The Limbreth Gate

‘My name is Jace, Vandien. We shall be silent until you return.’

The splintery door scraped earth and sod as he forced it open and then shoved it closed behind him. He dusted the dirt and feathers from his clothing and stretched. His eyes blinked and watered in the bright sunlight that stabbed his eyes. The day would be hot. Day, he mused to himself, and started back to the inn and his horse.

When he returned, the sun was reaching for noon. The alley was still empty. Vandien led his horse down to the chicken coop and tethered it to a scraggly bush. He slipped off the worn bridle so the horse could graze. The saddle he left in place. It was small burden to his horse. If the tethered animal did attract curious folk, Vandien intended to be ready to retreat with Chess and Jace.

He took the still cold and dripping waterskin from the saddle. The new pouch was empty now. But he had found two small loaves of bread at an early baker’s stall and flat slabs of red salt fish at a fly-buzzing fishmonger’s. These purchases he balanced awkwardly in the crook of one arm. He kicked lightly at the door of the chicken coop. There was no stirring within, no reply of any kind.

Vandien set down the waterskin to jerk the door open. Then there were sounds, gasps of pain and a quickly smothered cry from Chess as they dove under the cloak covers again. Vandien entered hastily, dragging the door shut behind him. But the small shaft of sunlight still squeezed in the door, and neither Jace nor Chess emerged.

‘Just for one moment,’ Vandien promised as he took up the corner of Jace’s cloak. She gasped in fear as he whisked it from her and stuffed it into the gap left by the faulty door. The portly man’s cloak was a fine one, its weave heavy and costly. The bright fibers shut out the sun. Vandien had plunged himself into a hot and dusty darkness. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

‘That’s so much better,’ breathed Jace. Vandien heard her sit up in the darkness beside him.

‘I can’t see a thing,’ he complained, but as his eyes adjusted, he found that was not strictly true. The pale green of Jace’s gown almost glowed, and there was a sheen to her hair and eyes that even the darkness could not quench. Chess at last unrolled from the cloak and ventured out. Vandien distinguished his pale eyes and fine hair in the darkness. He proffered the waterskin to Jace and she seized it gratefully.

Chess drank first, taking in long gasping gulps. Vandien moved his tongue inside his mouth. He had drunk his fill of cold water at the public well when he filled the skin, but the fine dust and feathers sucked the moisture from his mouth. Sweat trickled down his back in the closeness and heat, but he said nothing. He watched Jace drink, more quietly than the unabashed boy, but with equal eagerness and relief. She then damped the corner of Vandien’s cloak and soothed the blisters that had begun to break and run on Chess’s face and arms.

‘I never saw a people so affected by the sun,’ Vandien observed.

Jace damped the corner again and began easing the sores on her own face. ‘And I never saw a man so blind, and yet so easy in his movements. When the hot light came, neither you nor the folk of your city cried out or were burned.’

‘Where does that Gate go?’ Vandien asked the question that gnawed him, thinking of Ki who had gone ahead.

‘To my home,’ Jace replied with childish inadequacy. ‘I wish I could tell you more. There is only this. When the worlds are in alignment, the Limbreth can make a Gate. The Gate can be used as a passage, as long as the balance is kept. Through the Gate the Limbreth calls folk to bring it new ideas and joys. Out of the Gate pass those discontented in our own world. Those who come in walk the road that leads to the Limbreth, to be blessed by the Jewels.’

‘Your legends leave little hope for us to get through the Gate.’

‘Legends do not always tell all there is to know.’

‘The innmaster’s cellar was cooler than this place.’ Chess broke the conversation. ‘I liked being down there during the day. Usually he left me alone down there for all the hot light time. I wish I were there now.’

‘Hush!’ Jace rebuked him. ‘At least we’re together now. And we have a friend.’

The silence that followed weighed awkwardly on Vandien. He fumbled in the darkness, found the loaves of bread and the dried fish. ‘I brought food,’ he announced in a falsely hearty voice. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’

Chess immediately reached for a loaf and broke an end off. He was already nibbling at it while Jace took a piece of salt fish from Vandien’s hand. He heard her sniff at it cautiously.

‘What is this made from? I do not mean to seem ungrateful, but it smells spoiled.’

‘Let me see it.’ Vandien nibbled a piece off, swallowed it. Immediately his drink-soured stomach offered it back to him, but he managed to keep his throat closed. After a moment’s struggle, ‘It’s fine,’ he managed. ‘Smoked a little heavily for my taste, but good river fish. This spring’s catch, or so the monger claimed.’

‘You ate a fish?’ It was Chess’s shocked voice coming in the brooding silence. ‘You ate a moving, alive thing?’ There was horror in the voice, and hurt.

‘Such is our custom.’ It sounded stiff, even to Vandien. But how could he have known that there were Humans who ate like Dene, refusing all food that didn’t grow from a root? Vandien heard a scuffling as Chess crept to his mother’s side.

‘He’s as horrid as the rest of them,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘As bad as the innmaster … who sometimes did not leave me alone in the cellar.’

To Vandien the stuffy little coop was suddenly as cold and dank as some evil well. ‘I …’ he choked. ‘Among our people, it is not a custom … not acceptable to force … never a child …’ He could find no words of defense and his own bile rose at what Chess had implied. Soured Alys and acid scorched the back of his throat. He wished he could be sick, alone somewhere. But he could not open the door and let light fall on them. He breathed deep, his lips and eyes tight. He heard Jace whispering words of comfort to her son, but for his own soul there was no comfort. He got up, paced two steps and flung himself into the far corner of the coop. ‘I am sorry.’ Empty words. ‘There will always be those who prey on the defenseless. There will always be the occasional one who is twisted, a disgrace to the whole species.’

‘Not in my world.’ Jace’s voice was firm now, but Vandien sensed the thinness of her control. ‘Not in my land. I hunger so for its peace now. This is horror and evil beyond my wildest fears. My Chess will have much to forget. If he can. I know I cannot.’