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

  Watching the Aelin carefully, Gerard asked, “Do you remember which circle Castines used to leave?”

  Obelin nodded. “I have not looked at it in a long time, but I know where it was in the great room.”

  “Will you show it to us?” Gerard asked.

  Obelin regarded Gerard for a long moment, hesitating. Then he said, “If we show you, will you help us?”

  Tremaine lifted a brow. “Help you how?”

  “Take us with you, when you leave.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Davret added urgently. “It’s like inside prison walls. We would leave, go out into the forest no matter how dangerous it is, but half our family can’t make it down the cliffs.”

  Tremaine looked at Gerard. Even she had to admit, it didn’t seem an unreasonable request. He eyed them thoughtfully, saying, “We can’t promise to take you back to your own people.” He hesitated and Tremaine thought, But the thing is, I have the feeling you wouldn’t want to go back there, if you knew what you were walking into. The gypsylike free-trading life Obelin had described was nowhere to be found among the Gardier today. If these people did turn up in Maton-devara or any other Gardier center they would probably be killed to keep them from reminding any others of their former lives. Or shunted into a labor camp, which amounted to the same thing.

  Obelin added firmly, “As long as there are other people—we can make our own way, we’re used to that. But we can’t be mired here any longer.”

  Tremaine glanced around, her look taking in Gerard, Ilias and Giliead. “If this is a trap,” she said in Syrnaic, “it’s far more elaborate and crazy than anything Nicholas ever came up with, and that’s saying something.”

  Giliead exchanged a look with Ilias, confirming that they shared the same opinion. “It can’t be a trap. I think they’re telling us the truth.”

  Gerard faced Obelin, meeting the old man’s eyes. “We’ll take you with us when we leave. If you show us Castines’s circle.”

  That evening, Nicholas knew Ixion would be looking for him as soon as the sorcerer was free of Chandre and Kressein. The ship would reach the Walls of the World tonight and hopefully make the passage through without incident. But Ixion would know the voyage was half over and that he was running out of time. Nicholas made himself easy to find, choosing one of the writing rooms near the First Class dining room. It was close to the foyer where crew, civilians, and Capidaran and Rienish soldiers passed back and forth into the dining room; Nicholas didn’t want to make it look as if he had deliberately sought a private spot for a meeting.

  It was an interior room, so the shaded crystal sconces were lit, throwing enough shadows on the cherrywood paneling and the dark marble hearth for any number of sorcerers to hide in. Nicholas took a seat at one of the writing tables, careful to choose one on the far side of the room, where he wouldn’t be easily visible from the open doorway. He rifled the desk but all the ship’s stationery had been removed long ago, except for a scrap of desiccated blotting paper lurking overlooked in the back of the drawer. He hadn’t brought anything to read because he suspected he needed reading glasses, and that was a concession to increasing age that he wasn’t willing to make at the moment. He took a pack of cards out of his pocket and started to shuffle.

  He didn’t have to wait long. After only a short time, he heard a faint step on the plush carpet and looked up to see Ixion standing over him. Nicholas nodded a greeting. “Wandering around alone? How inconsiderate. I’m sure your guards will be looking for you.”

  Ixion’s smile was a thin line. He was still dressed in the suit the Capidarans had provided for him, but there was something slightly off about the way he wore it, though it was a perfect accompaniment to his too-smooth skin and the new growth of hair on his skull. He said, apparently idly, “They have no idea I’ve left my room. You know, the one you visited this morning.”

  Nicholas had debated showing surprise and decided against it. Instead he tilted his head, as if conceding the point, and began to deal himself four hands of Three Card Sweep.

  Ixion waited a moment, but when it became obvious that that was the extent of Nicholas’s reaction, he pulled out a chair and took a seat across from him. Leaning his elbows on the fine wood, he said, “Lord Chandre has told me about you.”

  Nicholas smiled faintly as he finished dealing the cards, saying, “Of course he has. His spies in Vienne were very good, before he departed for Capidara.”

  “That you have concealed your identity, that you have killed wizards.”

  Nicholas frowned down at the cards, then used the seven of batons to capture the five of swords and the two of cups. “Only a few.”

  Ixion didn’t like being ignored. There was a slight edge to his voice as he said, “I fail to see how we are so different.”

  Nicholas lifted a brow, still engrossed in the cards. “I do. I’ve never blundered so spectacularly that I got my head cut off.”

  “It was a minor inconvenience.” Ixion leaned forward. “I know you want to kill me—”

  “I imagine most people do.”

  “And returning to another of my host bodies would inconvenience me. It would also prevent you from learning the secret of making those bodies, to restore the wizards the Gardier have stolen from you.” Almost gently, Ixion laid his hand down on the cards, preventing Nicholas from dealing again. Nicholas had a moment to study that hand, noting the smooth texture of the skin, unmarred by any sign of age or work, the perfectly formed half-moons of the cuticles and the nails, just a little too long. It was distinctly macabre. Ixion said precisely, with just a bare hint of triumph, “To restore your friend inside the sphere.”

  “Oh, is that what you’re offering for your life?” Nicholas looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time, concealing his disgust for this half-alive thing in a makeshift body. Amused, he said, “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong man. Arisilde raised my daughter, but unlike the others, I know he’s dead, and what’s left of him is more use inside the sphere than out.”

  Ixion held his gaze, and Nicholas saw the moment when the man’s opaque eyes accepted this as truth. Ixion drew back, mouth hardening. “I see.” He pushed to his feet, his eyes hooded. “So you’re determined on this course. No matter how self-destructive.”

  “Yes, you’re very threatening. Now go away, please. It’s the hair oil. Sorry, I’m sensitive.” Nicholas gave the man a patently insincere smile.

  Ixion eyed him a moment more, then walked out.

  Losing the smile, Nicholas dealt himself the queen of batons from the middle of the deck, commonly thought to be the death card. “That ought to do it,” he muttered dryly.

  Chapter 11

  Of course, the old man couldn’t find it in the dark. Waiting in the circle chamber, Ilias propped his sword on his shoulder, swearing under his breath. But as impatient as he was, he could see the problem. Even with Gerard’s curse lights, the chamber was vast and dark, the shadows all falling from the wrong directions, the shapes distorted. But standing with Giliead and Tremaine near the archway, watching Gerard pace back and forth with Obelin, the two younger Aelin trailing after them, Ilias still had to exchange a disgusted look with Giliead.

  Aras stood with them, with Cletia still guarding the corridor. The Capidaran man watched with concern. Ilias didn’t think he understood the difference between the Aelin and the Gardier, that these people were no more inherently evil than the people who lived in the village that had birthed Ixion. “You actually think we can trust them?” Aras asked Tremaine for about the third time.

  Giliead folded his arms and looked away, radiating annoyance at the uselessness of the question. “Yes, no, I don’t know,” Tremaine replied, clapping a hand to her forehead. “I wish we couldn’t.”

  Aras looked unsatisfied with this answer but Ilias knew what she meant. If Obelin’s story was true, and he believed it was, it opened up some frightening possibilities. If something or someone had caused such a change in the Aelin, it might be able to do the s
ame to the Rienish or the Capidarans. Or us, Ilias thought, the idea giving him a chill in the pit of his stomach.

  Gerard stopped to confer with the Aelin, then came over, distractedly wiping sweat off his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “We’ll have to wait until morning. He simply can’t see well enough to pick it out in this light.”

  “If we do find it,” Tremaine demanded, “exactly where is it going to take us, Crystal Hell?”

  “I think it will take us directly to a Gardier stronghold. Not that I think we should go there ourselves, but it will be a location of strategic importance.” Gerard took a sharp breath. “But in the meantime I’ve asked Obelin to take me back to their camp. There’s something about their aircraft I want to look at.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Tremaine said firmly, before Ilias could.

  Giliead nodded agreement, throwing a grim look at Ilias. “We believe they’re telling the truth, but there’s no point in taking chances.”

  After a pause to let Cletia and the others know what they were about to do—and what course of action to take if they didn’t come back—they followed Obelin through the dark corridors, Gerard’s curse lights trailing them.

  The white wispy lights sent odd shadows that chased each other through the ruins as they passed, making Ilias think of shades and curselings. To distract himself, he asked Gerard, “You want to see if the symbols for the curse circle are still on their flying whale?” He was walking beside Tremaine, keeping one eye on Elon, the one who might be in the best position to make trouble. Obelin had told them there were twenty-three of their people waiting back at the flying whale, that half were about his own age, the rest having been children when they came here or had been born since.

  Both of the younger Aelin stared at them with open curiosity, but if their story was true, then neither was old enough to remember seeing any strangers before. And as much as Ilias would like to find things to hold against them, the fact that the younger members of the group had refused to leave the elders for the freedom of the outside world spoke well for them.

  “Yes, I need to get a look at those symbols.” Gerard, walking slightly ahead with Obelin, glanced back at him. “They said this Castines directed them to fly out into the wilderness before making the world-gate; I’d like to know if he was trying to find the right position for a mobile circle, or if he used a modified version of one of these point-to-point circles. Or if he did something entirely new.”

  “I’m tired of entirely new things,” Tremaine said, keeping her voice low, though the Aelin couldn’t understand her. “I don’t understand most of the old things yet.”

  “That makes two of us,” Ilias told her with feeling.

  “Three,” Gerard admitted ruefully.

  “You people don’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Giliead contributed, throwing an ironic look back at them.

  They reached the corridor that led into the Aelin’s chamber and paused while Obelin called softly ahead. A startled voice answered and Obelin spoke for a few moments. Ilias could tell from watching Tremaine and Gerard that the Aelin weren’t talking about killing the strangers, but he still checked the set of his sword, just in case some young idiot decided to act on his own.

  Obelin motioned for them to continue. The healthier yellow glow of firelight flickered ahead and Gerard let the white curse lights gradually dim and vanish.

  They reached the archway to see a wary young woman waiting for them, the flying whale chamber behind her now lit by dozens of lamps. The burning oil smelled musky, not like the sweet scent of olive oil that Ilias was used to. The battered hulk of the flying whale looked less strange in this half-light, as if it was only the old wreck of a ship washed up on a beach. More people waited cautiously just inside the room and others crept out from all over, staring at them in wonder. Obelin raised his hands to get their attention and began to explain who these strange newcomers were.

  Ilias kept his eyes moving, alert for treachery. But Obelin had been truthful: most of these people were his age or older, their hair gray, their clothes ragged and threadbare, the fabrics dull with time, with occasional bright fragments they had saved as scarves or sashes. The younger ones looked almost incredulous at seeing strangers and there were a couple of dark-haired, wide-eyed children peeping at them from behind the keel of the flying whale.

  Obelin turned to Gerard, speaking and gesturing around. An old woman, her white hair held back from her face in a frizzy tail, came to stand next to him, asking a bewildered question.

  Tremaine wandered over toward the flying whale, where the door was open in the side. Following her, Ilias could see the thing wasn’t made of wood at all, but of panels woven of a material like dried grass, painted over with some kind of lacquer to make it hard and waterproof. Like a giant basket, he thought, craning his neck for a look inside.

  Davret had followed them, and now she spoke to Tremaine, gesturing toward the open door.

  Tremaine glanced at Ilias, lifting a brow inquiringly. “She says we can go inside.”

  Ilias looked back at the others, and saw that Obelin, far from attempting to conceal anything, appeared to be taking Gerard and Giliead around the large room, gesturing and talking volubly. They were accompanied by the old woman, and several of the younger men and women trailed after them. Ilias imagined the old man hadn’t had anyone new to talk to for so long, he couldn’t stop himself. His gut still told him this wasn’t a trap. He gave Tremaine a nod.

  Davret led them inside, to an open chamber that seemed to take up most of the bottom portion of the thing. It was dark and close, the strawlike material of the tilted floor crunching slightly underfoot. No one seemed to be sleeping or living inside here now, probably because it was too warm and airless.

  It was lit by colored glass jars that hung from hooks in the supporting beams, the light they gave off tinged with blue, though it flickered like firelight. Ilias eyed it cautiously, thinking it was a new type of curse light. Something inside the jars seemed to be moving sinuously.

  Tremaine examined one and Davret gestured toward it, explaining. Listening to the girl, Tremaine’s face screwed up into a half-intrigued, half-disgusted expression as she looked more closely at the jar. “She says they’re worms, that you feed leaves to them and they make the light. After they’ve been here so long, the older ones have stopped breeding, so they’re dying off and they have to make an oil from a plant they found out on the bluff.”

  Ilias leaned close enough to see the slimy white forms writhing in the bottom of the glass. “All right,” he commented, thinking it wasn’t any worse than using a curse light.

  Davret was continuing to talk, gesturing as she led them around, answering Tremaine’s questions. They were trailed by other Aelin, but all were children, none taller than Ilias’s shoulder. Tremaine translated as they went along, pointing toward the folded piles of dull gold fabric stacked near the wall. “That’s all that’s left of the balloons. They don’t have an engine like the modern Gardier airships. Their trade routes were all based on wind direction. Though she knows what an engine is, she just thinks there aren’t any light enough to put in an airship. It sounds like they used a different gas for the balloons too. They never worried about things being flammable. Or maybe they just used hot air, I can’t tell. They apparently did use some magic, but it sounds like fairly simple charms for guiding the balloon and protection against weather. She says the people who were able to do them were the ones who went with Castines.”

  Ilias nodded absently, taking it in as he looked around. He didn’t think it mattered much how they had made the flying whale fly. The more he saw of these people, the more he thought they weren’t warriors at all. They seemed to have no weapons except the one shooting weapon Gerard had confiscated; the rough spears they used looked more like something for getting fruit or nuts out of tall trees.

  Davret led them through the cluttered interior, then up a ladder out onto the deck. The light material gave a little underfoot and the deck
lay at a crazy angle; metal staves grew up into a half-broken structure that had once supported the rest of the whale. Huge piles of rope and cable lay everywhere. Davret and Tremaine climbed awkwardly toward the curve of a cabin dominating this end of the deck. Kneeling at the base of the woven wall, Davret pointed to a faint black mark.

  Tremaine leaned down to peer closely at the mark while Ilias braced himself against the wall to stay upright. After a moment she pushed to her feet and he caught her arm to help her.

  “It looks like a gate symbol, but I don’t know how much that’s going to tell Gerard,” she reported. Davret blinked up at them hopefully, wispy dark hair poking out from under her bright scarf. “She says that’s the best one that’s left.” Tremaine shrugged, looking weary. “It’s more proof that they’re telling us the truth.”

  Ilias nodded absently. He thought the story was too elaborate to be a lie, that no one except Tremaine and Nicholas would be capable of bringing off such a complicated deception. “But we knew that already. The thing they can’t tell us is who Castines was, if he was Syprian or something else.”

  “He was something else, all right,” Tremaine agreed, looking across the lamplit chamber toward the wall of crystal niches.

  That night, while Niles worked on the world-gate again, Florian augmented her concealment charm with a few herbs and borrowed an extra pair of his aether-glasses without telling him. Then she went down a couple of decks to try to get a look at Ixion’s work area.

  The rooms Ixion had been given for his experiments were in the depths of the ship, in a maze of unused storage rooms. It was all bare metal down here, or yellow-washed walls. She slipped past two bored Capidaran guards in the outer room easily enough, passed through an otherwise empty chamber that seemed to be storing unneeded shelving removed from the other rooms, and put on the aether-glasses to check the next door for a ward. It was free of any etheric trace, so she used her set of master keys on the lock. She smiled to herself a little grimly, thinking how she had almost turned these keys in to the purser’s office when they had arrived at Capistown, but Tremaine had convinced her not to. “You never know when they could come in handy,” she had said, taking them out of Florian’s hand and stuffing them under the clothes in Florian’s bag. Right again, she thought, turning the key in the lock.