Vandien stared into the Gate, at the Keeper like and yet unlike the one he had overpowered to come through. His back was to them and Vandien wondered to whom he spoke. The Gate at last, as they had so long sought it, and in his heart there was no joy, for it was parting time. He drew his knife to cut the bonds on Ki's wrists.
'Leave that be!' Hollyika hissed.
'You gave your word,' Vandien reminded her. He did not know enough of Brurjan expressions to read the look on her face.
'What is a word given to one you have not shared hot blood with?' Hollyika whispered imperturbably. 'Bite your wagging tongue, and be ready to do all exactly as I say, or your Romni friend pays for you.'
Ki turned to him, and their eyes met. They pleaded, but her lips were dumb, and he did not know what she asked of him. He bowed his head, turning his eyes away from her. The Keeper had put his attention upon them.
'We're coming through,' Hollyika announced before he could speak.
'Yes. Yes,' the Keeper agreed. 'You and the man. All has been prepared, all will balance. Be ready to come forward when I give the signal.' His eyes flickered over Ki with casual interest. 'You may take the animal she bestrides as well. My Masters have no use for it.'
'Neither do we,' Hollyika asserted. The loop of lead rope fell from her hand to the wet ground. Vandien caught his breath. Ki sat still as stone.
'Then enter now,' the Keeper bade them, and turned his sightless head toward the other side. 'As are we,' he answered to some unheard comment. 'Let them enter.'
Hollyika cried out in Brurjan to her horse, and Black sprang forward as if stabbed. The lead rope loop, so showily dropped, jerked tight, and Vandien saw the loose end of it knotted to the pommel of Hollyika's saddle. Sigurd screamed at the rude jerk, but surged forward all the same. Sigmund could ignore Vandien's frantic blows, but not his team mate going without him. He too pushed into the Gate. It met them like a rising tide. Vandien was stifled by the pressure of it. The horses struggled like trapped cattle in a mire. Black was furious, his bit foaming pink, his angry hooves seeking targets. The thick atmosphere frustrated him, changing his killing blows to floundering. Dimly Vandien was aware of a Windsinger going down before him, and rolling, to begin a slow crawl to the Limbreth side of the Gate. Her face was twisted in despair, and he had a half instant in which to wonder what drove her on. A dark-cloaked man with a hauntingly familiar face slipped nimbly through the midst of the scuffle, moving toward the Limbreth side without reluctance. Ki sat astride the plunging Sigurd as if she were glued to him, and Vandien saw the nudge of her knee that pushed him into the gap Hollyika had cleared.
Hollyika had seized the hapless Keeper, who wriggled like a rabbit in her grip. 'I'll balance your damn Gate for you!' she roared in a voice made sodden by the heavy air. With one arm she jerked him from his feet and held him aloft. Impending disaster howled in Vandien's mind. Sigmund beneath him sensed it as well, and with a shouldering shove that pushed his brother through the Gate, he plunged out as if he were coming out of a flooded river fording. But Vandien was not quite clear of the Gate when he felt the red air within it grow suddenly thin. He had a brief image of the Keeper flung back to the Limbreth side, tumbling through the air, to suddenly wink out of the Gate. For a second he heard Hollyika's roar of laughter and saw the flash of her grin.
Then agony crushed her. Blood started from her ears and nose, and the black horse screamed like a woman. The Gate was falling, collapsing in a ruin that was both more and less than stone. The very blackness of the night fell in on itself, making a darkness that no light could pierce. Hollyika's aggressive determination alone was not enough to hold the Gate in existence; but it was barely enough to drive Black on, to spring nearly clear of it before he sank to the ground. Rocks the size of clenched fists rained down upon them. A choking dust of ancient stone filled the air; Vandien couldn't see Ki. He sprang from Sigmund and gripped Hollyika, but even the strength of terror was not enough to drag her free. A rock between the shoulders flattened him onto her and he became her unintentional shield against the debris that followed. For a small eternity the wall fell, and then a silence as heavy covered them with mercy.
'Did they get through?' A voice as loud as a roaring wind was in Vandien's ear and shaking his shoulder as well. He rolled to face it, and then recoiled from the inhuman visage so close to his own. He had seen those blue and white eyes before; the memory didn't reassure him. He opened his lips to speak but coughed rock dust instead.
'Did they get through?' The voice persisted, but Ki's voice, calm as a summer's day, was the one to answer. 'I caught a glimpse of them on the other side, before she threw the Keeper at them. They were clear, and Dresh was farther from the collapse than we were.'
Vandien rolled over slowly. Rebeke straightened up from shaking him, and gave him enough space to come to his feet. Ki just looked at him, without a touch or word, but her sunken eyes were full of regrets.
'So they're through. And the Gate can never be reopened. I suppose I am relieved.' Rebeke's words seemed almost Human; uncertainty gave the tuned instrument of a Windsingers voice a mortal tone this night.
Ki stepped forward, and Vandien watched her eyes roving over the fallen masonry. A whole section of the wall had gone down, exposing a flat expanse of yellow plain, with a few straggly trees. The pile of rubble did not seem enough to account for such a gap.
Belatedly, he recalled Hollyika. The horse was groaning, but she was still. To his surprise he found Rebeke helping him to drag her from the saddle. Relieved of her weight, Black made an attempt to stand. It was pitiable to watch, but he finally levered himself upright, his head drooping down until his nosenearly touched the street. He trembled and sweat began to stain the black coat; but he seemed, miraculously, unhurt.
'Is she alive?' Vandien asked Rebeke as the Windsinger stooped over Hollyika.
'You ask that question about a Brurjan?' Was that a trace of humor in the trained voice? 'They're nearly as hard to kill as Romni. She's stunned, and her hearing will never be the same. But she will live to let you know she feels no debt toward you.'
'I'll never understand why she did it. What did she gain by bringing Ki through?' He stopped at the strange look Rebeke gave him. 'They weren't going to let Ki through, you know. That was their bargain with us. That we could pass the Gate if we left Ki behind.'
'Was it? A great one for bargains, the Limbreths. I hope they think this one has been shrewd, for it is the last one they will make with this world.'
'What was your role in this?' Ki asked suddenly in a flat voice.
'One that need not concern you, for I had no wishes for your well-being. You were a pawn in someone else's gambit, as usual.' The words were slighting, but they held one another's eyes. Rebeke moved toward Ki, to free her still bound wrists.
Hollyika's eyes slid open. With a roar she clapped her hands over her ears and rocked back and forth. Rebeke glanced about the streets. Dawn was not far away; the less evidence left, the better.
'Bring her horse,' she told Vandien sharply. With a strength he found incredible, the slender Windsinger pulled the Brurjan to her feet and began to walk her away.
TWENTY-ONE
Mickle's kitchen was a friendly place of well-worn comfort. In the oldest of Human traditions, it was a separate room of the house, closed off from the bedlam that currently raged through the rest of it. Vandien sat in a darkened corner of it and tried to shut his mind off.
He could hear Jace and Chess down in the cellar as they dragged about beds and chests to make room for Jace to sleep. Rebeke had banished them there, insisting that Mickle kindle enough lights in the rest of the house for her to work by, and commandeering his bed for Hollyika. Hollyika and Mickle were currently engaged in a shouting match over whether she would drink the milk and eat the nourishing stew he had brought her, or whether she really would get up out of the bed and break his neck first. Vandien was betting on Mickle at this point. The old man's determined nagging brought a tiny smile to his face, but it died there.