The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) (3 page)

I paused, prying open the gold locket that hung between my breasts.  My gaze skimmed my picture—star-fire hair, onyx eyes, and a face that captured men’s hearts, whether I wanted them or not—and went to my son’s image
,
recently painted on his seventeenth birthday.  Phillippe’s golden curls were woven sunlight, his eyes bright sapphires, and his carefree smile … his smile … stolen away from me far too soon!

I thought of losing him forever and
ached with fear deeper than the abyss surrounding me.  Wiping tears away, I set my heart on what I had to do.  I had no time for weakness.  Phillippe needed me.  For his sake, I had quarreled heatedly with my father, undertaking this desperate quest against good advice.

I
continued to press onward.  Ages seemed to pass, but I finally reached the other end.  The bridge grounded atop an escarpment blurred by greenish mists.  Waiting, a shadow in the sour air barred the way to solid ground.  The shape became a sentry wearing a mask of hammered silver, inset with fiery black opals.  The mask made terror beautiful—for a moment.  The warrior also inhabited dragon-scale mail from a bygone century, and a raven-hued cloak that spilled down his back in graceful folds.  He wore a leather glove on his right hand, which rested upon a sword hilt inset with glossy black hematite.  The sword told me this was more than a common soldier.

The fearsome sentry and the vast emptiness—i
f only I could assail these challenges one at a time…

His mask tilted toward the brass back-swept hilt of the rapier sheathed at my side.  His commanding voice broke harshly over me.

“Madam, should you play with such things?”

Did I hear thinly veiled contempt in the question?  I tried to believe so, needing the heat of anger to temper my resolve and desperation.  I set my face into a mask of strength, offering an illusion of confidence.  Against a mortal swordsman, I would have had no qualms, but I was entering the World of the Dead.  I’d find few of the living ahead of me.

I answered the question put to me.  “No one should
play
with swords.  They’re meant for killing.”  I did not tell him I had played with them all my life.  I sensed surprise at my answer in his relaxed stillness.

“What do you know of killing, woman?  The soul shining in your eyes is still full of dreams.  Run home.  It’s not too late to save yourself.”

“I
will
continue.” 

“Not without testing my blade.”

“You have no right to stop me,”
I insisted.

His weight shifted as he leaned forward, stooping his shoulders so that his snarling mask came close enough to steal a kiss.  He smelled of strange musty spices and emitted a biting cold.

“Why?”  The question nearly lost itself in the sighing ether that cut itself across the stone bridge.

My heart trembled, as I avoided looking down past the edges of that oh-so-narrow span.  I lifted my fist, displaying my ring.  It reflected light that had no source, so cunningly worked it might well have been a miniature rose.

“It is my right to pass.  I am the White Rose.”  I claimed the identity of my Grandmother’s heroine, hoping to keep my rapier sheathed a good deal longer.

The sentry’s left hand came up, as if to snatch the ring I showed him, but he stopped short and I saw he wore a
pilgrim’s ring with a wolf’s head on it that matched his mask.  Once, a quest like mine had brought him here—and killed him.  The City had his soul and wanted more. Even from here, I felt its ravenous hunger.

“I cannot deny you,” he said.  “You have
one of the elf-forged rings of legend, and have cursed your heart with purpose.”

He turned on the bridge so I could edge by, but then stopped me with a soft touch on my arm.  Removing his silver mask, he offered it to me.  My gaze absorbed his pale face and close-cropped hair of bristling silver.  His eyes were such a pale blue they might have been silver as well.

“Here,” he said.  “Take me with you as you go.” 

“Thank you.”

I took the mask, unwilling to offend him at this point.  I was puzzled at its lack of bindings.  It had simply fallen from his face when desired, responding to his will.  That alone seemed sufficient to employ it.  I slid the mask into the pouch at my side, under my cream-colored cloak.

“My skills can serve you only once,
by the rules of the city.  Choose wisely when you call for my strength.  Men know me as Silver Wolf.  You may call me Altair.”  He bowed low.

I drew a sharp breath.  A
true name?  And given so easily, to a stranger! 
He was risking much with his trust.  Someone with your true name could spell-bind you most cruelly.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I sense you are more than human.”

My eyes went wide at his assertion. 
“But I am just as you see!”

“Perhaps you yourself do not know what you are. 
It is no accident that that particular ring has come to you.  You are the
one
destined to defeat Abaddon, and open the farthest gate.”

I
n my mind, I dismissed his suggestion that I was anything more than a desperate woman.  Surely, I would know if I were more—wouldn’t I?  My thoughts turned to the name he’d used.

“Who is this
... Abaddon?”

“He is Death’s
mortal son, the angel of the abyss.  Some call him the Gamesman for he is obsessed with games and will demand you play.”

“I have no time for games.”

“You will not be able to avoid them.”

“I will
do what I must,” I said.  “I have come for what is most precious to me.”

His laugh was harsh and bitter.  “That is wh
at
all
the duelists say.  Good fortune, you will need it.”

I went beyond him, stopped, and turned back on impulse.

His flesh dissolved into the ethers, leaving yellow, weathered bone and gaping pits where eyes had been.  His armor hung loose, rusted, tarnished, cloven in places with ghastly wounds suddenly showing.

“I am Celeste Comeyne,” I told the shade.  “
When I have beaten this accursed city, I will call your true name and free you from this duty.”

The skull-face wobbled in
refutation.  “Do not make a promise beyond your strength, White Rose.  That is how I damned myself to this fate.  I swore not to rest until vengeance was accomplished, but died too soon.”

“Then I only promise to try … very hard.”

“They all do.  It means nothing.  Go if you must.  Go!”  The laugh came again, like the tortured howl of the surrounding wind.

I hurried toward the mist-blurred city, feeling the heavy weight of my ring.  As I neared the iron wall, its curved face emerged from the mist in clearer detail.  Rust made the metal seem to ooze blood from its pores.  A small wooden door built into a much larger one stood open … a daunting invitation.

I passed handles fashioned to resemble curved branches spiked with thorns—a promise of pain if I continued.  Above them, an artistic pattern caught my eye, an engraved rose in full bloom, matching the ring I wore.

Once I went through, the small door slammed shut without warning, making me spin back, half drawing my rapier.  As I watched, the whole wall chattered and turned in a grooved track.  I stared in fascination as the wall picked up speed, whirring by.  Never had heard of mechanisms potent enough to move a barrier of such scale!  In time, several other gates passed, each briefly flashing a different carved pattern.

The event grew tiresome.  I turned toward a courtyard that contained a fountain.  Scattered about were groups of men and women dressed in leather, armor, and even formal court attire that spanned centuries.  Though they seemed self-absorbed, their whispers wound around me like poisonous adders as I advanced.

I neared the fountain and found its basin a thin shell-like substance of luminous pink.  The liquid sound teased my thirst.  I noticed the streamers were red. 
Wine
?  I shuddered as a strong metallic odor stole over me. 
No.  B
lood
!
 
My stomach threatened to flip in revulsion, but I forbade distress from showing, fearing such vulnerability would invite attack.  In this place, I would have to armor myself with boldness and courage. 
It might be enough.  It
had
to be.

Numerous avenues opened onto the courtyard.  Past the fountain lay a broad flight of marble steps leading to a cathedral made entirely of ruddy bits of glass, making it look as if it had been broken and fitted back together—like the pieces of my heart.

“
Phillippe,” I murmured a promise though he could not hear it, “I will not let this place keep you.  The Gamesman must give back your soul when I beat him.”

A piercing chime of vibrating crystal filled the courtyard, slashing across the whispering as lords and ladies drew daggers.  My hand stayed on my sword hilt in readiness even though none looked my way.  Baring white-scarred wrists, they converged on the basin, ringing it.  Their blades sliced the scars open.  Crimson spilled from their veins into the fountain
.

Sickened, I hurried on, turning back only once to view the courtyard before abandoning the area.  The wall stopped moving and a new gate appeared.  This one had a silver oak crest emblazoned upon it.  There had to be some significance to the change—other than to make me feel trapped within the city, but I could not see it.  I set the matter aside to worry over later.

I followed a brick street that led past shops where gray-fleshed customers traded gleaming shards of light for common items.

“This place makes no sense,” I complained under my breath.

“Does it not?”

The raspy voice made me turn, but I waited to draw my sword, not wanting to create a situation where there might be none.  A man stood there with a noose around his neck that trailed several feet of rope.  His hands were tied behind his back.  His head canted as though his neck were broken.  He shifted black eyes toward the customers.

“They spent their lives trading dreams for substance—finally dying with neither.  The pattern they set in life is their pattern in death.”

“And those feeding the fountain…?” I asked.

“Having squandered life’s blood through suicide and warfare, they are damned to do so forever, wherever, whenever the city fountains call.”  He shrugged.  “Something must drive the buried engines and lubricate the gears.”  He paused, staring into my eyes.  “You must be new.  Despair has not yet attached itself to you.”

“Despair?  Is that your name, then?  You have certainly sought me out
.”

“I will wear whatever name pleases you.  Let me give you some advice—trust nothing you find here.  While one person engages your attention, others may strike from the shadows.”

My scalp prickled with premonition.  I whirled and scraped my sword free, catching a pair of flashing blades, barely deflecting them.  The strength of the attack bore me back a step.  After that, I held fast.  Trained by my father, a famed sword-master, my arm acted like a spring, yielding and then recoiling.  My point scribed a small circle then struck home past ribs, puncturing a lung.  One man fell.  I maneuvered to keep the hanged man in view; he made no move to interfere.  His hands were tied securely behind him—it was no ruse. 

The second swordsman had his head strapped on his neck with leather ties, as if it he’d once come too close to an executioner’s axe.  Our rapiers sang against each other in a furious exchange of thrust and parry.  I hissed, feeling a sting along my side.  We entered an intimate grapple as he seized my sword arm with his free hand.  I stole a keen-edged dagger from his belt, using it to slash leather ties.  Another slash and my opponent’s severed head fell free and bounced at my feet.

The hanged man ran away.

Though trained well by my father, I was no professional soldier, no killer.  Most of my battles had ended in first blood.  I sank to my knees, dropped the dagger, and nearly dumped the contents of my stomach on the street like a common drunkard.  Somehow, I forced nausea away, having no time for such foolishness. 

Glossy boots approached as I knelt there.  I looked up warily.  The newcomer wore a harness of throwing knives.  The hilt of an extra-wide infantry sword jutted up over his right shoulder.  The blade’s sheath stuck out past his left hip.  His eyes were the color of hazelnuts and full of laughter, his hair a blond cloud.  He offered me a handkerchief. 

“That was well done, Milady.  Though to be fair, you should have passed by with your cloak thrown back, letting your ring be seen.  Your adversaries would have known better than to strike at your bright life with the shadow of their own, risking the wrath of the Gamesman by interfering with his future pleasures.  Wait here just a moment.”

I sheathed my rapier and delayed as bid.  There were questions this man might answer, saving me time down the road.

He went to a cheerful little waif, in a dark oft-patched dress, selling flowers from a hand basket beside the street.  As my new acquaintance studied her wares, I had a strange vision.  The flower girl lifted her eyes to me and they burned with a terrible light.  Her face glowed as if lit from within by a power that threatened to consume her flesh.  Her hair brightened from brown to a dazzling gold, and white-feather wings unfurled from her back, rising in a salute that challenged all darkness with a proud display.