'I am Rebeke of the Windsingers,' Rebeke began in a gravely formal voice.
'That is known, that is known!' the other cut in sharply. 'My Masters have told me all; and we await you. Have you brought what you have promised?'
'I have brought no one. The one that comes, comes of his own will. Your master will have to call whatever other one he chose.' For a moment the Keeper bowed its head, seeming to listen. 'Yes, that is right. That is as agreed. It is not as it is usually done, nor as they first trained me. But they are the Masters; the Limbreths do I serve, in whatever fashion they say. So we are ready.'
'Are the ones I bargained for ready as well?' Rebeke pressed.
'They approach even now. They have been brought to you with some difficulty, and my Masters would have you appreciate that. Far easier it would have been to destroy them. At first they sought to do violence against my Masters' folk. But they have been shown the light and might of my Masters, and brought to their knees. They shall come as they are bid, and we have made them anxious to use the Gate. All will go as you desire.'
'Might I see them?' It was a polite nothing. Even as she asked, Rebeke sent her Windsinger senses questing through the Gate. Almost immediately she touched Ki's aura, a shape familiar to her and yet subtly changed. She hoped it was but the distortion of the Gate. She tapped Ki's senses, and became aware first of Vandien and then of some other creature, no doubt the 'demented Brurjan' the Limbreths had told her of. She wondered what they would do with it, and then dismissed such speculation as childish. She would not waste her time trying to understand a Limbreth. She drew back into herself and became aware of the Keeper telling her, with polite regrets, that he could not show them to her until the moment when they entered the Gate. She stifled her impatience. She would have Ki and Vandien soon enough. 'Then let us begin. The night of my world wears on, and it were best if we were finished before dawn.'
'Agreed. Bring forward the one, and we shall summon the other.'
Rebeke's heart skipped. She thought she had hardened herself to this moment; nay, she thought she had convinced herself that it was the greatest good for all involved. Her throat constricted and she could not voice the word that would bring her offering forward. She stepped into the shadows and with a touch made her will known.
He stepped lightly out. She looked on his dreaming features beneath the blue Windsinger bond twisted about his brow and cursed whatever demon had inspired her to dress him so. The short black cape was in the style he had always favored, the shirt of pale silken grey, open at the throat to expose his pulse beating warmly. The shirt was the same shade as his eyes, so tranquil and unfocused under her bonding. His face was unlined; he looked for all the world like a boy on the turn of manhood, unroused from a sleep of sweet dreams. She reached to remove her bonding.
'My Masters say that they can take him through the Gate like that. He may give less trouble that way.'
'No!' Rebeke's voice broke harshly. 'No, he goes in knowing what he faces, and who sent him to it.' The Keeper is blind, a small voice within her whispered, and it might be the last kiss you would ever wish to bestow. But she did not. With a twist of her wrist, she slipped her bond from his mind, but left intact the sky rune, wrought in silver and pinned to his cloak, that kept his body's will tied to hers.
'Rebeke?' Dresh glanced about with wondering eyes, but adapted quickly. 'A fine night for a stroll through old Jojorum. I'd take your arm, if I could move mine.'
'The last night we shall share, Dresh. Yet I would have you know, I do not act with malice. I could never be without fear of you, if I set you free. Yet keeping you in a well like a book on a shelf demeans us both, and me not the least.' A smile twitched his lips. 'But why do you bond me? You gave the decision to me. At least I shall exist. That is true?' He addressed this query to the Keeper.
'My Masters have given their word that it shall be so, and they do not lie,' the Keeper intoned ponderously. 'They touch this one, and find him all that they desired. He is acceptable for the exchange.'
'But ...'
'Hush,' Rebeke told him, not harshly, and a touch of her will stilled his lips. She looked away from his face, refusing to meet his eyes again.
The Keeper crouched in the center of the Gate. Rebeke could feel the power whistling through him like wind through a cracked door. He was the channel for it as it flowed through the Gate, and went seeking, seeking, until it found the crystal that could focus it and make it irresistible. The command was as acute as a scream in the night. Rebeke's honed senses winced from it and she was glad it was not addressed to her.
Its target was far away. All waited in silence. Rebeke tried for amusement to pierce the Gate with her own eyes, but with no success. Her other senses confirmed that Ki and Vandien were on the other side, nearer than they had been and hastening toward her. She tried to take comfort in the thought, and to forget the silenced wizard beside her.
She came on a wind from outside the realm of night, traveling from her hall to this Gate by the paths and steeds that only a Windmistress could command. Rebeke's honed senses felt her first as a breeze and then as an anger hanging in the moving air, poorly masking a frantic struggle.
The beast, invisible to untrained eyes, dropped her in the street. Her cowl was awry and her features stiff with hate. Yoleth of the Windsingers did not come with a good will. She was not taken sleeping or drunk or in the madness of grief. But she came. She came by the strength of the calling gem that clung to the skin of her hand and made demands in a stony voice. She advanced, stiff-legged, to the Gate. It was justice, Rebeke told herself. Yoleth's frantic resistance took all her will but availed her nothing, and terror silenced her.
'Are you pleased with the gift your skills wrung from the Limbreths?' Rebeke asked her in a voice as flinty as the gem. 'Come to the place you have prepared for yourself
With a light touch to Dresh's shoulder, Rebeke moved him to her side. They stood like a bridal couple in some blasphemous ceremony. She stroked the soft hair back from Dresh's eyes, and this time she did not resist her impulse. She set her scaled lips cooly to Dresh's smooth cheek in a farewell kiss. She wondered who, if anyone, it comforted. She freed his voice.
His grey eyes met and clung to hers. 'Come with me.' His voice was soft, untinged by any of his skills. 'In that world, perhaps we could be what we once were.'
'There is no world in which we could be together and be at peace. Neither of us was made for that. But I wish you well.' She turned away from him. 'We are ready now,' she told the Keeper.
'As are we. Let them enter.'
A touch of Rebeke's hand and a spur from the gem set them in motion. At the last possible moment, herhand darted out to rip the rune from his cloak. For an instant he struggled, but the pull of the Gate was already upon him, and slowly he entered. 'Upon the other side, you shall feel the touch of my will no longer,' Rebeke said, knowing her words could not carry into the Gate.
She peered into the rosy haze of the Gate, and stiffened as the Brurjan loomed suddenly into view.
The rain had never paused. Although the Limbreths might be willing to show them the Gate, they did not seem to wish their journey to be short or pleasant. They had come out of the last shred of forest into a deeply grassed meadow, and Hollyika had cursed in the savage Brurjan tongue at the sight of a Gate that seemed no more than a red crack in the night. But as they rode toward it, the crack had widened and assumed regular outlines, an arched red portico that beckoned in the night. Hollyika had reined in before it, and given a tug on the lead rope that brought Sigurd up beside her black. Vandien rode up beside Ki. He glanced across at her. Her face was unreadable, the red light giving it a glow that would have seemed wholesome, had not her face been worn to bones.