Gate of Ivrel

“Would you do this?” he asked.

“I think that one day,” she said, “to do what I must do, I would have to consider it.”

He swore. For a very little he would have left her in that moment. She began at last to show concern of it, the smallest impulse of humanity, and it was that which held him.

“Sit down,” she said. He did so.

“Vanye,” she said then. “I have no leisure to be virtuous. I try, I try, with what of me there is left. But there is very little. What would you do, if you were dying, and you had only to reach out and kill—not for an extended old age, with pain, and sickness, but for another youth? For the qujal there is nothing after, no immortality, only to die. They have lost their gods, or lost whatever belief they ever had. That is all there is for them—to live, to enjoy pleasure—to enjoy power.”

“Did you lie to me? Are you of their blood?”

“I have not. I am not qujal. But I know them. Zri... if you are right, Vanye, it explains much. Not for ambition, but of desperation: to live. To save the Gates, on which he depends. I had not looked for that in him. What did he say to you, when he spoke with you?”

“Only that I should leave you and come with him.”

“Well that you had better sense. Otherwise—”

And then her eyes grew guarded, and she took the black weapon from her belt: he thought in the first heartbeat that she had perceived some intruder; and then to his shock he saw the thing directed at him. He froze, mind blank, save of the thought that she had suddenly gone mad.

“Otherwise,” she continued, “I should have had such a companion on my ride to Ivrel that would assure I did not live, such a companion as would wait until the nearness of the Gate lent him the means to deal with me—alive. I left you upon a bay mare, Chya Vanye, and you chose Liell’s horse thereafter. That was who I thought it was when first I saw you riding after me, and I was not anxious for Liell’s company alone. I was surprised to realize that it was you, instead.”

“Lady,” he exclaimed, holding forth his hands to show them empty of threat. “I have sworn to you... lady, I have not deceived you. Surely—it could not happen, it could not happen and I not know it. I would know, would I not?”

She arose, still watching him, constantly watching him, and drew back to the place where rested her cloak and her sword.

“Saddle my horse,” she bade him.

He went carefully, and did as she ordered him, knowing her at his back with that weapon. When he was done, he gave back for her, and she watched him carefully, even to the moment that she swung up into the saddle.

Then she reined about and toward the black horse. All at once he read her thoughts, to kill the beast and leave him afoot, since she would not kill him, ilin.

He hurled himself between, looked up with outraged horror; it was not honor to do such a thing, to abuse the ilin–oath, to kill a man’s horse and leave him stranded. And for one moment there was such a look of wildness on her face that he feared she would use the weapon on him and the beast.

Suddenly she jerked Siptah’s head about to the north and spurred off, leaving him behind.

He stared after her a moment, dazed, knowing her mad.

And himself likewise.

He cursed and heaved up his gear, flung saddle on the black, secured the girth, hauled himself into the saddle and went—the beast knowing full well he belonged with the gray by now. The horse needed no touch of the heel to extend himself, but ran, downhill and around a turning, across a stream and up again, overtaking the loping gray.

He half expected a bolt that would take him from the saddle or tumble his horse dead instead; Morgaine turned in the saddle and saw him come. But she allowed it, began to rein in.

“Thee is an idiot,” she said when he had come alongside.

And she looked then as if she could give way to tears, but she did not. She thrust the black weapon into the back of her belt, under the cloak, and looked at him and shook her head. “And thee is Kurshin. Nothing else could be so honorably stupid. Zri would surely have run, unless Zri is braver than he once was. We are not brave, we that play this game with Gates; there is too much we can lose, to have the luxury to be virtuous, and to be brave. I envy you, Kurshin, I do envy anyone who can afford such gestures.”

He pressed his lips tightly. He felt simple, and shamed, realizing now she had tried to frighten him; none of it made sense with him—her moods, her distrust of him. His voice turned brittle. “I am easy to deceive, liyo, much more than you could be; any of your simplest tricks can amaze me, and no few of them frighten me.”

She had no answer for him.

At times she looked at him in a way he did not like. The air between them had gone poisonous. Go away, the look said. Go away, I will not stop you.