The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) (15 page)

“I’m not a brave man,” said Ced. “I don’t know what I’ll be like in war.”

“No one ever does,” said Wad. “And the answer is never the same on two different days. Will you come with me to the treemages of Gos in the Forest Deep, and see if one of them will take you on?”

“I think you’ve already asked one, and he’s said yes, or you wouldn’t have come to me,” Ced answered.

“I’ve asked,” said Wad, “but he won’t say yes until he meets you, and you have to come of your own free will.”

“I’ll go with you and learn what I can learn. And if I find that everything you said is true, I’ll stand with you as best I can.”

“If it isn’t true,” said Wad, “it won’t be because I lied. It will be because I’m only guessing at half the things I know about the Belmage, and I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I hope we can defeat him in the end.”

9

V
ISITORS

Danny wrote out the message and rehearsed it with his friends until they had it memorized. He didn’t want them to read it. He wanted them to look at the Families face to face, eye to eye. Not challengingly, but calmly, easily. They were the messengers of a Great Mage. They had to act like it.

“I come from Loki,” the message began. “He has made a Great Gate. He has faced the Gate Thief and defeated him. He has passed through the Great Gate to Westil and returned. He will allow each Family to send two mages to Westil and return at once, but only if you agree, individually and as Families, to these three promises.

“One. You will not make war on or cause harm to any other Family or any individual mage.

“Two. You will not take the lives of drowthers or enslave them, but will respect their laws and customs.

“Three. You will cease the killing of gatemages or suspected gatemages. Instead, you will send them to Loki to be trained. Gatemages will never belong to any Family, but only to the company of Gatekeepers. I will return tomorrow for your answer.”

Danny sent them one at a time and watched carefully through a peephole in case someone tried to harm them. He made peepholes for Veevee and Hermia as well. The messengers held on to their amulets. Danny was determined that no one would be harmed.

Hal and Xena stumbled over the memorization a little, but corrected themselves and went on. No one else made a mistake. They appeared in each Family’s meeting room, in front of whoever happened to be present in response to the anonymized email they had all received.

Then Danny brought each of his friends back the moment the last word was spoken. It wasn’t a press conference. It was an offer and an ultimatum, both at once. He didn’t have to explain that failing to agree to the terms would put any Family outside the peace that Danny was establishing. That meant that when the other Families sent their two mages through to Westil and back, they would be free to use their vastly increased power to make war on the noncompliant Families.

“They’ll all agree,” Stone had said. “The question is whether they’ll keep their word.”

“That’s why they won’t know where I am,” said Danny. “So they’ll never know where their punishment is coming from.”

He spoke boldly of punishment, but he had no idea what he would actually do if someone broke their word. It depended, he supposed, on what form their oath-breaking took. If they tried to get someone to the Great Gate without permission, he would put them somewhere inconvenient. If they mistreated drowthers or started a war, he would let the peaceful Families send more and more mages through to Westil until the oathbreakers were outnumbered and defeated.

If they killed somebody, he would …

Put them in Hammernip Hill?

He didn’t want to think about killing people with his power. But if they harmed one of his friends, he’d do what it took to make sure they never did such a thing again. His messengers were under his protection, and that had to mean something if it was going to work.

But he knew they would measure his intentions by what they themselves would do with the kind of power he had. They would be ruthless, even cruel. So they would assume that he meant to do the same, and would fear him.

Which means, thought Danny, that I really am exactly what I’m trying to prevent them from becoming—a power-hungry tyrant, determined to bend everyone else to his will.

But if I don’t keep them under control until they can see how much better this new order works than the old ways ever did, then the experiment can never work. The world will have no peace. So I must be the tyrant over the tyrants, to keep all the drowthers, the orphans, the weaker members of the Families—to keep them safe.

Safe from Uncle Zog and Grandpa Gyish. From whoever the other Families’ equivalents might be.

After each messenger came back to Danny’s tiny living room, Hermia and Veevee continued to watch the Family that had just been visited, to see what they’d say. Most of them were so naive that it didn’t seem to occur to them that just because the messenger was gone, no gatemage was listening. Only Hermia’s family seemed to be speaking artificially, with exaggerated sweetness and willingness to comply. “They know we’re listening,” said Hermia. “They won’t say anything real.”

“They have to eventually,” said Danny. “But there’s no reason to spy on them any further. They’ll agree because they have no choice, and they’ll keep their word because they fear what will happen if they don’t.”

“But Danny, my darling,” said Veevee, “you haven’t sent a messenger to your own dear Family.”

Danny didn’t bother saying something petulant, like “they’re not my family.” Like it or not, they most definitely
were
his kin, the Family he knew better than any other.

Xena raised her hand. “I’ll go,” she said. “I want to meet your real parents.”

“No you don’t,” said Danny.

“You think I’ll embarrass you?” asked Xena.

She apparently had the idea that she was some kind of girlfriend of his, and that he simply didn’t want to bring her home to meet the parents.

“I have to talk to them myself,” said Danny.

“But you don’t have an amulet,” said Sin.

“He doesn’t need one,” said Hermia. “He can make a gate to any place on Earth faster than he could possibly reach an amulet.”

“I knew that,” said Sin.

“I just want my Danny to be safe,” said Xena possessively.

She’s embarrassing herself, thought Danny. Doesn’t Xena see how obvious she’s being?

Then it occurred to him that high school girls, as a tribe, weren’t exactly subtle about who they liked and who they didn’t. Nobody was going to act like Jane in
Pride and Prejudice
, so nobody can tell whether they like the boy or not. Xena had decided to be in love with the guy who could take her anywhere in an instant, and so she didn’t care who knew it. In fact, being obvious about it might be her way of staking a claim so none of the other girls thought of trying for him.

“You really don’t know what mages are like,” Veevee said to Xena with exaggerated kindness. “That’s because Danny is the only one you’ve ever met, so you don’t understand. If you make an obvious offer to any other mage from one of the Families, they’ll jump your bones without a quibble. Then they’ll walk away, leaving whatever bastard they’ve conceived inside you.”

“I’m not offering anything,” said Xena. “I just
care
about him.”

“Tone it down, darling,” said Veevee. “You’re scaring the boy.”

“He’s not gay, you know,” said Xena. “He isn’t scared of me.”

Great, thought Danny. She knows that I’m sort of interested. How can it be so obvious?

“If he ever sleeps with somebody,” said Veevee, “he’ll doubtless get all conscience-stricken and marry the poor girl, and then where would you be? Stuck with a man who will come to hate you, one you can never be equal to in any way. The permanent magically retarded wife, always dragging him down. Is that how you want to spend your life, darling?”

“I get it now,” said Pat. “When you say ‘darling,’ you mean ‘idiot.’”

“I’m glad
somebody
speaks Catty-Bitch-ese around here,” said Veevee. “I’d hate to be the only one.”

“I don’t speak it,” said Pat, “but I understand it. I learned it in school.”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” said Veevee. “You speak it like a native.”

“Neither of you knows my mother,” said Hermia. “She could take you both to school.”

“So you’re one-upping each other about who’s the bitchiest?” asked Hal.

“It’s not a competition,” said Laurette.

“You just think you automatically win because you’ve got the biggest knockers,” said Xena.

“Does anybody really say ‘knockers’?” asked Laurette.

“You have to talk to your Family, Danny,” said Hermia.

“I know.”

“Tonight. Now. They’re going to hear about the terms you offered everybody else and if you haven’t talked to them, they’ll think they’re not getting a chance at a Great Gate. Then they really will be determined to kill you.”

“Oh, they’ve only been kidding around up to now?” asked Danny.

“Up to now, half of them have been protecting you,” said Hermia. “Or at least your own parents have been. But if you make it seem that they’re shut out…”

“I know,” said Danny. “I know I know I know.”

“So do it,” said Hermia.

“Later.”

“Now.”

Danny grinned. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am,” said Veevee. “The school has me down as your legal guardian. Go talk to your family.”

“I didn’t make an appointment the way I did with the others,” said Danny.

“And you can be sure they know about it by now,” said Hermia. “They’re already thinking the worst.”

She was right. Everybody was right. Danny gated to the library in the old house in the compound.

The walls had been rebuilt since they tore them out looking for Danny on the day Hermia had pointed out that there was a spy inside the wall. There were new carpets. Everything was all nice and clean for company. All the aunts and uncles were sitting around the table. Baba and Mama at one end of the table. Gyish and Zog weren’t there at all.

Danny looked at each of them in turn. Aunt Lummy and Uncle Mook, the two he knew best and trusted most. They looked worried and stern. Auntie Uck and Auntie Tweng and Uncle Poot and Uncle Thor seemed much more relaxed, but Danny imagined that was because they didn’t actually care what happened to Danny—or they had such rage toward him that they felt a greater need to disguise their feelings.

Baba and Mama were smiling. And oh, yes, there were Danny’s half-brother Pipo and half-sister Leonora. They weren’t important in the council, so they must have been brought in to create some kind of cozy family atmosphere. As if they had ever given Danny the time of day.

“If Zog and Gyish don’t sign off on this, it won’t happen,” said Danny.

“Hello to you too, Son,” said Baba.

“I’m not here as your son, sir,” said Danny. “I’m not here as a North. I’m here as the only person in Mittlegard who can make gates.”

“Is that still true?” asked Mama. “Your Keyfriend and Lockfriend haven’t picked up any new skills?”

“I’ll be back when Gyish and Zog are here,” said Danny.

“Wait,” said Baba. “We didn’t think you’d want to see them, but they’re just outside, you don’t have to go.”

“Of course he wants to see them,” said Auntie Tweng. “He wants to rub their noses in it.”

“In what, exactly, do you think I want to rub their noses?” asked Danny.

“In the fact that you’re a mage,” said Auntie Tweng, “and we all know that the reason you didn’t send one of your little drowther friends as a messenger was so you could come here personally and gloat.”

“
Do
you know that?” asked Danny. Of course it was true, at least a little bit, but it wasn’t the whole reason and it galled him that anybody in this room thought they knew Danny. “I can’t imagine why any of you thinks you know me at all. With the possible exception of Uncle Mook and Aunt Lummy, none of you ever cared enough to find out what kind of person I was when I lived here.”

“Yes, this is just the tone we expected from you,” said Uncle Poot. “Self-centered and arrogant as always.”

“We know what power does to a person,” said Thor.

“And how would you know that?” asked Danny. “None of you knows what power
is
. There hasn’t been any real power in any of the Families for fourteen centuries. And as far as I’m concerned, it can stay that way.”

He thought of disappearing right then, leaving them to stew on it for a while. But that would be childish, and Veevee would tease him and Hermia would yell at him and so he stayed where he was.

“You can’t hear the arrogance in your own tone?” said Auntie Tweng.

“He’s always been like that,” said Zog as he entered the room. “Vain about his schoolwork, vain about everything, even when he had nothing to be vain about.”

“Shut up, Zog,” said Baba.

“Oh, you think you’re still head of the Family, is that it,
Alf
?” said Zog. He stressed Baba’s original name instead of calling him Odin.

“Of course he is,” said Mama.

“No,” said Zog. “
He
is, now.” He thumbed toward Danny.

“The only way I could be head of this Family,” said Danny quietly, “is if I were a member of it. But I’m not. I never was.”

Mama began hotly: “Our blood runs in your—”

“The best of your blood is buried in the dirt of Hammernip Hill,” said Danny. “Whatever genes I have can’t be helped. But as you made very clear, blood means nothing if I don’t have some tangible value to you. And right now, the only way to keep the whole world from erupting in war is for all the Families to know I don’t belong to any of them. Nor am I one of the Orphans.”

“Those drekka,” said Grandpa Gyish. “Bastards and foundlings.”

Danny wanted to make a tiny gate to make him trip and fall on the floor, but he restrained himself. “Making bastards has always been a favorite sport of the Westilians,” said Danny, “but the genes tell true, and the Orphan mages are as powerful as you.”

“Are you sending Orphans through the Great Gate, right along with the Families?” asked Thor, sounding alarmed.