Traitors Gate

'We could set a place to meet and talk further.'

'Where you might set up any kind of ambush. I see you have your staff.' He indicated the green sapling wand stuck in the man's belt.

The man's startlement brightened his face, and he grinned as abruptly as a child who unexpectedly answers a question correctly at school. 'You must still be Jothinin, to know which staff I carry! Foolish Jothinin, so Night told us, although no one's seen you for generations. She was sure you had given up long ago and released your cloak. She's been seeking Sky. Now here you are. I've found you. I've done it right!' His pleasure in this triumph was disconcertingly childish.

Kirit whistled sharply, and Jothinin's senses prickled at her warning. Foolish Jothinin, indeed! The cloak of Leaves rode alone now, but if he was searching for other cloaks he likely had soldiers nearby. If Marit and her allies were clever enough to figure out how to use other people to kill a cloak, then certainly Night had done so long ago. Indeed, now that he considered the matter, it was the only possible way Night could have taken control of the

Guardians' council and kept replacing newly awakened cloaks until she found ones she could corrupt.

How had he been so blind?

'Tell her to stand back!' cried the man, and then he reined around and galloped away.

Jothinin strode briskly to where Kirit had halted, having taken a few paces away from the woods. She tracked his flight with her nocked arrow.

'Kirit, keep your bow ready in case he has soldiers close by. I'm going to pack up our gear and saddle the horses. We'll be departing immediately.'

'Uncle,' she said without shifting her gaze off the cloak of Leaves, 'did you know there's another person in the woods, watching us?'

He jerked as if he'd been struck, then bent back to tying up the kettle and bedrolls onto the back of Telling's saddle as if nothing were amiss. 'More than one? His soldiers?'

'Just one. Its heart does not whisper to me. Do you see that snake a few paces behind me? It might strike.' Her tone changed. 'There he goes.'

The cloak of Leaves vanished over the nearest hill, in the direction of the unseen Crags. The sun set behind the high peaks in the west, its light across the meadow gilding the grass to a glossy gold in a last, tender kiss before nightfall. Jothinin, turning back, caught a slithering movement across the dark soil as a snake — easily as long as his outstretched arms — lifted its hooded head.

'Kirit,' he said softly, 'do not move even a finger. That's a very poisonous snake, and I can't be sure it's not simply a snake.' She was a courageous girl; she did not move, not even to look around at the threat hissing behind her.

He cupped hands at his mouth and called. 'If it is you, Eyasad, why do you hide from us? You've no call to frighten the girl. I'll chop that cursed snake in two, I swear it. She's innocent, even if I am not.'

The snake's hiss abated and it settled, not moving away but its hood vanishing.

'Kirit,' he said, 'step away slowly, and saddle the horses.'

'I won't leave you, uncle,' she said, her voice cracking.

'I'm not asking you to. But we must be ready to flee if cloak of Leaves returns with soldiers. Move now, very slowly.'

She slid her feet along the soil, and he sidestepped until he

stood between her and the snake, which raised its head with an exploratory hiss.

'Eyasad,' he continued, 'listen to me. You were first to see the danger. You were right, and we were not just wrong but foolish and blind. Night has indeed corrupted four of the other cloaks. Having therefore control over five staffs, she may destroy the four who remain. She has turned Sun, Leaf, and Blood although there remains a question about Twilight's loyalties. We seek him. If we can assure ourselves he will turn to our side and walk the true path of the Guardians, and if you will join us… then we are five.'

'You are two, Jothinin. Not five.'

The pines clustered beneath a rockier spur of ground along an elongated hollow where richer soil had washed down over the ages to create a welcoming bed for deep roots. He did not see her because the gloom hid everything except the shadowy pillars marking the trees.

T am one. Kirit is two, who wears the cloak of Mist. The cloak of Death seeks Twilight even now, to win him over. If you ally with us, we'll be five. I beg you, show yourself.'

'A cloak in the hands of an outlander! No wonder it is so degraded, considering what a useless piece of chaff Ashaya was, easily led as well as stupid.'

Her voice was thinner than he recalled it, remembering her hearty laugh and robust singing. 'You're as blunt as ever, Eyasad. How I feared your tongue set on accounting my flaws!'

'You will have at your tiresome jokes all day if I do not stop you. Where is Death Cloak, if she is your ally? For I will tell you, Night pursued him who wore the Death Cloak above all of us, knowing him most likely to find a way to turn her strength against her and destroy her. What happened to him I do not know. I think she captured him, and destroyed him, and that this Death Cloak you speak of, once a reeve, is merely another creature of Night. Why should she not fool you, as easily as you are to be fooled? What a cursed idiot you are, Jothinin! Flying in here in broad daylight, so lacking in common sense that you did not see the shepherds who, seeing you, fled to warn me. Have you any idea what you've wrought?'

'Neh, but I expect I am about to hear.'

From back by the horses, Kirit hissed, rather like the cobra, and to his surprise, the snake crawled away into the darkness, lost among the bracken as Eyasad spoke bitter words.

'For generations I have labored to build a haven for folk to live free of the corruption of the Guardians. Now I am betrayed. I must move all my people lest they be discovered and slaughtered. Yet where will they be safe, eh? Is any place safe from the Guardians?'

'The land will become safe if we make it safe by restoring the Guardians' council!'

'Do we execute the other Guardians at our whim just as Night did? And thereby become like her?'

'Do we stand passively aside and let her destroy us?'

'Either way, she has already won.'

'What would you have us do?' he cried.

'It is better to do nothing.'

'To do nothing when you see a man being killed, if you could act to stop it, is the same as standing among those who kill him.'

'To do nothing is to refuse to participate in what is already corrupted.'

'We are commanded to act!'

'Strange words, heard from you, foolish Jothinin, who was once nothing more than a gossip and games-player, a trifle among men, not worthy of comment except in the manner of your death.'

'I am not the man I once was. I have changed.'

'Grown older, anyhow. Once you had a youthful face.'

'Aged, I grant you, over the long years, because I have avoided the altars to avoid Night and her allies. Eyasad, I beg you-'

'I am done with the Guardians' council. If we were betrayed once, then we can be so again. Why should there be Guardians at all, if they can be corrupted?'

Kirit padded up beside him, the bow held in her competent hands. Her voice emerged more strongly than he had ever heard it. 'It is wrong not to act when there is suffering. Why do you reject us?'

'Because you have brought my enemies down upon me. Sheh! All that I have built, in ruins! Because of you! What can I do now? Who can aid me?'

'If we work together-'

'Enough! I am quit of you. Do not seek me out again.'

During their conversation, night had swallowed them. Too late, he called light and plunged into the pine woods, but for all that he searched, he found no trace of Eyasad's passing. When he returned to the ashes of the fire, Kirit had the horses ready.

'Has Night corrupted her?' Kirit asked, her face ghostly above the light she had called from her hand to guide him back.