The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels ) (27 page)

Kerish yearned to follow. `I can't walk,'
he thought desperately, `I have no strength left', but he found himself running
southwards. The Desolation dissolved at his heels into shimmering dust colored
by the zeloka's song. He ran within the eye of the storm and remade the world
with each step.

When at last the music ceased, Kerish's
stillness unfolded to form a landscape of silvered rock and white sand. Ahead
of him lay the storm, frozen into ramparts of light. Seven ramparts, seven
circles, one within the other and each higher than the last. Kerish was afraid
that his slightest movement would shatter them and unleash a hurricane of color
to sweep away the pallid world of men. Yet in the center of the first rampart
was a darkness so intense that even the radiance of the zeloka could not pierce
it. Kerish knew that it was a gateway.

The first key was ready in his hand, its
purple gem a pale reflection of the zeloka's plumage. Very slowly
Kerish-lo-Taan approached the prison of the Saviour.

He dared not touch the blackness of the
door but he felt its coldness pass through him. The very rocks seemed to shiver
with him. Hovering above his head, the zeloka sang a single note and a point of
silver appeared in the blackness. Kerish knelt to fit the first key in its
lock. The black door swung open and Elmandis was standing beside him. The King
of Ellerinonn bowed and Kerish saw the face of an old man, still struggling to
acknowledge peace. The Prince held out the key but Elmandis shook his head and
vanished.

The zeloka alighted on the second rampart
and sang again. Kerish replaced the first key and drew out the second. He
walked through the gate towards an azure wall of light and the sorcerer of
Tir-Racneth. Ellandellore stood almost as tall as the Prince now and there was
a new gentleness in his face. Kerish stooped to unlock the second of the black
gates. It opened without a sound and the zeloka flew towards the third rampart.
Kerish offered the key. Ellandellore's fingers passed through his hand as the
sorcerer felt for the cool gold. In that instant Kerish knew that Ellandellore
was the reality and he was the vision. He tried to speak, but the young
sorcerer released the key, as if he had gained enough strength simply by
touching it. Ellandellore bowed, smiled and vanished.

On ramparts gleaming with the colors of ice
in sunlight, the zeloka perched above the third gate. A single crystal note
lanced its blackness. Beside the gate stood two figures with their arms around
each other. Saroc's face was peaceful and proud. Sendaaka's had warmed into joy
and she was no less graceful for the coming child. Kerish opened the gate and
did not even offer them the key. They gave him a long look before they vanished
and he winced under their compassion. The space between the third and the
fourth ramparts was empty. Saroc would never be parted from his wife again.

The zeloka sang. The note thrilled with
urgency and the darkness splintered. Kerish unlocked the gate in the crimson
wall and passed through into a different kind of emptiness. The ramparts
shimmered with silver. For a moment a shadow flickered beside the gate and its
touch was like a caress. Kerish  opened the dark gate and returned the fifth
key to the golden chain. The power of the keys was meaningless to Shubeyash
now.

Kerish followed the zeloka's flight towards
glowing earth-brown ramparts and the restless figure of Vethnar. The song of
the zeloka broke through the blackness of the gate and Kerish reached up to
turn the key in the silver lock. The gate opened and he offered the sixth key
to the sorcerer of Tir-Melidon. Vethnar grimaced, bowed, swung away and vanished.

As Kerish approached the seventh rampart
Tebreega came towards him with her arms outspread. She embraced him but he
could not feel her. Before he could speak she gave him a loving smile and
vanished.

The zeloka was singing as Kerish drew the
last key off the golden chain and the lock burst like a star from the blackness
of the seventh gate. Kerish sank to his knees. `I can't deserve this,' he
thought dazedly, `without the help of the sorcerers, without Forollkin and
Gidjabolgo and Gwerath, I wouldn't be here. I've wanted this moment for so long
and now I can't bear it. Zeldin, Imarko, let me go back, please let me go
back.'

The zeloka spread its wings and enfolded
him with light. The black gate seemed taller than the Ultimate Mountains, but
he knew that the lock was not beyond his reach.

Kerish-lo-Taan turned the key and opened
the seventh gate.

The Saviour stepped forward. He was not
tall and the body within the austere grey robe seemed slight and frail.
Silvered hair framed a calm sad face, but the golden and purple eyes blazed
with hope and the beautiful hands were clasped in prayer.

Kerish-lo-Taan stood for a long time
looking at his own reflection. For a moment his heart had lurched with shock
and he had been poised not just to run, but to shatter the prison of his body
in the last escape. Only for a moment. He was no longer the child who had been
trapped in a cage of mirrors amongst the Screaming Rocks. He had learned to
face even his own scrutiny.

Like the wound in the face of Shubeyash, a
terrible disunity was still present in this reflection. Kerish could see both
the part of him that had been shaped by the twenty years of his life and the
part which did not, and never would, belong in Zindar. He saw shame for much
that he had done and an intense longing for something glimpsed in the distance
and never quite understood, but he knew that he was almost healed.

Even so, it was a while before he realized
the full significance of what he had found behind the seventh gate. Part of him
gasped with this second shock; part of him had always known it.

“Not me? Zeldin, not me.”

Shock dissolved into laughter at this
ultimate absurdity. His reflection trembled.  Kerish reached out, as if to
steady it, and stepped through his own image.

He was back at in eye of the storm. Colors
raged about him and then coalesced into the shining form of the zeloka. The
seven gates stood open behind him, but Kerish ran forward, not through a
Desolation but a garden. The song of the zeloka rose on a tide of joy and
Kerish was swept away by it. He no longer knew if he was running or swimming or
flying, only that he was being drawn towards the center of the garden and of
all songs.

With a torrent of ecstatic notes the zeloka
swooped down to a beckoning hand. Kerish found himself kneeling at the foot of
a great stair and looking up into a woman's face. Her slender hand was steady
beneath the zeloka's weight, but the marvelous bird seemed abashed and hid its
head under one glorious wing.

“Welcome, Saviour Prince.” She was old and
frail. Her face was marked with pain and grief and was infinitely beautiful. “Welcome
child.”

Even in that wise, piercing beauty he could
see a likeness to his own features. Wordless, Kerish held out the seven keys
and she received them.

“The gift shall be returned to the giver.”

At her words, the zeloka's head emerged
from beneath its wing. It snatched the golden chain and flew upwards following
the spiral of the white stair.

“Lady,” Kerish said, “must it be me?”

Imarko answered him tenderly. “No, dearest
child. Turn and look behind you.”

Kerish looked back through the seven gates
to the Desolation of Zarn.

At first he only saw the grey hills. Then
his eyes focused on a thin huddled figure, already half covered by dust.

“I understand,” whispered Kerish.
“All
that I am and all that I ever shall be.”

Imarko nodded. “You have unlocked the Gate
of Death. No one will force you through it again. Now look up.”

The ramparts had fused into a great
rainbow, curving to enfold the garden of Imarko. At the center of this shining
circle was the white stair. It climbed up far beyond his sight and as Kerish
looked at the stair it seemed to change. He realized that each step was as huge
as a country. Tiny as he seemed in comparison to the stair, Kerish found that
his eyes could range over those countries as if he were flying above them.

On the lowest step was a city overlooking a
turquoise sea; its silent streets walked by a single figure. The man looked up
and seemed to salute Kerish. His face was noble and sad. It was only by his
silver gloves that the Prince recognized Shubeyash.

Within moments he had been swept higher and
was looking down on a rocky island and the ruins of a temple, its dark stones
split open to let in the light. Beside the ruin stood Khan O-grak, with his arm
around a brown-haired woman. In front of them, thigh-deep in the earth, was the
Khan's soul figure. Its dark wood was mellowing to a rich gold and it grew tall
and straight and human. The wooden hands seemed raised in greeting to Kerish as
he floated higher.

The third step was covered by grasslands.
Where they met the turbulent sea a silver-haired girl was walking with a great
green cat bounding at her side. Kerish knew that they were immeasurably distant
and yet they seemed to see him. The cat gave a noise halfway between a growl
and a purr of welcome. Gwerath smiled. It was a smile full of loving
friendship, as if all that she had once felt for Forollkin now belonged to him
too, with no possibility of jealousy to mar their triple happiness.

“Wait for me . . .” Gwerath nodded. Surely
she had heard, but the vision was fading as he was drawn upwards. As he hovered
above a wild and beautiful garden Kerish glimpsed Gankali and Lord Jerenac
among the trees, but he did not at first recognize the two figures who stood
beside a crystal pavilion. The silver-haired woman looked like an older
Gwerath, but a Gwerath who had known great happiness. The man might have been
himself, older and tired, but purged of all bitterness. When he smiled, Kerish
knew him, though he had never seen such a look on that face before.

“Father
. . . Mother!”

As he spoke, he sensed Taana's presence,
rich with the love that was his legacy, and knew that he was the completion of
his parents' joy. Then, under the trees, he noticed a third figure - Rimoka his
stepmother. He felt his parents' tenderness reach out to her, but the Empress
buried her face in her hands and would not look up. Kerish knew that they would
not cease to implore her forgiveness until she too was drawn into their
happiness. Kerish longed to be with them.

“Wait for me . . .” They promised with
their eyes, but the vision faded. Kerish hovered for a moment over the step
where the temples of Hildimarn rose anew and Ka-Metranee and her mother walked
together on the white beach. Then he was swept up into the mountains where
Izeldon stood. He knew at once that the High Priest had the strength to climb
to the very summit of the stair, but something held him back.

“Is it me?” murmured Kerish.

Izeldon looked up, the eyes of the Godborn
shining with compassion in his strong, peaceful face. “I will wait for you.”

Kerish knew that the words came to him
across a distance far greater than he could comprehend. For a terrifying moment
he thought his vision would sweep him even further up the stair than Izeldon
had climbed.

“Imarko!” he cried, and she was with him at
the foot of the stair. “Lady, have you waited for me here?”

“Since the day of my death.”

Each strand of her hair seemed resplendent
with more colors than the rainbow rampart, but the hand she held out to Kerish
was frail and human.

“What must I do?” he asked.

“You have let Zeldin shape you,” said
Imarko. “There is no other Saviour Prince, but you have carried more than your
share of the world's sorrows and you have won the right to peace. Mount the
stair. The climb is hard, but you will never be alone.”

Kerish took one step forward and then
stopped. “But if I do, what will happen to Galkis?”

“Our children are grown now,” said the
first Empress of Galkis. “We have offered them everything, but we shall not
force them to take it.”

“What will happen?” repeated Kerish, “to my
brother, to Viroc . . . ?”

A tear shone on Imarko's cheek. “Viroc will
fall.”

“Show me,” whispered Kerish.

All Galkis was mirrored in the tear of
Imarko. In the moment of its fall, Kerish saw the walls of Viroc crimson with
the cloaks of Fangmere. The night was filled with fire as half the city burned,
but on the royal road two hundred horsemen, gaunt as their half-starved mounts,
were fleeing north. In their midst rode Kelinda, her hair brightened by the
flames. The horseman beside her held in his arms the wounded and unconscious
figure of the Lord Commander of Galkis.

The scene blurred and was followed by a
swift succession of images, as if weeks and months were slipping past. Kerish
saw his brother fight battle after battle as the army of the Five Kingdoms
thrust deeper and deeper into Galkis. He watched the barbarians reach the
capital and strip the gold from its walls. The Inner Palace burned and Follea
died, stabbed as she struggled with the warriors looting her jewels.

The Emperor and his brother, High Priest
Im-lo-Torim, had taken refuge in the temple of Zeldin, high in the mountains.
When a trembling novice reported that the barbarians were close, they drank
irandaan till the starflowers bloomed in the darkness of their minds bringing
madness and death. Little Princess Koligani refused to drink and was taken
captive by warriors from Chiraz.

As Kerish watched, the dead faces of his
half-brothers dissolved into a vision of Li-Kroch flinching as Zyrindella
placed a copy of the Imperial Crown upon his head. Last of all Kerish saw
Hildimarn's deserted temples and the white strand on which Imarko had walked in
the morning of the world. Three ships stood off the shore and people were
wading through the shallows towards them. The last to come aboard were a woman
with pale copper hair and a man who looked back towards Galkis with a desperate
longing.