The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels ) (21 page)

At noon, they were suddenly confronted by a
large, catlike creature with long curved teeth. It strolled to the very edge of
the path and regarded them lazily, while Gidjabolgo stood petrified and Kerish
remembered Lilahnee. The creature uncurled its pink tongue and twisted round to
lick its back. The travelers hurried past.

Near the end of that day, the path forked
and Kerish frowned.

“Well?” demanded Gidjabolgo. “Left or
right? Do we have any idea where this last citadel is?”

“None. We shall have to trust to Vethnar's
advice.”

Kerish untied the fillet that bound back
his hair and fastened it to the lowest branch of a tree full of chattering
birds. There was a sudden uproar. Several squabbles seemed to break out, with
much indignant squawking and ruffling of feathers. Then five birds flapped down
to the lower branch and tugged at the crimson band. One of them got it free and
immediately flew off down the right-hand path. The other birds stiffened and
fixed their glittering eyes on the travelers, until both of them felt uncomfortable.

“I suppose we had better follow,” muttered
Gidjabolgo,  “a bird's no worse guide than a madman.”

Kerish bowed solemnly to the birds and they
took off with squawks that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

They followed the right-hand path until
dusk and then ate the last of the bread and more of the sweet, insubstantial
fruit. That night, Kerish dreamed that he was carried through the jungle with a
great rushing of wings to a place full of eyes. He woke trembling and saw a
scarlet feather fluttering on the path just behind them.

They moved on quickly and walked all
morning. At noon the travelers came across a pool, curving back from the path.
In the dappled light, its emerald water reflected nothing and it was impossible
to tell how deep the pool might be. Kerish knelt and, cupping his hands,
scooped up some water. Even against his skin, it remained bright emerald.

“Vethnar did say that the pools were safe.”

“Safe for what?” asked Gidjabolgo sourly,
but Kerish had already drunk.

“Oh, it's good! Pass me the flask.”

He filled up the leather flask while
Gidjabolgo stooped to drink.

“It's like sipping the jungle, isn't it?”
said Kerish. “If the pool isn't too deep, we could bathe.”

“You can't swim,” Gidjabolgo pointed out.

“I can wade.” Kerish's eyes sparkled. “You're
getting as bad as Forollkin. Come on.” He began stripping off his robe.

“Safe for what?” repeated Gidjabolgo, “and
are you going to leave the keys unguarded?”

“They'll be safe enough on the path,” said
the Prince and unfastened the chain around his waist. A second chain was marked
on his skin now and his thigh was black where the keys continually bruised it.

Kerish seemed to strip away years with the
golden keys and he splashed down into the water as carefree as a child. Close
to the edge at least, the pool was not deep. Kerish waded through the emerald
water, brushing aside golden lilies. With an indignant snort a hairless
creature, with formidable tusks, surfaced right beside him. Gidjabolgo shouted
a warning but Kerish merely laughed and patted its snout. The creature closed
its eyes at this indignity and stood perfectly still, as if it could banish the
Prince by ignoring him.

Answering Gidjabolgo's pithy advice with a
sweet, untrustworthy smile, Kerish continued to skirt the pool, disturbing a
knot of water-snakes, a cluster of dragonflies and the mate of the first
creature. Each discovery was met with a hoot of laughter from the Prince and an
acid comment from Gidjabolgo, who dangled his feet in the water but would not
be lured further in. At the other side of the pool was a clearing, carpeted
with cream and amber flowers. Kerish stooped to examine something on the bank.

“What is it?” called Gidjabolgo.

“I don't know.”

By the pool's edge lay a slab of rock,
quite free from moss or lichen. On it stood an object made of glass. It was
transparent, yet tinted with blue and green, and had a globular body rising
from a twisted stem. On one side there was a wide spout, on the other a slender
tube, whose purpose Kerish could not guess. The mouth of the tube was edged
with a ring of bone or ivory, and it was worn and scratched.

Kerish put the glass object down again
rather quickly and waded back round the pool. The Forgite was now washing their
spare clothes. Kerish ducked his head under and rose up, shaking the wet hair
from his eyes, before he answered Gidjabolgo's repeated question. “It could be
some kind of flagon.”

“Placed there for the convenience of
travelers?”

“Not for our convenience,” said Kerish, remembering
the curious shape, “and Vethnar warned us against the open spaces. Who knows
what might be hiding in this jungle? No, not hiding - living. I suppose we are
the ones who are hiding, creeping along the path, hoping not to be noticed. 
Yet I don't feel now that the jungle is hostile.”

“A fall of rock isn't hostile, but it will
crush you,” said Gidjabolgo gloomily.

They spread their clothes out over some
bushes and spent the afternoon beside the pool, waiting for them to dry. After
a meal at dusk, they decided to walk on for a while. Even in the semi-darkness,
there was little chance of straying from the path.

After a short time, Kerish began to feel
giddy, as if the path was a narrow bridge over nothingness, swaying in a wind
from nowhere. In the fitful moonlight, they saw that some way ahead the path
crossed another clearing. For a moment, Kerish thought that he glimpsed
something standing there; a tall, winged creature.

“I think we'll stop here for the night,”
whispered the Prince.

After that, they never travelled later than
dusk.

*****

Four days passed and the last of their
Galkian food was gone but, though the jungle berries seemed so insubstantial,
the travelers felt less and less hungry. The only time they had any appetite
was on waking, as if the night's journey was more tiring than the day's. Kerish
could not remember his dreams clearly, but he thought they were about
childhood. The sensation of flying at dizzying speed sometimes returned.

Once the Prince asked Gidjabolgo whether he
had experienced it too. The Forgite nodded. “Last night, I had three eyes, and
I was flying to look for you. I wanted to see you with my new eye.” He rubbed
his forehead. “But I made myself wake up before I found you. I'm not sure why.”

They followed the path for another three
days, marveling at each new sight: a plant like a waterfall, its moist leaves
glowing with prismatic colors; a combat between two birds, fought with their
barbed tails; a beetle that moved along on its back, its six legs paddling the
air; an ape, teaching its twin young to crack open nuts with a bone.

Kerish became more and more convinced that
the wildness of the jungle was illusory. Why should the path remain free of all
growth, and who had made the clearings?  By every pool they found the stone
slabs with the curious flasks.

“Who would want to make a thing that shape?”
Gidjabolgo had asked and the Prince could not answer him.

“The jungle is like a garden,” said Kerish
on the third morning. “A vast, beautiful garden that seems wild but must really
be very carefully tended. It reminds me of my father's garden, or the parts of
it that people were afraid to enter.”

Gidjabolgo questioned him and Kerish was
drawn into a long description of the Inner Palace; not a catalogue of marvels
such as he had given to the people of the convoy, but an account of what the
places meant to him with all their cruel and happy memories.

At noon they halted to eat, more to keep a
sense of time than to satisfy hunger. Kerish unslung the zildar, to play
Gidjabolgo a riddle song about the Imperial gardens.

The full strength of the Prince's left hand
had returned in an instant, but its skills more slowly. Several times on their
journey from Ferlic, Kerish had tried to play his zildar. He had kept to old
tunes, known since childhood. They sounded well enough but he would not be
satisfied.

“I never was happy playing someone else's
instrument.” Kerish had held out the zildar to Gidjabolgo. “Now that I have no
cause to grudge the gift, it's truly yours.”

After a moment, Gidjabolgo had just
grunted, “We'll share it.”

Neither of them had yet played the
instrument in the jungle. Kerish began to play without remembering Vethnar's
garbled warning against music.

“Why do the fire-flowers burn?

For whom do the tall trees weep?”

The tune was insidiously simple, easy to
learn and impossible to forget. Kerish had heard it whistled by Galkian
children to whom the Emperor's garden was only a legend.

“Where do the moon cats walk?

What did the star pool drown?”

Kerish was too absorbed in memories of his
father to notice the growing silence until Gidjabolgo gripped his arm. His
fingers stumbled on the strings, his voice faltered into silence - complete
silence. Nothing in the jungle moved or cried or breathed. Walls of silence
were forming on either side of the path and moving closer.

Gidjabolgo clasped his head and rocked from
side to side. “Play again, before they crush us!”

Kerish stared around him. The creatures of
the jungle were still there, but he suddenly saw them as forces willing him to
vanquish even so vast a silence. The Prince swept into a defiant marching song
and the trees seemed to sway to the beat, but the silence remained. He played a
group of hymns, two dance tunes and a lullaby, but he knew that the jungle was
still thirsting for music. He could almost feel it being sucked away from his
lips and hands.

As the sun went down, Kerish sang ballads
from Seld, chants from the temples of Hildimarn, sea-songs from Ephaan, and the
ancient airs of the Golden City. His voice cracked and his fingers faltered
more and more often, but he dared not stop while the life of the jungle
remained frozen. Gidjabolgo's voice joined the Prince's, weaving harmonies, and
gradually the silence seemed more peaceful.

Night fell and Kerish stopped, his fingers
too numb to play on. The trees bowed and groaned as a great wind passed through
the jungle. Kerish's hair and cloak were whipped against his face, blinding him
for a moment. Then the wind died away and the creatures of the jungle moved
again, hunting, climbing, curling up to sleep.

With shaking hands Gidjabolgo took out the
evening's supply of fruit from his bundle. “Eat!”

Exhausted, Kerish obeyed and then lay down
to a dreamless sleep.

Gidjabolgo did not wake him until well
after dawn. They took the day's journey gently but the going was harder, for
the ground was beginning to rise and the mossy path was broken up by jagged
boulders.

“Are there hills in the middle of this
jungle?” asked Gidjabolgo.

Kerish was frowning. “I don't know. I've
never seen a map that marks more than the extent of the jungle. On the south
it's bordered by the Desolation of Zarn, and at the north by the Jen Mountains.
To the east the Zin-Gald joins the River Gal. If there were high hills in the jungle
they might be seen from there.”

“And do Galkians sail the river so close to
the Forbidden Jungle?”

“The people who live on its banks will
never cross it,” answered Kerish, “but it used to be sailed. The jungle is very
quiet this morning.”

“Perhaps it's listening,” said Gidjabolgo. “Go
on.”

“Until about a hundred years ago, if a Lord
or Lady of the Godborn was tired of living, they would fit out a royal barge
and sail down the Gal or the Zin-Gald. When they reached the Jen Mountains the
crew would be sent ashore to return to Galkis on foot. The river narrows, just
after the mountains, and begins to flow fast . . .” Kerish kicked a mossy stone
out of his path. “Sometimes the villagers on the east bank would report seeing
a barge sweeping down towards the Desolation of Zarn, with one of the Godborn
standing calmly on its deck.”

“And what then?” asked Gidjabolgo.

Kerish walked on faster. “Nobody knows,
unless it is written in
The Book of Secrets
, but all rivers die in the
wastelands of Zarn.”

“Slow down,” panted Gidjabolgo, trying to
keep up. “You say these voyages stopped?”

“Too many were making that last voyage and
too soon. They must have known even then that the glory of Galkis was fading.
The Emperor Shalginor forbade the custom and now the Godborn swear an oath
never to journey down to Zarn. I remember that at my Presentation ceremony I
got the wording wrong. I thought the sky would crack open  but nobody seemed to
notice. Perhaps we should all have sailed down into the Desolation long ago and
left the Galkians to make a new order for themselves.”

“If you think that about the Godborn, why
put your hope in this Saviour?” asked Gidjabolgo, without a trace of his usual
mockery. “If he is to be another Emperor, wouldn't it be better to leave him in
his prison?”

Kerish didn't answer him directly. “Are you
going to tell me again that I should have accepted O-grak's offer, or
Jerenac's?”

“It was the only sensible course,” said
Gidjabolgo, “so I wasn't surprised when you didn't take it.”

Kerish rounded on him suddenly. “If you
have nothing but contempt for all I do, why do you stay with me?”

He regretted the question instantly, but
Gidjabolgo only smiled. “Because I don't care about Galkis. If you want to
abandon it to chase after a dream, that's your affair and my amusement.
Besides, you may remember that I have my own reason for visiting the sorcerers.”

“I did think that you might have begun to
care about Galkis,” said Kerish in a low voice. “You seemed to like the temple
actors.”

“Like?” snorted Gidjabolgo. “A man in my
position can't afford mild emotions. Hate keeps you alive, but liking is only a
weakness.”