Stargate (48 page)

When he opened his eyes, morning light filled the room, drab and colorless on the chipped and broken stone, and Sholia was alert, shaking him gently. “I can hear something on the road,” she said. He scrambled to his feet, and they ran to the entrance. Sunlight dazzled on the sand, blinding them for a moment, but then their eyes adjusted and they turned to the road. They saw pennants waving, yellow and black suns on a red background, and the muffled booming of a drum rolled toward them. Like a black ribbon a procession of horsemen wound along the road, and as it came slowly closer they saw a break in the stream, a large litter of yellow and black carried by slaves with its curtains tightly drawn. Danarion heard Sholia's breath sucked in beside him, and his own breath came fast hard. “He came, he came,” she whispered tensely. Danarion took her arm and drew her out from the shadow of the doorway, and together they stood with the sun beating on their heads and the wind whipping at their clothes.

The drumbeat advanced, no longer muffled but a clear, sharp
loom, loom
that vibrated in the cliff behind them. The outriders with their fluttering pennants were now close enough to reveal stern faces under yellow and black caps. Danarion and Sholia did not stir. The outriders passed without noticing them, followed by soldiers on lean black horses, two by two.

As the litter finally came abreast, a swaying, silken box which shone in the sun, Danarion stepped forward. “I am here!” he called. Instantly there was confusion. The outriders reined in and wheeled. The drumbeat ceased abruptly. The soldiers milled about but soon saw him and came thundering down upon him, and in a second he was ringed. The captain looked down on him, his face pale, the trembling hands clutching the reins. The slaves carrying the litter had obeyed some unheard command and had lowered it to the ground, and Sholia saw the curtain twitch and pull back. The slaves averted their faces. A long white leg appeared, topped at thigh length by a pleated tunic of silver, and Yarne slid from the litter and came striding over the sand. The ring of horsemen parted to let him through, and he came up to Danarion and halted. He gave Sholia one disinterested glance, and his eyes, brighter and paler than the sky that poured light into his shining blond hair, returned to the man fronting him.

“You ran away again,” he said reproachfully. “You promised not to hurt me, but you did.”

Sholia stared at him, and Danarion laid a hand gently on the slim, silver-hung shoulder.

“I am sorry, Yarne,” he said quietly. “They were going to kill me. I had to leave.”

“They would never have done it,” Yarne insisted. “I would not have let them. Please come back with me. I need you very much.”

“I cannot,” Danarion answered. “In a moment they will receive an order to shoot me down, and nothing you can say will change that. That Lady wishes me dead.”

“I don't see why,” Yarne said evenly. “She said I could have you for as long as I wanted if we found you.”

“She lied. Please go to her, Yarne, quickly, before she tires of waiting, and tell her that Sholia wishes to speak to her.”

Yarne looked at Sholia with more interest and then nodded. “All right, but that name will make her very angry. What game are you playing? Where is Nenan?”

“He went home. Please go.”

Yarne swung back, and once more the soldiers made a path for him. The captain sat motionless, an arrow already fitted to his bow, watchfulness and a resigned horror on his face. Yarne had reached the litter. He pulled aside the curtain and bent, and for a while no one moved. But then a white hand came out, gripping his shoulder, and the soldiers and slaves around the litter murmured and turned their faces away. Slowly the Lady emerged, a black foot, a swing of stiff red gown that glittered with gold thread in the sunlight, a small head swathed in coiled hair. At a sharp word from the captain the ring around the two prisoners broke up, and Yarne and the Lady walked toward the cliff. Sholia steadily watched them come, her eyes on the Lady, and at the moment of recognition she saw the little feet stumble and the head droop toward Yarne.

Brother and sister came to a halt. The Lady's skin still showed no hint of a line, but looking at her carefully under the pitiless sun, Danarion received the impression of an age so great that it was carried by her like a measurelessly heavy burden and encased her like walls of iron. It was most clearly revealed in her eyes, now narrowed and appraising, a black accumulation of years, uncounted, stale, and endless.

“So, Tagar, you have found her,” she said, the little hands with their cruel nails mincing through the cold air. “Or she has found you, which is more likely. Where have you spent the long ages, Sholia? I have searched for you.”

“I did not want to be found, Ghakazian,” Sholia replied, her voice teetering on the verge of breaking.

At the mention of his name Ghakazian put up a white hand and stepped back against Yarne's tall body as though for protection. “And now you do,” the sweet, high voice went on. “Why? Have you tired of being hunted? I shall prepare a special cell for you, deep in the rock under my House, where you may meditate upon the time stretching ahead of you.” The little oval face was lifted briefly to the sun, and the red mouth curved. “I think there is much life left in your sun. Much life.”

The threat was so like the one the Unmaker had hurled at her centuries earlier that Sholia faltered. Her hand found Danarion's, and she clutched at him, but her voice had gained strength, and she looked at Ghakazian calmly.

“More life than in your own, shining dimly over Ghaka,” she replied. “I shall live longer than you, sun-lord.”

The listening soldiers muttered, shocked at her impudence yet not understanding, and for a moment Ghakazian remained silent, thinking. Then the nails clicked, and the spine straightened under the heavy brocaded covering.

“I cannot stand here in the cold all day. Captain, shoot that stupid body. I will send Tagar gibbering back onto the Mountain, and you and I, Sholia, will return to the House. I am relieved to finally have you in my hands.”

But Danarion swiftly raised an arm, and with one savage movement he thrust his face close to hers. “Look at me, Ghakazian,” he ordered. “Look deep into me before the captain shoots, for his effort will be wasted. You cannot destroy me with an arrow. Look well!”

Startled, she turned the velvet-black eyes to his and at once was caught. Behind Chilka's gaze Danarion's essence unfolded, tendriling through Chilka's mind. As she staggered Yarne's body suddenly loosened and swayed. “Danarion!” she whispered. “Danarion …” Recovering her dignity, though her skin was like chalk and her eyes seemed to fill her small face, she slashed an arm at the soldiers. “Go!” she screamed, and they pulled back, afraid. She clung to Yarne, and with her reviving strength he stiffened.

Danarion pointed behind him. “We will go into the Hall,” he said curtly. “What must be said is not for mortal ears.” He did not know if it was Sholia's presence or Chilka's quick anger, but he felt confidence flow into him, pumping through him on Chilka's strong heart. He swung about and strode under the shadow of the passage, Sholia beside him, and the Lady and her brother followed.

Inside the Hall it was dim and very cold, full of a brooding quiet that rendered them all momentarily speechless. Then Ghakazian rounded, shouting.

“How did you get here? It has been ages beyond ages! You did not come through the Gate, none knows that better than I!” His voice boomed in the enclosed space, waking echoes that expanded it and threw it against Danarion like an avalanche of sound.

“Janthis looked in the mirror,” he answered quietly. “He saw that Shol's Gate was missing, and with a Messenger's permission he sent me to find it.”

Ghakazian stopped still and stared at him. “So Chilka
was
slain by the lake! You took his body! Poor, clumsy Chilka one-mind, the dupe of the immortals! For all your fine talk around the council table you had no qualms about using him, did you?”

“I did not kill him to gain his body!” Danarion shouted back hotly, stung into a defense, not of himself but of Chilka. “I love him! He is my brother!”

Ghakazian peered at him and began to laugh. The long fingers twirled and dipped. The feminine lines of the little mouth opened wide on white teeth. But as quickly as it had begun, his shiver of mirth was gone. “So,” he said softly. “You have been absorbing him, have you? How well I know the feeling! Poor little Rilla, the dream-weaver. You remember Rilla, don't you, Sholia? I gave her a dream that she has been unable to forget. The greatest dream of her long life.” He swung carelessly to the wall and struck it, and his nails scratched over the stone like sharp teeth on the bones of a slain prey. “But you need not have troubled yourself, Danarion, you and Janthis with your heads together, a little council of worry. The Gate is safe. Nothing”—he licked his lips nervously—“nothing can go out or come in. It is seldom out of my sight. It comes when I call.”

“But why, Ghakazian, why?” Sholia cried out. “It was closed. You were safe behind it!”

“Safe?” He closed his eyes for a moment and shuddered. “Safe. I had to be sure he could not come in to take me. I had become his lawful prey. It haunted me, the thought that the Gate was here untended year after year.”

“So you stole it.” Danarion walked to him, rage and anguish brimming in him. He took the soft shoulders and shook the graceful body, his teeth clenched. “You stole it! You caused me to live this torture! What happened to Yarne? How did you get possession of the Gate?”

Ghakazian wrenched himself away and ran to the motionless sliver of paleness that stood with head bowed. “Look at him!” he cried out, thrusting a hand under the chin and lifting it so that they could see the blank, changeless face. “Isn't he lovely! The most beautiful thing on Shol, and the most lifeless.” His voice rose, harsh and strong, and then broke into pain. “Rilla loved him. I loved him. Do you think I wanted to do him harm?” His hands stroked the smooth cheeks and pushed back the waving hair. “I sacrificed his essence to the Gate. I made an exchange. I ripped it from him and flung it out into the stars, and in its place I set the essence of the Gate. Every night I breathe life into this thick flesh, mouth pressed to mouth, so that by day it might smile with those cold lips and glide about the House with a grace that makes men stare, all so that the Gate might remain under my eye. Do you hear it?” He brushed a finger across the smooth throat. His voice had fallen to a whisper as he struggled for control. “The pulse of a Gate against eternity. The sound I have lived with night and day for a thousand years.” At his touch the flutter in the young man's throat could be heard, a dull, regular throbbing, its rhythm unvarying. Danarion listened to that ominous beat, more terrifying than any drum, and Sholia covered her face with both hands. “Smile, Yarne!” Ghakazian shouted shrilly. “Smile at Chilka, your friend!” and Yarne's mouth curved warmly, his eyes turning slowly to find the face of the Sholan.

“Stop it!” Danarion shouted back, horrified. Ghakazian touched Yarne's face gently, and Yarne slumped. “Ghakazian,” Danarion said urgently, “you must put the Gate back. If you put Yarne's essence out among the stars, then there must have been a moment when the Gate was open. Reverse it all! Call out your people and let them go. Let the Messengers judge you.”

Ghakazian shook his head. “I was deceived by the accursed Book,” he said sadly. “I fell. Unknowingly, but I still fell. The Messengers are just, but their justice is never tempered with mercy. I am afraid of them. Perhaps I could return to Ghaka if a way were found, but what is there for me on Ghaka? My body is a blackened ruin, lying by my Gate. The bodies of my people have crumbled to dust long ago. You have only been in Chilka a short time, but I have been Rilla and she me for many Shol-years. I am no longer Ghakazian, sun-lord. I am Rilla-Ghakazian, undying ruler of this place, and oh, it weighs heavily on me, without the joy of true immortality or the small pleasures of passing time that the mortals delight in! I am as much a prisoner of this body as of the Gate itself.”

“Do you know how to replace the Gate?” Danarion asked.

An expression of cunning flitted swiftly across Ghakazian's pretty face, and he backed away. “No,” he said promptly.

But Sholia came forward. “Yes, you do,” she said loudly, her voice ringing against the walls. “And so do I. Another sacrifice is required, isn't that right, Ghakazian? But this time it must be you. Think about it, Danarion. Time can be reversed only at the expense of life.” She was very pale but held her head erect. In the dimness the lines of her face were gentled away, and he saw her as she had been, imperious and very beautiful.

Ghakazian saw it too. He backed away until he came to a wall. “You would not dare!” he said loudly. “An act like that would be murder. It is forbidden!”

“It was forbidden you, too, but that did not stop you,” she responded easily, “and it would make no difference to me because Shol is now a fallen world …” Her strength failed then, and she swallowed and looked away.

Ghakazian pressed his advantage. “You and I were very close,” he said quickly. “You could not slay me even if the sun was still yours to command, which I doubt, or you would still be glowing with its health. And Danarion will do nothing to endanger Danar. He will not strike either.” He came away from the wall with mineing steps, his hands fanning around him. “Call a Messenger and go home, Danarion,” he urged. “You have seen that the Gate is safe. Sholia, I will let you go free, I swear. Leave all as it is, both of you.” He scanned their faces eagerly, and Sholia looked at Danarion.

Does he lie? Danarion wondered, the full weight of his decision beginning to settle on him. If, as Chilka, I strike him down, will I carry back to Danar a tainted essence? Of course he lies! How can he do anything else, faced with what he sees? He loses nothing by deluding me into weakness, and I know without doubt that my innocence is gone, lost forever in the memories I share with Chilka, and no matter what happens, I must return to Danar irreparably changed. He did not feel the horror of what he was acknowledging to himself and strove to think without emotion. I will do it, Chilka whispered. I have killed before, I am able. But Danarion shook his head. No, he thought. He felt the cool blade of the knife against his belly, and he reached into his shirt and drew it out slowly. For a moment he looked at it, almost surprised to find it lying in his hand.