C. Cherryh - Gate of Ivrel

The pulsing of conflicting powers reached up his arm into his brain, and he did not know whether the blade’s wailing was in the air or in his own outraged senses.

He lifted it, expecting death, found instead that it did not much worsen, save when he angled it right. Then the pain increased.

“Vanye,” Erij shouted at him, catching his shoulder. He saw stark fear on his brother’s face.

“This is the way,” Vanye said to him. “Stay here, guard my back.” But Erij did not. He knew his brother’s presence close behind him as he entered that hall.

He understood now: it greatly disagreed with Morgaine’s careful nature, to have expected him to carry out so important a thing with so few instructions. There had been no need: the sword itself guided them, by its impulses of sound and pain. After a time of walking down that glowing corridor of qujalin works, the sound wiped out other senses until nothing but vision was left.

And in that vision stood an old man, hairless and wrinkled and robed in gray, who held out hands to them and mouthed silent words, pleading. Blood marred his aged face.

Vanye lifted the sword, threatening with that dreadful point, but the vision would not yield, barring their path with his very life.

Thiye, some sense told him: Thiye Thiye’s-son, lord of Hjemur.

All at once the old man fell, clawing at the air, and there was an arrow in the robes at his back, and the red blood spreading.

A figure stood clear of the hall behind, gray and green, the young lord of Chya, lowering his bow. With sudden, breathless haste, Roh started toward them, slinging his strung bow to his back.

Vanye sought Changeling’s sheath at once, hope surging in him. The sudden silence in the air as that point found its proper haven was overwhelming: his abused ears could hardly hear Roh’s voice. He felt Roh’s eager hands grasp his arms, distant even from that sensation.

“Vanye, cousin,” Roh cried, ignoring the threat of his blood-enemy Erij who stood beside, sword in hand. “Cousin, Thiye—Liell—they are at odds. Morgaine escaped them both, but—”

“Is she alive?” Vanye demanded.

“Alive, aye, well alive. She had the hold, Vanye. She means to destroy it. Come, come, clear this place. It will tumble down stone from stone. Hurry.”

“Where is she?”

Roh’s eyes gestured up, toward the stairs. “Barricaded up there, with her weapons in her possession again, and willing to kill anyone who comes within range. Vanye, do not try to reach her. She is mad. She will kill you too. You cannot reason with her.”

“Liell?”

“Dead. They are all dead, and most of Thiye’s servants are fled. You are free of your oath, Vanye. You are free. Escape this place. There is no need of your dying.”

Roh’s fingers tugged at him, his dark eyes full of agony; but of a sudden Vanye broke the hold and began to run toward the stairs upward. Then he looked back. Roh hesitated, then began to run in the other direction, vanishing quickly toward the safety of the downward stairs, a wraith in green. Erij cast a look in either direction, as if torn between, then raced toward the ascending stairs, longsword in hand, pointed it at Vanye, his eyes wild.

“Thiye is dead,” Erij said. “He is dead. Your oath to the witch is done. Now stop her.”

The fact of it hit him like a hammer blow: he stared helplessly at Erij, owning the justice of his claim, trying to think where his obligation truly lay. Then he shook off everything and suspended thought: his duty to either one lay in reaching Morgaine with all possible speed.

He turned and ran, taking the steps two at a time, unto he came up, breathless, into yet another hall like the one below.

And confronted Morgaine, as Roh had warned him, hale and well and facing them both with the deadly black weapon secure in her hand.

“ Liyo! ” he cried, flung up his empty hand as if that alone could ward off harm, and with the other cast Changeling at her feet.

“No!” Erij cried in fury, but bit off further protest as Morgaine smoothly gathered the sheathed blade up, yet keeping the black weapon trained upon them. Then she lowered it.

“Vanye,” said Morgaine. “Well met.”

And she joined them, and began to descend the stairs from which they had come, carefully, trusting Vanye at her back; of a sudden he surmised what she sought thus cautiously.

“Thiye is dead,” he said.

Her gray eyes cast back an unexpected look of agony. “Your doing?”

“No. Roh’s.”

“Not Roh’s,” she said. “Thiye freed me—that being his only hope of defeating Liell and keeping his life. He gave me this slim chance. I would have saved his life if I could. Is Roh down there?”

“He ran,” said Vanye, “saying you meant to destroy this place.” Horrid suspicion came over him. “It was not Roh, was it?”

“No,” said Morgaine. “Roh died at Ivrel, in your place.”

And she raced then down the stairs, pausing only to be careful at the turning, and came into that dread hall of qujalin design.

It was empty, save for Thiye’s sprawled corpse in a widening pool of blood.

Morgaine ran, her footsteps echoing upon the floor, and Vanye followed, knowing that Erij was still with them, and little caring at the time. Anger seethed in him for Liell’s mocking treachery with him; and dread was in him too for what Morgaine might intend with these strange powers.

She reached the very end of the hall, where there rose a vast double pillar of lights, and her hand abandoned the sword upon the counter an instant, while she wove a sure, practiced pattern among the lights. Noise thundered from the walls, voices gibbered ghostlike in unknown languages. Lights flared up and down the pillars, and began to pulse in increasing agitation.

She made it all cease, as quick as a move of her hand, and leaned against the counter, head bowed, like one who had suffered some mortal blow.

Then she turned and lifted her head, her eyes fixed earnestly on Vanye’s.

“You and your brother must quit this place as quickly as you can,” she said. “Liell spoke the truth in one thing: it will be destroyed. The machine is locked in such a way I cannot free it, and Ra-hjemur will be rubble in the time a rider could reach Ivrel. You are free of your oath. You have paid it all. Good-bye.”

And with that she brushed past him and walked quickly down the long aisle alone, headed for the stairs.

“ Liyo! ” he cried, stopping her. “Where are you going?”

“He has locked the Gate open on a place of his choosing, and I am going after him. I have not much time: he has a good start on me, and surely he has allowed only what he thinks enough time for himself. But he is timid, this Liell: I am hoping that he has given himself too much grace, too much margin.”

And with that she turned again, and began to walk and more quickly, and at last to run.

Vanye started forward a pace. “Brother,” Erij reminded him. He stopped. She vanished down the stairs.

When the last sound of her footsteps was gone he turned again, of necessity, to face the anger in his brother’s face. He went down upon the chill floor and pressed his forehead to it, making the obeisance his oath made due Erij.

“Your humility is a little late,” said Erij. “Get up. I like to see your eyes when you answer questions.”

He did so.

“Did she tell the truth?” Erij asked then.

“Yes,” said Vanye. “I think it was the truth. Or if you doubt it, at least doubt it from a day’s-ride distance from here. If you see it still standing after that, then it was not the truth.”

“What is this of Gates?”

“I do not know,” he said, “only that sometimes there is another side to the Witchfires and sometimes not, and that once she goes, she will be nowhere we can reach. I am sorry. It was not a thing she explained clearly. But she will not be back. Ivrel is a Gate that will close when this place dies, and after that there will be no more Witchfires, no more Thiyes, no more magics in the world.”