The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) Read online

  They had been gone for nearly half an hour now and Tremaine felt as if her head was going to explode from tension. Giliead and Meretrisa were still down there waiting for the two men to return, but Tremaine was too edgy to stay in one spot. She wasn’t sure if the delay was a good thing or not, if it meant they had found a place worth taking a careful look at or if they were trapped somewhere and it was all over. And there was only one more circle left to try.

  Standing in an empty dusty room, staring at the enigmatic carvings, Tremaine glanced up just as Meretrisa passed by the doorway, heading toward the circle chamber.

  Ilias and the other Syprians were with Vervane and the newly returned Balin, in the main room. Tremaine stepped out in the corridor in time to see Meretrisa pass that doorway and continue into the circle chamber.

  Tremaine stood in the corridor, staring after her. Huh. She followed, moving quietly to the doorway of the circle chamber.

  Meretrisa knelt beside the carved symbols, her small notebook in her hand. Her expression was intent, her brows knit, as she checked her copy of the symbols against the etched stone. This was the second time Tremaine had caught her alone with the circle, studying it. The first time she was copying it, now she’s making sure her copy is accurate. She had to know that the Capidarans would get a copy. So who is she copying it for? And there was something about her face, something not quite guilt, but close enough. An awareness of a burden.

  Tremaine took a few steps into the room, her rubber-soled boots silent on the windswept stone. She planted a smile on her face and said, “How did you come to be with the Capidaran delegation, Meretrisa?”

  Meretrisa looked up, startled. “I…” She hesitated, and Tremaine’s smile grew a little more saturnine. It wasn’t exactly a difficult question to give an honest answer to. If one had an honest answer. It’s her, she thought, certain suddenly. Our spy.

  Meretrisa managed to arrange her face back into a polite expression. “The other Ministry sorcerer was ill and could not come, so I took his place. Several people were taken ill in his office that day.”

  “He just took ill suddenly.” Tremaine nodded to herself. That’s not the oldest trick there is, oh, no. It was easy for sorcerers to cause a minor indisposition, even to other sorcerers. Something just uncomfortable enough to make it difficult for the man to leave his home for a long meeting, but not bad enough to bother going to another sorcerer for healing. If a mild sickness charm had been attached to a letter or another piece of paperwork, it might affect any number of people, junior assistants, the boy who took in the mail, and look even more convincingly like a natural illness. “So what did they offer you? Is it blackmail? Did they tell you they have some relative of yours prisoner, because that’s usually what they do.” Meretrisa’s expression had turned stony, but Tremaine saw her throat move as she swallowed nervously and knew it was guilt rather than outrage at being unjustly accused. Oh, yes, it’s her. And Meretrisa wouldn’t have a crystal implanted under her skin; an involuntary unconscious spy had no reason for excuses or guilt. “Or did they just tell you they would leave Capidara alone?”

  Meretrisa looked away and Tremaine shrugged, taking a few more idle steps toward her. She wished Giliead was here, but he would probably feel any spell from down in the other circle chamber; she just hoped he could get up here in time. She suspected Meretrisa was a better sorcerer than she had pretended. Tremaine added the lie, “Oh come on, I knew from the moment the Gardier targeted the house. We all knew.”

  Meretrisa set her jaw, still looking away. Then she said, “They told me they had no plans to attack Capidara, they didn’t need to, they had all they could manage with Ile-Rien, the Maiutan islands, Adera, the other places they had already taken. That they would send men to your house, to take the sphere and the new circle.” Meretrisa gestured helplessly. “Of course, it was a lie.” She pushed her hair back and Tremaine saw tears streaked her cheek. “It wasn’t blackmail, there were no threats. They offered me money. And I took it. I have—had—a very low position in the Ministry. It’s not like Ile-Rien here; the women sorcerers are not considered as useful or trustworthy as men. It was only money. And safety. I thought the sooner I gave them what they wanted, they would leave us alone.”

  Tremaine lifted her brows. She hadn’t expected to get a confession so easily. “But you took a copy of the circle, just in case.” Then she heard a faint sound behind her. She glanced over her shoulder.

  Five Gardier stood in the ring of carved symbols, wearing the brown coverall uniforms, the small crystal devices hanging from their belts, four of them armed with rifles. The fifth was a Liaison, his face marked with two crystals, one set in the center of his forehead, the second in his cheek. Tremaine had one instant to be horrified, then she was dragging her pistol out of her pocket; but that one instant was already too long.

  Pain exploded in her hand and she yelled, flinging what was left of the gun away. As she staggered the Liaison strode forward to seize her arm. Her hand was bloody and she felt her knees go weak. She couldn’t tell yet if she still had all her fingers. Confused, she thought she had been shot, but it must have been the mechanical disruption spell, destroying her pistol.

  Meretrisa was on her feet, staring in horror. A gunshot echoed off the stone and Tremaine flinched violently. Meretrisa fell backward, struck the wall and slid down into a tumbled heap, her notebook falling beside her hand.

  “No shooting! We want them alive,” the Liaison snapped.

  “She is a sorcerer, dangerous,” argued the one who had fired.

  “She’s not the sorcerer we want,” the Liaison told him, annoyed. Tremaine had heard the descriptions but she had never seen a Liaison really close up before. He was a young man, perhaps early twenties, and must be relatively new; the puckered flesh around the crystals in his face was only just tinged with green and gray decay. He was holding the sorcerer crystal that must have brought the group here tucked under his arm. “Just get the others alive.”

  Stricken, Tremaine saw the officer make a sharp gesture and the other three start into the entrance to the caves, weapons at the ready. Oh God. Ilias was in the next chamber, but he must have heard the shot.

  The Liaison gave her arm a shake; it jarred her throbbing hand and she gritted her teeth. He said to the officer, “Ask her what others are here, ask her about the sorcerer, the one making the circles work.”

  The officer turned to her, fumbling for the translator on a chain around his neck. It was a small metal disk with a crystal fragment, which contained the Gardier-Rienish translator spell that Arisilde had adapted for his own use. Before he could speak, a thump and a shout from the passage interrupted. Tremaine flinched again as a rifle went off, the shot ear-piercingly loud against the stone.

  Something dark rolled into the room and the Liaison dropped Tremaine’s arm, both men hastily backing away, obviously fearing an explosive. Tremaine shoved away from them, putting her back against the wall, thinking distractedly, We don’t have explosives. The object rolled to a squishy halt and she saw it was a head with short dark hair, still wearing a set of Gardier aether-glasses. In the silence she could hear a strangled gurgling from the passage, the sound of someone else drowning in his own blood.

  The Liaison and the officer stared at her and she stared back. “Syprians,” she said in Aelin, answering one of the Liaison’s earlier questions. “Lots of them.”

  The officer lifted his rifle but a long feathered shaft blossomed in his chest and he flung his arms wide, falling backward, his gun clattering to the floor. Tremaine flung herself for the weapon but the Liaison didn’t move to grab it. He stepped into the circle and vanished.

  Something bounced off the wall near where he had been standing and landed near Tremaine. It was another arrow, shattered from the impact on the stone. She stepped over it, grabbed the rifle barrel and pushed to her feet, cradling her injured hand. The officer with the arrow in his chest was still twitching a little, a spreading stain turning his brown uniform red a
round the long wooden shaft.

  Ilias slammed into the room, sword lifted, lowering it as he saw the other Gardier was gone. “Tremaine?”

  She stumbled to Meretrisa’s side, thinking she was dead, but the woman had started to stir, whimpering a little, trying to push herself up. The blood was spreading down her sleeve, under her jacket and across her chest but Tremaine couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  Ilias started toward her, but Tremaine shook her head rapidly. “One got away. Get our things, the food, everything, we have to go. Somebody get her, get her out of here.”

  Ilias turned back for the passage, shouting for Cimarus and Cletia. Cimarus appeared an instant later with a blanket. He knelt beside Meretrisa, wrapping her in it, his face tight with tension. Tremaine pushed to her feet, getting out of his way as he scooped Meretrisa up and took her out of the room.

  Tremaine glanced around, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. That last dying Gardier was still looking at her, though his eyes were going vague. Kill him, take him with us, leave him? There was no time. She leaned down, dropping the rifle to unbuckle his belt with its pack of ammunition and a couple of the small crystal fragments that held individual spells. She pulled it off, slung it around her neck and grabbed the rifle again, straightening up. She snuck a look at her bloody hand and counted all five fingers. The pistol couldn’t have exploded, or surely her whole hand would have been gone. The metal must have gotten hot, then started to come apart. Light-headed with relief, she stuffed her useless hand in her pocket and headed for the passage.

  The other three Gardier were still there: the headless one slumped in the entrance to the first room, the gurgling one with an arrow in his throat in the opposite doorway and the last sprawled just inside the main room with an extremely ugly and fatal sword wound to the head. Giliead burst out of the stairwell so abruptly Tremaine yelped and flinched. He strode to her side, looking past her into the circle chamber with worried eyes, laying a hand on her shoulder. “They’re gone?”

  “For now. Meretrisa’s shot.” She remembered he could feel the circles and the gate spells when he was close enough. “We have to—”

  “I know.” He squeezed her shoulder and stepped past her into the room where the others were scrambling to grab weapons and packs and bags. Cletia, one of the Syprian goathorn bows slung over her shoulder, dumped out the water to stuff the pot in her pack. Balin was crouched in a corner, looking mutinous. I should have shot that bitch, Tremaine thought wearily. We need to destroy the circle. But she had nothing to do it with. And having her back to it was making her skin crawl. She looked around at the dead men again but couldn’t see anything they had with them that looked like an explosive.

  Vervane came out burdened with an armload of blankets and coats, her face set with distress. She tried to look into the circle chamber, but Tremaine caught her arm and turned her back around, sending her down the passage. The pain in her hand was making her head buzz. After a moment of trying to think, Tremaine followed Vervane. She could only carry the one rifle right now and would have to come back for the other weapons.

  Climbing down the stairs just behind Vervane, she saw that the older woman’s hand was bleeding. “Did you get hurt?” Tremaine asked her, then had to try twice to get the question out in Rienish.

  Vervane glanced back at her, nodding, her face red from exertion. “It’s nothing. That Gardier woman, I put my hand over her mouth so she couldn’t call out and warn them, and she bit me.”

  Tremaine heard a commotion overhead and looked up to see Cletia hurrying down the stairs, carrying bags and packs, prodding Balin along ahead of her. They all reached the lower chamber to find Cimarus waiting at the bottom of the steps, Meretrisa bundled in his arms. “Outside?” he asked.

  Tremaine hesitated, just as Gerard and Aras appeared in the circle on the far side of the shadowy room.

  “Tremaine, you’ll never believe what we—” Gerard began, stepping out of the circle. Then he took in their appearance. “Gardier?”

  “Yes, from the other circle. One got away. Meretrisa’s shot.” Tremaine’s hand was hurting all the way up her arm and all the way through her body until her back teeth seemed to be throbbing in rhythm with her pounding heart. “Gerard, we need to destroy that circle, or go outside, or—”

  “Shot?” Aras interrupted, startled, staring at the limp form in Cimarus’s arms. “What?”

  Vervane was nodding urgently. “It’s true, we must go—”

  With a clatter Ilias and Giliead arrived at the bottom of the stairwell. Ilias was hauling Balin by the arm, his sword, a couple of packs and one of the bow cases slung over his shoulder. “They’re back,” Ilias informed them grimly.

  “I felt the gate curse while we were coming down,” Giliead agreed, his face set. He had the rest of the weapons and what Tremaine hoped was the last of their packs.

  Gerard didn’t hesitate, waving them over briskly. “We’ll use this circle. Everyone get inside it immediately.”

  Aras strode forward, relieving Vervane of her load of blankets. “Yes, it goes to another junction like this one. We don’t know if it’s safe, but it’s the best option.”

  Tremaine followed them, dragging the rifle along, not sure she was thinking clearly. “But doesn’t someone have to destroy this circle, or won’t they just follow us?”

  Everyone assembled hurriedly in the circle. “We can destroy it once we get there,” Gerard explained, lifting the sphere as he looked around to make sure everyone was accounted for. “There are hundreds more.” Tremaine thought she could hear someone shouting in Aelin, the voice echoing down the stairwell.

  “Here, down here!” Balin called out desperately.

  “There’s hundreds more what?” Then Tremaine gasped, her stomach lurching. They were suddenly somewhere else. I will never get used to this.

  Tremaine got an impression of a giant cathedral-like space, blue-veined stone and sunlight slanting down from some great distance. It was cool and damp, but not as cold as the cave they had just come from. Then she had to sit down, clutching her swimming head and trying not to be sick.

  Everything continued to swim, though she knew it was Ilias who pulled her to her feet, propelled her out of the circle and sat her down again a short distance away. After a moment the feverish sensation of impending nausea faded and she blinked sweat out of her eyes. Ilias was sitting in front of her, holding her injured hand, biting his lip in concern. She saw with surprise that among the bloody and burned skin there was a piece of rock stuck to her palm. She must have fallen on it in the circle chamber and it had stuck to the burned flesh. Ugh, no wonder it hurts, she thought with a wince.

  Gerard was stooping over them, irritably demanding, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I said ‘ow,’ ” Tremaine told him, grimacing. She hadn’t thought it was this bad. Then she looked up, and up, and up.

  They were in a giant chamber, at least twice the size of the train yard at the central Vienne station. It was full of dusty sunlight from narrow slits of louvers set high in a soaring roof. The stone was light-colored, almost like a white marble with different shades of blue and gray woven through it. There were carved archways, leading off into other spaces, some sunlit, some shadowed. The floor was paved with a pearly gray stone and it was covered with circles, more than she could count. They seemed to be everywhere.

  “Wow,” Tremaine muttered. Giliead was standing guard over them, his sword resting on his shoulder as he watchfully scanned the area. Cimarus had taken charge of Balin, who sat in a sullen heap, and Cletia was nearby, sorting through the jumbled contents of their hastily packed supplies. Meretrisa lay wrapped in the blanket, Aras and Vervane anxiously leaning over her. “What about Meretrisa?”

  “I’ve stopped the bleeding but the bullet punctured her lung,” Gerard told her. “Now be quiet.”

  “Shouldn’t we do something about the circle?” Tremaine wondered, feeling vague. “They’re going to realize we went throu
gh one of them, so—”

  “I already did,” Gerard interrupted, digging a handkerchief out of his pocket. “I used the sphere to melt away a few of the key symbols.” He handed the cloth to Ilias, and said, “Go on and pull it out.”

  “Pull what out? Ow!” Tremaine strangled a yell and glared at Ilias. He pressed the handkerchief over the now–freely bleeding wound, ignoring her. “It could have been stuck in a bone or something.”

  “It wasn’t,” Ilias told her repressively. “I pull things out of people all the time.”

  Gerard shouldered between them and took hold of her wrist, though Ilias didn’t let go of her hand. She knew Gerard had already begun a spell because the throbbing started to ease immediately. She noticed Ilias still looked worried, his brow creased, sweat staining the open front of his shirt. And there was fresh blood spattered on his coat sleeves and caught in his hair. “That was very effective, that thing with the head,” she informed him. He lifted a brow at her, and she amended, “I’m talking about cutting the Gardier’s head off and throwing it at his friends. Who was shooting the arrows?”

  He jerked his head toward the others. “That was Cletia.”

  “Of course it was,” she said dryly. Oh, good, I got saved by Cletia, Tremaine thought, rolling her eyes. That makes it all worthwhile.

  Ilias lifted the cloth at Gerard’s urging and saw the wound in Tremaine’s hand had already closed, though it looked new and raw. The burns were better and he could already see new pink flesh under the blood and damaged skin. He took a deep breath in relief and looked up at the wizard. “Thank you.”

  Gerard didn’t seem able to speak and just patted him on the shoulder. Ilias knew he looked on Tremaine as a daughter. Apparently annoyed by their concern, Tremaine said in exasperation, “I feel fine.”