Gatewright (11 page)

Sweat
poured off of Riven, his cheeks were flushed with effort.  His expression
was focused, his movements methodical, but his eyes; his eyes were bright with
a strange emotion I couldn’t place.  Pleasure?  Fury?  The
frustrated
nagali
seemed on the edge of panic. Unable to affect Riven’s
graceful patterns, she edged farther and farther away from the flames of the
mages.  The remaining
atsili
was clearly fighting for his life,
Riven’s defense transforming into a full-fledged offense.  Each attack
warded off by less and less distance. Desperate, the assassin looked to his
now-dead companion for aid, and instead found me sitting in a puddle of his
blood.  With a hoarse yell, his hands flashed, and I knew what was
coming.  I scrambled to my feet in a panic, and with all of my strength,
leapt from the side of the road into the woods, as the heat from a fireball
singed my back.

I
fell a bit longer than I expected, but I was still alive.  Panting, my
ears rang, and I staggered to my feet.  I must have landed wrong on my
fall; my whole body was prickling uncomfortably. I could hear nothing but my
own gasping.  I turned my attention to the road and saw…

Forest. 
No road, no dead fey, no fire.

And
about seven feet above my head, a shimmering blue “hole in the ice”.  A
gate.

“OH
FUCK. Fucking fuck!”  I panted creatively, and immediately sprinted away,
crashing through the woods like an elephant.  Was it something about the
knife I still clutched in my hand?  Fey blood?  The force of the
explosions? Had Riven opened it to save my life?  Either way, that gate
was staying open.  Fuck, DIDA was going to kill me.  If the fey
didn’t first.

Eventually,
legs and lungs burning, I realized that my headlong rush was more of a giveaway
than anything else, and I stopped to breathe and listen for pursuit.

Nothing
but birdsong and the sound of the wind rattling the few stubborn leaves that
hung onto the trees.  Their fallen comrades crunched and rustled underfoot
with every movement.  The cold air hurt my lungs as I still struggled to
catch my breath and slow my hammering heart.

I’m
completely and utterly lost
.

Perhaps
if I sat very, very still I would hear traffic.  I glanced up to the sky,
and was relieved to see puffy white clouds.  The forecast of rain in the
fey realm didn’t seem to be mirrored here.  Guessing by where the sun
slanted to the west, it was around two in the afternoon.  A November
night, dressed as I was, without shelter, could be deadly.  I wished I’d
taken Girl Scouts more seriously.  Or zombie survival tests, when they
said I’d be the one to die within the first ten minutes.  I should have
looked into that a bit more.

I
wiped my face, trying to think straight, and wondered at the wetness on my
hand.  I looked.  It was a mistake.

The
blue blood from the fey I’d murdered was darkening.  A wave of intense
nausea hit me, and I bent over.  I’d
killed
someone.  I’d
killed a
fey. 
I shouldn’t even be alive at this point.  Panic
edged my thoughts.  I was always the one who was prepared, the one who
studied, and one who could think logically and figure out
compromises.  
Think! 
I commanded myself, and forced
myself to straighten.

I
took in my surroundings.  I didn’t hear any water, and the oak and maple
trees were majestic and not of very much help.  The trail mix in my jacket
wouldn’t last very long.  I needed shelter.  Then water.  And
not found by fey assassins. 

I
cleaned my knife as best I could on my shirt, which was already hopelessly
stained with fey blood and torn from my mad dash.  Slipping the blade in
my coat pocket, I made my way downhill. 
Downhill should bring me to
water, right?
  I kept an ear out for anything from pursuit to
vehicles, and focused on spotting shelter or food.

Hours
passed.

The
adrenaline wore off, leaving me with an unshakable exhaustion.  My limbs
felt like I’d strapped on gym weights.  I found a walking stick, and
followed a dry gully for about a mile before it hit a dead end and I was forced
to backtrack to climb out, skinning my knee when I slipped on the sharp
slope.  My feet ached, but I focused on shelter.  Water. 
Nothing else mattered.  I blocked out the fey realm entirely.  A
caffeine-withdrawal headache started to pound against my temples. 
Shelter.  Water.  I wasn’t a survivalist, and I’d gone hiking maybe
two times in my life.  I knew water was important.  And I was desperate
to wash off the blood.

The
sky darkened, and it grew harder to see my way.  The cold cut through my
clothes, and I hugged my jacket tighter.  Eventually, I collapsed at the
foot of a maple tree, pushing leaves out of the way and clearing a space for a
fire.  After some careful exploration, I collected a few sticks, dried
grass, and the remains of a log.  I placed them in front of me, and did my
best for about an hour and a half to coax a flame from my extensive knowledge
from watching movies.  I used Jack’s knife, and with a piece of flint I
found on the hillside, struck at it again and again and again.  The knife
was soon scarred from all of my vain attempts.

When
I managed to finally coax forth a small flame, I unexpectedly froze in
place.  The image of the burning carriage filled my vision, paralyzing
me.  I wanted nothing more than to stamp out my meagre fire.  I
forced myself to breathe.  This flame was of my own making.  I could
die without it.

I
dozed without the satisfaction of sleep, shivering on the bare ground next to
my campfire.  The cold air got inside my bones, and my headache increased
in intensity.  I wondered at what point I’d get hypothermia, and what the
signs were.  Would I even notice I was dying?  Was I being
melodramatic?  Was I already dead?

Dead. 
I jerked to full alertness at least four times within the space of a few hours,
vivid memories of fire and earth playing out of horrific slow motion. 
Twice I relived stabbing the fey with a clarity that bordered on
hallucination.  Were they all dead?  I hadn’t seen the bodies. 
Was Riven dead?  It was two against one when I left.  Had they chased
me down?

The
deep navy fey blood stained my hands, and every time I fed the fire, it trapped
me in the reality of what had happened.  I’d just started to doze off once
again when a crack of a stick brought me fully awake.  I sucked in a
breath.  It was just the fire, right?  Another crack, and it was
definitely in the woods.  
A bear?
I rose into a crouch, prepared to
flee.

Instead,
I met a pair of very fey eyes, and my heart leapt into my mouth.  I
fumbled for my knife, and sidestepped away from the fire so my vision could
adjust.

“Were
the assassins after you, gatewright?”  It almost sounded like Riven, but I
couldn’t be sure, and gripped the dagger harder.

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”  A few steps farther away from the
fire.  Did magic work in this world?  I wasn’t willing to find out.

“Or
did you simply come to Azry to mock us?” The voice said in Anowir,
furious.  It had to be Riven, I was sure of it now.  Otherwise I’d
probably be dead. 

“I
don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”  I shouted at him in his
own language, weighing my chances if I fled.  The biggest danger would be
tripping and breaking something.  Did fey have good night vision? 
Could I outrun him?

The
answer was no.  Riven crossed the twenty feet between us, and I only
managed to stumble backwards and almost fall in surprise.  He used my
momentum to grab my shirt and slam me backwards into a tree.  I gasped,
fighting to get air back into my lungs.

The
flickering light of my campfire illuminated his face, white with anger. 
His jaw muscles twitched.  “Why didn’t you shut the gate behind you? Were
you
trying
to get me in this realm?  I’m bound by an oath to
protect you, but that doesn’t stop me from dragging you to Emor by the hair and
throwing you back through your damned gate.”  Protection obviously didn’t
cover quite a lot of things.  Including getting slammed into trees.

He
was fast, but I was strong.  Even with his taller stature, I doubted he
weighed much more than I did.  I shoved him away from me violently and he
stumbled in surprise.  “I didn’t open that gate, it just appeared
there.”  Staring him down, I dared him to try to push me again.

He
snorted in disbelief but kept his distance.  “I saw you make a gate. 
You’re a gatewright, not
nagali
.”

“I
don’t know what a gatewright
is.
”  I spoke slowly, emphasizing
every word.  Maybe I could get it through his thick head.

A
long moment of silence passed while he assessed me.  “Then how do you
explain the gate?” he challenged me.

“I
know
literally nothing
about gates.  Do explosions cause
them?  Fey blood?”  I gripped the stone on my chest.  “Tiger’s
eye?  If I could open gates, do you think I would have just sat there and
let my friends
die? 
What kind of monster do you think I am?” 
One that kills fey,
a part of me answered, and I shuddered.

“Humans
don’t make gates.”  Riven spelled it out for me slowly, as if I didn’t
understand his Anowir.

I
stared at him helplessly. 
How could he not understand?

He
consciously took a deep breath.  “I truly can’t wrap my mind around the
concept that you just impulsively made a gate.  You
are
a
gatewright.”  Our eyes met, and his tone gentled.  “But I don’t
believe you meant any harm.  Nothing that I know of you – nothing that
I’ve seen from you – has made me think you would harm your friends.  The
blood on your hands proves it.”

Silence
fell, and I struggled with the urge to scrub my hands. 
Murderer. 
Gatewright. 
Both words rang in my ears, words alien to me. 
Words that now
were
me.  The fire crackled and popped in the
quiet.  “I’m glad you don’t think I’m a criminal mastermind,” I snapped,
at last.  “How the hell did you find me, anyway?”

“Well,
you
did
light a fire.  I may be magically neutered right now, but
that doesn’t mean I can’t sense one from a mile away.”  He stepped closer
to the light, away from me, and my eyes widened in shock.  He was worse
off than I expected.  He had a black eye and his clothes were covered in
dirt, blood, and slightly scorched.  With a barely audible groan, he sat
down next to the fire.

“You
look terrible,” I informed him without mercy, easing away from the tree. 
Fleeing right now was likely the smartest thing, but I wasn’t willing to
abandon my fire quite yet.  And if he could sense heat, sleeping would be
impossible.

“I
didn’t land on this side of the portal as gently as you did.” Riven assessed me
suspiciously before he continued.  “Someone wants to destroy our delicate
friendship with humans,” he stated matter-of-factly.  “If it wasn’t my
sworn oath to see to your safety, I would be riding back to Emor, finding
whoever organized this, and slowly roasting them alive.”

I
shared his sentiment regarding retribution, and knelt next to him.  “Did
anyone survive?”  I doubted he would have joined me here alone if they
had.

He
shook his head slowly.  “I’d hoped that even one survived the
elohi’s
attack.  I was wrong.  At least they had a quick death.”

 My
eyes started to burn.  “But, why?  They were good people… they did
nothing
but help the fey!  Neville has saved lives, for God’s sake!”  I
was breathing quickly and my throat kept catching.

“There
are a lot of reasons that they could have been targeted, and almost all of them
have nothing to do with any of you personally.” Riven’s face darkened. 
Grief?  Anger?  I couldn’t tell.

Tears
leaked down my cheeks as I fought to keep my composure.  What could I
say?  I’d only known them for five days, but it still shocked me to the
core.  My shoulders began shaking, disregarding my feeble attempts at
self-control.  The reality of my nightmare crashed into me, and I sank
back onto the forest floor.  I hugged my knees, silently grieving my
companions.  Tears rolled freely down my cheeks.  Riven was kind
enough to give me my privacy.  He stared intently into the fire, its light
reflected in his eyes, his face hard and haunted.

Eventually,
we both drifted off to sleep.  This time, exhaustion overwhelmed the
memories, and I managed to sleep in short bursts, only interrupted by violent
dreams.

The
next morning, Riven and I shared the little trail mix I had.  At least my
headache was slowly starting to fade.  “You could go back through the
gate,” I offered to Riven before we left the campsite.  “No one else is
alive that heard you swear an oath.”

Riven
moved stiffly, rummaging through the brush in search of something.  “Not
an option.”  He didn’t even look at me.

“Why?” 
I snapped.  “Is this an honor thing?  Then I release you from your
oath.”

Riven
snorted in derision.  “Yes, it’s ‘an honor thing’.  You think I’d let
you release me from that vow considering five of the six people I swore to
protect are
dead
?  You think the Great Mage didn’t hear me the
first time when I swore?”

“Exile…
does things to fey.”  Physical changes happened, but I wasn’t sure how
fast, or whether they were reversible.  I was sure that the Jack I knew
wasn’t the Jack that had lived in Anowir.

“I
failed them.  I refuse to fail you.”  Riven sounded cold, bracing
himself.  Afraid?  “
Aya
!  Here is a good one.”  He
stood up, brandishing a sturdy walking stick.  Noting his attempt to
distract me failed, he shut down any further discussion of the subject. 
“I have other reasons, too.  This is my choice, and Jan Leeman, you are
going to let me make it.  Now, which way to the nearest human settlement?”

“I
don’t know,” I told him frankly.

His
eyes widened.  It apparently hadn’t occurred to him that we were lost.