or woman, Ki could not tell; it wasn’t even a race she was familiar with. The ragged clothing that swathed it could have been white or grey or pale blue. The red glow of the Gate baffled her eyes, making shapes of shadows, and shadows of shapes. The Keeper stared at her, unspeaking. Hidden eyes bored into her despite its veiled features.
‘Is this the Limbreth Gate?’ Ki’s tongue felt thick and even to her the question sounded inane.
‘If you come seeking it, then you know that it is.’ The voice was as deep as a rumbling from the earth itself. The phrasing was as peculiar as the tavern boy’s words. For some reason Ki felt nettled by them.
‘Well, I came seeking it because I intend to go through it. Are you going to move or look at the bottom of my wagon?’
‘Are you Ki, the Romni teamster?’
She stiffened. She did not like the idea of giving names at midnight gates, especially when he classed her as a Romni. Were there Rousters waiting beyond the Gate? But he had called her Ki, so perhaps it was Vandien who had been so free with her name. ‘I am,’ she snapped, feeling suddenly reckless.
‘We have been expecting you. All is ready for you to pass through the Gate. Enter slowly.’
Ki frowned. Every muscle in her body tensed as she saw his tri-fingered hand wave a signal to someone. Rousters or Vandien? Too late to flee if it were Rousters. Heightened awareness battled with drink as she led her team under the reddened lintel. The red light was like peering through a fog. For an instant she caught sight of another figure within the Gate. A tall woman, robed in pale green, her eyes swollen with weeping. Ki thought she shook in fear as she stumbled forward, but it could have been a trick of wavering red light. She saw her for only that instant, but her resemblance to the boy in the tavern was great. The same pale hair flowed upon her shoulders, and she had the same fragile bones and skin. So perhaps someone did care for the boy. Ki hoped so.
A spasm of vertigo passed through Ki, so that she felt she swam forward through thick warm water. Cinmeth, she thought, half closing her eyes and striding doggedly on. Never again. It passed in an instant and she opened her eyes to the night outside the Gate. The air had changed. Even the horses tossed their heads in a flurry of manes and blew out approvingly. The air washed over them all in a warm wave, with the barest tinge of a cool edge to soothe weary eyes. Ki smelled the perfume of night flowers and the warm mossy scents that woods breathe out at midday. How different this from the dusty, stony city!
‘Vandien?’ she called questioningly. She lifted her lantern high. Its light touched slender grey treetrunks. Trees? The North Gate had entered the city from a barren plain of yellow grass. But she had forgotten how old Jojorum was. Had not she heard that it had once been fabled for its gardens? Perhaps these were they, long untended and come back to dominance. At least the road remained good. Moss crept in soft tongues across it, but it was flat and straight, not buckled nor heaved with age. Her wagon rolled silently behind her, the hoofbeats of her team cushioned now by moss. There was moisture in the air, and peace. The very night seemed less dark around her.
So where in hell was Vandien? Even if he were lying senseless by the road, his horse should have whinnied to her team. If they had left him his horse. ‘Whoa!’ The team stood. ‘Vandien!’ Her worried voice sounded shrill in the friendly night, muffled by the peace. She walked around her wagon, back toward the Gate. Perhaps the Keeper could tell her something of Vandien.
The Gate was a fiery rectangle against the darkness, its brightness obscuring all else. Ki felt her eyes water as she stared at it, and she was finally forced to turn her eyes aside. ‘Gatekeeper!’ she cried. ‘The man who told you to watch for me; where is he? She risked a glance at the glowing Gate. The Keeper was a darker huddle in the center.
‘Go down the road.’ His voice was fainter than the distance explained. ‘Just follow the road toward the lights on the horizon.’
Ki swung her eyes away from the Keeper and Gate again. It had not seemed so bright from the city side. She focused her eyes on the black ground, letting them readjust to the darkness. Her own small lantern seemed dim after the Gate. It was as she was looking down to let her eyes clear that she saw the tracks of a single horse, its hoofprints cut in the moss and all but obscured by the heavy marks of her team. Ki moved back to the front of her team and walked slowly down the road. No sign was on the road itself, but here and there were marks that cut right through the moss to the road’s black surface. The horse was heavy with a rider, and the rider had been in a hurry. Well, at least he had shown that much sense. She was glad he had gotten clear of the city before waiting for her. The farther they were from the Gates, the less likely that Rousters would bother them. She felt relief that he was healthy enough to ride, and annoyance that she had been so worried.
She clucked to her team and they came on again behind her. If she had not had Vandien to fret over, it would have been a pleasant stroll down a silent road by night. The soft moss that cushioned the road was kind to her feet. The cool breeze stroked her face. She swung her lantern beside her, flinging light ahead to stretch over the hoofmarks she followed.
Ki paused. After a moment of hesitation, she snuffed her lantern. She had been right. Away from the suffocating walls of the city and its dark old buildings, the night had become a friendlier place. There was enough light to see by, though the sky had become overcast. Enough to drive by? She shrugged and halted the team to clamber up onto the box. She took up the reins and slapped them on the wide grey backs.
The road ran straight and true before them, slicing through the forest as cleanly as a knife. The moss that coated the road seemed tipped with silver, making it a long ribbon that ran away from Ki, dwindling to a thread in the distance. Gone were the familiar jerks and jounces of potholes and gullied roadbeds. The wagon moved on in near silence, smooth as a ship cutting through water.
The forest cupped her in its hands. Friendly night trees leaned over her road in a near arch. Luminous white blossoms decked them, filling the dark with a sweetly elusive scent. At intervals the forest drew back from the road, to give Ki a view of a pasture, with a small cottage at the back of it, or just a patch of wild meadow. Some pastures seemed to be tilled and bearing crops. No lights showed in the cottages.
Twice Ki halted and checked the road, to find the hoofprints still leading her on. Each time some small discomfort nibbled at the back of her mind, but the glow of the Cinmeth warmed it away. If she took a deep breath of the night air, she could taste its spiciness still. For a moment she idly wished she’d had the foresight to bring some along. But then she contented herself with the cool night air. Reassurance grew in her slowly. If Vandien had ridden this far, he was most likely not injured at all. Perhaps they had only shaken him up; or perhaps his glib tongue had slid him past trouble. If that was his case, as seemed more and more likely to her, then he had gone ahead to find a good stopping place for the wagon. She’d come upon him at any moment.
Or, and she frowned in amused tolerance, he had trusted to his message to bring her after him, and had ridden ahead. He did that often enough when the ponderous movement of her slow-rolling wagon became more than his short patience could bear. It was not unusual for him to be gone a day or a week when the need for solitary exploring hit him. Ki did not resent it. She would welcome a rest from his sharp tongue and restless ways.
She let herself slip into a waking dream. The wagon rolled on through the night. Ki floated through a dream on a sweet wind tinged with flower breath and Cinmeth. The wide pastures that spread in sudden clearings in the forest shone dark green. The sky behind a cover of clouds shone like opal through smoke along the horizon.
Ki lost all track of time. Could the glow ahead be dawn? No, it didn’t feel like dawn. There was no hushed expectancy, no last calls of night birds. There was only the peace of the settled night. But there was a
