place where air cut at the lungs like the edge of ice. There was only the Gate above them, and the stars within, and wind that gently sucked at them, aiming into that gulf.

It grew as they walked, until there was no more sky. The Lethen with them balked, and Vanye thought for one wild soaring moment that they would lose their courage and fail to hold him. But Liell cursed them and threatened them, and they drew him up and up, until they stood swaying in that awesome wind, poised upon a level place near the Gate.

There Liell bade them unbind his hands and hold him fast: “I will not enter an impaired shelter,” he said. And this they did, but held his numb arms and strengthless wrists still wrenched behind him with such cruel force that he could not struggle free. He stared up into that great gulf, dizzied, faltered and lost his balance even standing still.

“How is it done?” he asked of Liell. He did not want to know, but his courage was never proof against the unknown: he feared that he would shame himself at the last, crying out, if he did not know. He knew Morgaine’s things, that there were laws and realities that governed them; he insisted to believe so even in this.