Spear of Heaven (27 page)

“He’s an exorcist,” Borti answered for him, since he seemed
unable to speak. Demons, it was clear, were not supposed to talk back, still
less tell him exactly what was what. Borti went on, “He sends demons back where
they came from, and lays ghosts to rest.”

“He’s not much of an exorcist,” Kimeri said tartly, “if he
can’t tell a demon from a Sunchild, or a trapped Guardian from a creature of
the hells.”

The exorcist blinked. His magic was in rags. Under it he was
not a bad man, simply ignorant.

Kimeri was not inclined to be kind to him for that. Even
when he said in a completely different voice than the one he had been using,
soft and rather diffident, “Have I made a mistake? This isn’t the haunting I
came to be rid of?”

“Who sent you?” Kimeri demanded. “This is our house if it’s
anybody’s. We certainly didn’t want an exorcist.”

“We send ourselves,” the exorcist said. “Every night of
great moment, when the moons are full or the moons are new, or one or both is
in a position of power, somebody comes to dance the haunting away.”

“It never works, does it?” Kimeri said. “It’s not going to
work now.”

She advanced on him and plucked the knife out of his hand.
It made her fingers tingle. It had a black blade; at home it would have been a
darkmage’s instrument, and not a pleasant one, either. Usually its blade was
poisoned.

This one was not. She broke it across her golden palm and
flung the pieces away. “You shouldn’t walk around waving darkblades as if they
were kitchen knives. Don’t you know they can drink souls?”

The exorcist opened and shut his mouth. “I don’t—I didn’t—”

“Obviously,” said Kimeri. “So you people think there’s a
ghost here, and he walks when the moons are up. He doesn’t, really. He’s
trapped in the Gate. It’s just his fetch that walks, trying to find its way
out. If you hadn’t interrupted, we might have been able to help him.”

The exorcist looked completely crestfallen. He was not very
old, Kimeri saw, for grownfolk. He was maybe as old as her mother. He was full
of himself, all fresh and newly initiate, and this was supposed to be his first
great charge.

It served him right, she thought nastily, for being such an
idiot.

He tried to scramble together his dignity, and his crooked
magery with it. “You are a demon,” he said in as steady a voice as he could
manage. “You were set here to test me.”

“I am not,” said Kimeri. “I told you that already. People
look like this where I come from. Now will you go away? We’re busy.”

That was the wrong thing to say. He had his power all
together, and his temper to make it stronger. He rolled it into a ball and
threw the lot of it at her, so fast and so hard she could barely get out of the
way, and even more barely see where it was going. Her own power lashed out
desperately, all anyhow, and struck it sidewise.

There was a blinding flash, a clap of thunder. Kimeri was
knocked down again.

But her body did not matter. Her power was flying into the
broken Gate, locked with the exorcist’s, and Uruan was right in its path.
Holding himself there. Seeing his death, wanting it, wanting to be gone, away,
out of this agony of half-existence.

“No,” said Kimeri. She said it in her ordinary voice. In the
howling of Gatewinds, no one should have been able to hear it at all, but it
was clear, its sound distinct.

The Gate was awake. It should not be—it was dead. But
neither should Uruan be alive, and he was. Somehow he and the Gate together had
kept it all from falling apart.

The bolt of power struck them both. Something ripped.
Something else tore.

It might be the inside of Kimeri’s head. It might be the
fabric of the Gate, or the thing that had bound the Gate, knocked it down and
fallen on it. Through the gap, something fell—something large and breathing and
bruised, that looked around, laughed once as a madman might, and crumpled to
the floor.

So that was what Uruan really looked like. He was more like
the people here than anybody else in the embassy, copper-bright hair and all.
He looked like the prince in Han-Gilen, which was not surprising, since the
prince was his elder brother.

His face at the moment was grey, as if he had brought some
of the nothingness with him, but that was only shock and unconsciousness. He
was very much alive, and very much there, lying on the threshold of the new-waked
Gate.

Kimeri scrambled to her bruised knees. Borti was struggling
up, too, and the exorcist was starting to come to himself. They were both
staring at the Gate. It was awake but not focused. On the other side of it was
night, with stars; but no stars that shone on the world Kimeri knew.

They were quiet, and that was what mattered. Kimeri asked
them to guard the Gate for her.

They did not exactly agree, but she felt as if they had.
They were inside of her somehow, as they were in the Gate. It was strange, but
it felt right; they belonged there, they and the Gate both. Nothing would touch
that Gate, or pass it, or hurt it, as long as they were there and she was
there. She was content with that; she hoped that everyone else would be, too.

Kimeri should have known better than to expect that
anybody would be reasonable about the new-waked Gate. Especially with Uruan
back, as they all thought, from the dead.

Borti had to make the exorcist help her carry him, since
Kimeri was too small and too tired from everything she had done; then they had
to go by back ways, because a naked exorcist and a hooded woman and a yellow-eyed
child carrying an unconscious man through the streets at night was suspicious
to say the least. Kimeri had enough power left to cover them all with shadows,
which helped.

Vanyi and Daruya met them halfway to the house in the
palace, with Olenyai and mages behind. Kimeri could have hidden from them, but
she was too glad to see them, even if she would get a right tanning when they
had time to think about it.

At least she did not need to explain anything to start with;
Uruan was enough to engross them all, and Borti and the exorcist rather faded
into insignificance. They were swept along whether they wanted it or not, but
no one asked questions, nor said or did anything but keep them under guard.

oOo

The house was warm and welcoming, with Olenyai in it to
let them in and bar the gate behind them, and lamps lit in the dining-room,
which was the biggest room and the one where everyone could gather, but no
servants anywhere. They had all disappeared.

The Olenyai brought in a pallet and spread it for Uruan, and
he was laid on it. People tried not to crowd. Vanyi bent over him, and Daruya,
running their hands down his body, tracing it in power.

“Alive,” said Vanyi, saying what they all knew. “And well,
except for shock. He’ll sleep it off and wake sane.”

Daruya sank to her heels, hands on thighs. Her eyes found
Kimeri, who was trying to find a shadow to slip away inside of. “Merian,” she
said.

Her tone was mild, but she never called Kimeri by her
grownfolk name unless Kimeri was in trouble. Kimeri came forward slowly,
holding her courage in both hands. Just outside of her mother’s reach, she
stopped.

“Ki-Merian,” said Daruya. “Can you explain this?”

Kimeri swallowed. They were all staring, mages, Olenyai,
Borti and the exorcist too. “I told you he was in the Gate,” she said. “You
wouldn’t listen.”

Daruya’s brows drew together. “You told me you were having
nightmares. You didn’t say what those nightmares were.”

“I told Vanyi,” Kimeri said.

Vanyi flushed, which was startling. “God and goddess. So she
did. I thought she was babbling, or telling stories.”

“Because I’m too young,” Kimeri said. “I know. Nobody would
listen.”

Except Borti, but Kimeri did not think she wanted to say
that. Not yet. Kimeri was in enough trouble by herself.

“Well then,” Daruya said, “since we didn’t listen, and that’s
our fault, suppose you tell us how you woke the Gate and got the Guardian out
of it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” said Kimeri, trying not to whine. “The
exorcist was trying to lay the ghost and exorcise me, and I tried to stop him.
The Gate woke up. Uruan fell out of it. The Gate’s still there. But it’s not
opening on anything but stars.”

“A blind Gate,” Vanyi said. She sounded afraid. That, like
her blush, was not like her at all. “We’re warned in all the books of Gates,
not to let that happen.”

“Do they ever say why?” Daruya asked. Odd to see her the
calm one, and Vanyi flustered.

“No,” Vanyi said. “Only that they’re dangerous; that they
open on the living heart—whatever that means. They don’t say.”

Kimeri could feel the Gate in her. In her heart? Maybe. She
was not going to tell Vanyi that. Vanyi might try to do something about it, and
that would be dangerous. Kimeri knew that because the stars knew it: the stars
in the Gate.

“Can we use the Gate?” Daruya asked. “Can we get back to Starios
through it? If we can do that—”

“No,” Vanyi said again. “That much I do know. A blind Gate
leads nowhere. If you try to use it, you’ll end up as Uruan did: trapped till
something sets you free.”

Daruya might not have left it at that, but someone started
pounding on the gate, so loud that they heard it even this far back in the
house. There was shouting, Olenyai voices, and another voice over it, deep and
clear at once. “Damn you, you sons of the Pit! Let me in!”

“Let him in!” Daruya called in Asanian, rising so fast
Kimeri hardly saw her move, and running toward the door; then stopping as if
confused, blushing and going white, then blushing again.

Bundur ran in trailing hot-eyed Olenyai, ignoring them
completely. He looked wild, his hair down out of its knot, his coat as short as
a commoner’s and torn besides, and a cut on his cheek that he seemed unaware
of. He was talking before he had come all the way into the room. “You have to
come, you mustn’t stop, you’ve got to get out of here.”

Now it was Daruya who was in a flutter and Vanyi who was
calm: the order of the world was back in place again.

“Stop babbling, take a deep breath, and start from the
beginning,” Vanyi said.

Bundur took the breath, and shut his mouth, too, but he
still did not seem to see anything much but Daruya’s face. When he spoke again
he sounded much calmer. “The king is dead.”

Maybe only Kimeri heard Borti’s gasp. Maybe not. “Do you
remember the people I told you of, the ones who want to expel all foreigners
and kill the mages? It seems my uncle was more difficult to bring round to
their way of thinking than they thought he might be. They’ve killed him and set
up their own king.”

“The queen?” Vanyi asked.

“Dead,” said Bundur. “As far as anyone knows. She hasn’t
been seen since the murderers broke into the palace. They’d have got rid of her
first, even before they issued their ultimatum to the king. They’re still
dealing with resistance from the queen’s people—but once they’ve broken that,
they’ll come here.”

Vanyi’s eyes went vague: she was using her magery to see. “Not
for a while yet, but yes. We’ll be a fine symbol of the new reign, with our
bodies spiked to the walls and our heads over the gate.”

Bundur shuddered. Somebody was retching—Aledi, with Miyaz
holding her head. He looked as if he would have liked to join her.

“Listen to me. There’s one way I know of to keep you safe.
Come back, all of you and all the belongings you can gather, to House
Janabundur. I’ll keep you there.”

“And die when they come for us,” Daruya said.

Her eyes seemed to steady him, though they were burning
gold. “No,” he said. “Not my wife, and my wife’s kin and servants.”

She shuddered as he had, but with less of a greensick look. “It
can’t be that easy.”

“Custom is strong,” he said, “and it will confuse them—at
least long enough for us to think of other ways to defend ourselves.”

Daruya raised her hands as if to push him away, then knotted
them together and twisted them. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“It will,” he said. He was sure. He was also out of
patience. “But you have to come now. They’ve closed the great gates—I just got
in before the bars went down. They’ll be securing the lesser ones soon.”

“And we have seneldi to move.” That, for some reason, seemed
to calm Daruya down, get her thinking. “We’ll go through the stable. Vanyi,
Kadin, we’ll move everything the fastest way, and keep a shadow over it.”

Bundur had not expected that. Kimeri watched him think that
he had not been planning to take in all their livestock too, but nobody heard
him when he tried to say it.

Then it struck him what it meant. Daruya was going to marry
him. Kimeri would have gone over and held him up if he would have let her.

As it was, his knees buckled, but he stiffened them somehow
and ran with the rest of them, scrambling together everything they could. Not
much from the house—clothes to change into, one or two of the packs of trade
goods that Vanyi had brought in, weapons for the Olenyai; and Kimeri wondered
what the guards of Shurakan would give to know how the bred-warriors had got their
swords back again. From the stable they had to take more: grain for the
seneldi, bales of cut fodder slung across unwilling backs, saddles and bridles
and the rest.

By that time the tumult inside the palace was loud enough to
hear with human ears. Kimeri kept a grip on Borti. Nobody had been taking
particular notice of the woman—Kimeri helped them with that, and helped them to
think she was some kind of servant, or maybe the exorcist’s assistant, until
the exorcist saw the seneldi and bleated something incoherent and bolted.

He would be safe. His magery was all tangled up, but it was
good enough to hide him while he needed to be hidden, and when he found an open
gate he would run back to his temple.