Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (10 page)

Julen looked at Sara, and she nodded.

Lance turned it over several times, examining the carvings, then opened the lid and looked inside. It was empty, save for more carvings in a spiral pattern… Sara stepped back, head aching.

“Do you know what it is?” Sara asked him.

“No. Perhaps a religious item?” Lance sounded doubtful.

Thanks to her math tutor, Sara knew a little of the Qiph Way. Men tried to emulate the Path of the Holy Man, and women that of the Holy Woman. Her tutor had been on the second-to-last stage of the Men’s Path, that of Slave. He’d never said anything about boxes, but then he hadn’t yet made the final step to priest. “Perhaps,” she said politely.

“May I keep it?” Lance asked. “I’d like to show it to my father.”

Sara hesitated. She wanted to say no, unequivocally, but… Julen looked speculative. Was this some trap of his? “Yes, but please keep it in your bags, out of my sight.”

She wished, very much, that Lance had not taken it.

* * *

Esam crouched low in the bushes and watched the camp. He shivered. There was no doubt now: all his party were dead, including the Pathfinder. All would have died rather than let the Soul Box fall into the hands of the Defiled.

Esam had held out a foolish hope that Nabeel still lived—he’d always seemed indestructible. Esam had first known Nabeel as his father’s friend, then later as his stern Weapons Master. Only very lately had he become a fellow Warrior.

Esam had known the other Qiph in their party for less than a week. Their deaths merely numbed him. Nabeel’s hurt. With Nabeel alive it never would’ve occurred to Esam to give up, but now their mission all came down to him.

He had no sword and had never felt so small and helpless…but the magic conferred on him by the Pathfinder priests still lay like a heavy weight on his back. It chained him near the Defiled. He could not give up, so he must go forward.

He stayed in the bushes, the voices of the dead whispering in his ears.

* * *

The next morning, they pressed on with all speed. Thereafter followed three days of sheer misery.

Riding in a carriage was tedious. Riding in a carriage day and night, pausing only to switch horses and obtain meals, was nigh on unbearable. Sara’s head and body soon ached. Since only one carriage now remained, Julen and Lance took turns riding one of the extra carriage horses.

In light of Julen’s lack of progress, Sara had decided that she must keep trying with Lance. She had sworn off seducing the secret out of him, but she might still glean something from casual conversation.

He thwarted her plan by promptly closing his eyes. A certain tension in his body made her think he wasn’t actually sleeping, but talking would have been too rude, so she was forced to keep silent.

Sara turned to the refetti for distraction. The animal had boldly jumped into the carriage when they left the camp on the Vaga River. The sleek-bodied rodent liked to sit on her shoulder, its tail tucked behind her neck. It didn’t bite, but showed a definite preference for Sara’s company over Felicia’s, almost as if he knew Sara was the one who had saved him. Unfortunately, the little creature soon curled up asleep on her lap, leaving Sara with nothing to do but stare out the window.

And then it was Julen’s turn in the carriage. Instead of flirting with Felicia as usual, he quizzed Sara about any clue Lance might have let drop, which left them both frustrated and short-tempered.

On the second day, Lance kept entirely to the carriage, but not from any desire for Sara’s company. His dunking in the river had given him a cold. His nose ran, and he sneezed constantly.

His illness should have made Sara want to stay as far away from him as possible, but instead she had the bizarre desire to smooth the unruly lock of hair back from his forehead and kiss him better.

Despite the hot lemon teas that Sara ordered whenever possible and Lance, somewhat dubiously, drank, his cold worsened over the next day, progressing from sniffles to a light cough to horrible hacking spasms.

“Are you all right?” Sara asked helplessly after yet another spate.

“I’m sick,” Lance said simply.

Her mother would have listed her every ache and pain. “I mean, are you well enough to travel?” She longed to stop at one of Jut’s temples for a day, but just because there had been no further sign of Qiph assassins didn’t mean there weren’t any following them.

Lance shrugged. “I’ll be sick whether I’m in this carriage or lying in a bed. I prefer to be in the carriage, getting closer to home.” The speech sent him into another fit of coughing. His face turned so red Sara grew alarmed, but he only waved her away when she asked if she should stop the carriage.

“Sorry, about that,” he gasped. “Talking…irritates my throat.” He closed his eyes.

This time he truly slept, and Sara caught herself staring at him. She tried looking out the window, but inevitably, after a few moments, her gaze would be drawn back to his body, the thick layers of muscle on his chest and biceps, the distinct dent in his upper lip half-hidden by his mustache.

Sara was so aware of Lance that it took her awhile to notice that Felicia was equally tense. She suddenly remembered coming upon Felicia and Lance speaking together in low voices that morning after breakfast.

A horrible suspicion occurred to her. The next time the carriage paused to change horses and give everyone inside a chance to stretch their legs, she drew her maid aside. “Did Julen ask you to take Lance as your lover?”

Felicia’s eyes widened. “No!”

Sara felt embarrassed at jumping to such a sordid conclusion. “Then what were you talking to him about this morning?”

“I don’t remember,” Felicia said, her cheeks flushed.

Dismay tightened Sara’s chest. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!”

Lance returned, and they all climbed back into the cursed carriage in stiff silence. It must have been obvious that they’d been quarreling because after half a mile Lance sighed and proposed playing a game called Sacrifice.

Sara had never heard of the game, but it proved to be a simple, silent one using marks on a piece of paper. It was a child’s amusement, one Evina would have sneered at, but it passed the time.

Sacrifice reminded her a little of chess in that its players, represented by X’s and O’s, had serf and king type values, but instead of a square, they were arranged in a pyramid. There were three types of moves. A higher level player could scratch off a lower level one, two lower-level players could be “sacrificed” to create one player on a higher level, or two players of equal value could cancel each other out.

Felicia lost interest after four defeats in a row, but Sara’s affinity with numbers stood her in good steed. Within two games she was able to tie Lance, and they began to draw larger, more challenging, pyramids.

“Hah!” Sara said triumphantly, after she’d made a particularly good move.

Still trying to spare his throat, Lance scowled in an exaggerated fashion, then made his own move and sat back, arms crossed, but eyes twinkling. A laugh gurgled out of Sara’s throat, surprising her with how much she was enjoying herself. Lance smiled back at her, a real smile unlike the edged ones he’d been giving her. Sara’s chest grew warm with emotion, and she quickly bent back over the game.

Outside the carriage window, the farmland grew poorer and less settled. They went up and down endless rocky hills.

Then, finally, the Red Mountains of Kandrith reared up ahead of them. They proved to be gray cliffs with a skirt of green trees, not in the least bit red.

Sara found them puzzling. “They look more like a wall that rose up out of nowhere than a mountain range.” She couldn’t see any valleys, just one crooked range of mountains stretching out of sight.

Lance said a queer thing. “The Red Saints did rise out of nowhere.”

Before Sara could question him, Lance suddenly craned his head at the window in excitement. “The Gate! We’ve reached the border!”

Sara peered out the window. The Gate to Kandrith…was not at all what she’d expected.

She’d pictured something like the gates to the city of Temborium: thrice the height of a man, topped with iron spikes and so heavy it took four men to roll them open each morning. Well, actually, she’d imagined something a little cruder than Temborium’s shining gates, but not
this
much cruder.

For there was no gate at all. Instead, the carriage had halted in front of a narrow gorge that passed between the Red Mountains. Sheer cliffs rose on either side.

Lance opened the carriage door and hopped out. Sara handed the refetti to Felicia and lost no time following him.

The Gate to Kandrith also lacked armed guards. Instead, a solitary Gatekeeper, an old man with bristly white hair that grew in tufts from his head, eyebrows and ears, stood in front of a small lean-to built against the cliff. He seemed to have expected Lance, nodding his head with evident satisfaction. He banged out a complicated rhythm on a large bass drum, ending with three hollow booms, no doubt signaling their arrival.

Sara walked closer, studying the gorge in more detail.

The carriage wasn’t going to fit—a point Julen seemed to have already grasped. He’d dismounted from his borrowed horse and was arguing with the gatekeeper.

“This is the Gate to Kandrith,” the old man insisted in his cracked voice. He wore an Elysinian-style vest like Lance’s, only his was dyed blood red.

“It can’t be,” Julen said with certainty.

“Eh? And why’s that?” the old fellow demanded.

“It isn’t wide enough for a horse to pass through, much less a carriage,” Julen said.

“That’s right,” the old man said, “it isn’t.”

Both of them waited.

Julen broke first, spluttering. “You can’t tell me there’s no entrance for horses! That would be insane.”

“Fine then, I won’t tell you.” The old man leaned on his cane.

“Very well, we will simply have to enter Kandrith by another route.” Julen moved toward his horse.

“There is no other route,” Lance told him. “If you wish to enter Kandrith, you must pass through the Gate.”

Julen stared at them as if they were both crazed. “Impossible. I know Kandrith is surrounded by mountains, but it has a four-hundred-mile-long border. It can’t all be cliff. There must be a pass. And what about trade? Where do the caravans go?”

“The Red Saints sometimes open other gates to those in need, but none are bigger than this gate and all lead to Gatetown,” Lance said. “We get little trade.”

“There must be a valley—” Julen started, then stopped. “No, never mind.” He waved away Lance’s negative. “I understand. You don’t want any Republicans to know where the other mountain passes are. An understandable precaution.”

Sara looked at the gate with new eyes. Yes, it made a splendid natural barrier against invasion. Though she’d listened to Nir pontificate enough to know that no defense was impenetrable, provided your enemy was willing to throw away enough men to break through.

She thought this one would take an army of engineers a year to make any headway.

“We’ll just have to buy another carriage on the other side.” From the look on Julen’s face he was already calculating the cost.

“Lance!” a woman called.

Everyone turned to look as a somewhat dusty young woman emerged from the Gate. When she came closer, Sara saw that she was tall and statuesque. She had fiery red hair shoved into a loose braid and wore a yellow-and-green plaid dress with a split skirt. “Lance!” She dropped her bag and ran toward him, grinning from ear to ear.

Sara felt like she’d walked into a wall.
Lance had a sweetheart.
Or was it his wife?

“Wenda!” Lance opened his own arms. He didn’t once look at Sara. She saw no guilt in his expression, only pleasure.

Wenda, whoever she was, stopped short. “No broken bones this time?” she asked—oddly.

“Just a cold.” Lance swept her into a hug. He spun her around in a circle, laughing.

They looked so happy… Sara blinked several times, hard. Well. Now she knew why Lance had resisted the majority of her pitiful attempts at seduction.

Lance set Wenda back on her feet. “How are Mum and Da?”

Wenda wrinkled her snub nose. She had freckles too. “The same as always.”

“Has Da—” Lance began, but Wenda elbowed him into silence.

“Not here.” She gave Sara’s silk dress and the carriage a onceover, her expression unfriendly.

“Ah, yes.” Lance cleared his throat. “Sara, this is my sister, Wenda.”

Sister.
Relieved, Sara smiled at Wenda more widely than she would have otherwise.

“Sara, is it?” Wenda looked unimpressed. “Not Lady Sara?”

“Sara to my friends.” Sara kept smiling.

“Well,
Lady Sara
, why don’t you make yourself scarce?”

Sara opened her mouth to verbally slap Wenda down, but Lance beat her to it. He gripped Wenda’s arm. “Pray excuse my sister. We haven’t seen each other in months, and we need to speak privately. Right, Wenda?”

“Of course.” Wenda’s face set like stone.

Sara gave a regal nod. “In that case, I wouldn’t dream of intruding.” She strolled away.

* * *

Wenda yanked her arm free. “What was that all about?”

“Quietly,” Lance warned. “I assume you got my message that Primus Vidor died?”

Wenda frowned. “Of course. Why else would I have spent the past three days waiting in Gatetown for Hiram to drum that you’d arrived?”

Lance gestured to the Gatekeeper. “Hiram, you should hear this too.” He kept an eye on Sara while Hiram shuffled closer. He tried to keep his expression pleasant, as if they were merely making conversation.

“What is it?” Hiram asked.

“The new Primus, Aleron Remillus, is no relation to House Vidor. He couldn’t care less about the current Child of Peace. I think he may intend to break the Pact.” And with eight outriders, the three of them were outnumbered.

Hiram scowled, and alarm filled Wenda’s face. “But then why send his daughter this far, at all? Is she his daughter?” Wenda asked.

Lance felt his pulse leap. He’d never considered the possibility. But if Sara were perhaps an equitain or even a cuorelle promised her family’s freedom, it would explain so much. Her attitude toward Felicia, and the way her artificial manners slipped sometimes, showing the warmer woman underneath—

But, no. Not only did Sara lack a slave brand, but Felicia had known Sara for years and had asked for asylum for only herself.

“I believe she is his daughter. He sent her as a spy. Why hardly matters,” Lance said impatiently. “She’s here now. We have to get her across the border. Hiram, you’ll be ready if she balks?”

The old man nodded, determination glinting in his brown eyes. “Get her close enough to touch me, and I’ll make the sacrifice and Move her.”

Lance suppressed a shudder, and he saw tears spring into Wenda’s eyes. But this was why Hiram had volunteered to be Gatekeeper, because he was old enough that the sacrifice didn’t horrify him.

“Remember to wait for my word,” Lance cautioned. “I may be wrong. She may enter willingly.”

Hiram nodded, then returned to his station by the drum.

Lance turned his head aside to cough and saw Sara watching him. She stood apart from her outriders. Good.

“Have you been forced to be polite to her the whole trip?” Wenda asked. “I’m glad it was you. I would never have managed it.”

“Actually, it wasn’t that hard,” Lance said. “Sara…she’s not like most noblewomen.”

Wenda snorted. “Is that so? How many slaves did she bring?”

“One.”

“Oh, just one, well, that’s all right then,” Wenda said sarcastically. “And is her slave content to remain in chains?”

“No,” Lance admitted. He and Wenda both made it a practice to help any slaves the Child of Peace brought along to escape.

“Then I don’t see how this one is any different from all the other highborn—”

“Don’t say it.” Lance cut his sister off.

Wenda laughed, an ugly sound. “I don’t believe this. I thought you were too smart to be taken in by a pretty face. Don’t you remember anything?”

“Of course I do.” As if he could forget seven-year-old Wenda being beaten almost to death. As if he could forget the helplessness he’d felt and the rage on his chained father’s face…

Wenda’s voice rose. “Then how can you smile and talk nicely to that—”

“She’s not Madam Lust!” Lance snapped. The nickname for their ex-owner silenced his sister, and he finished more calmly, “I’m not saying Sara is a paragon of good. She’s a flirt, and she’s spying for her father, but she isn’t evil. In fact, her basic nature is kind. I’ve been cooped up in a carriage with her for days now. She couldn’t fake what she is inside for that long. I would have seen.” Most nobles treated their slaves as invisible tools. If you required a task be done, you said the tool’s name and they took care of the problem. Sara
saw
Felicia.

Wenda looked disbelieving.

Lance couldn’t blame her. Before the journey began, he would have said all noblewomen were shallow and amoral. But he couldn’t view Sara that way anymore. There were all the other highborn ladies, and then there was Sara, in her own category. He stared at his sister and lifted his chin, unwilling to back down.

Wenda’s expression softened. “I don’t want to argue with you. It may be two years before we see each other again. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Agreed.” At the last second, Lance changed his mind about asking about their father’s health—if there was bad news it could wait until he reached the Hall. “Is Brendan still courting you?”

Wenda snorted. “That idiot? He—” And they were off, safely embarked in other channels.

* * *

As Sara walked toward the Gate, she tried to cool her anger by reminding herself that Wenda’s opinion didn’t matter. Wenda didn’t know Sara. Her reaction, however, was discouraging. It had taken Sara days to warm Lance up. Was every Kandrithan going to treat Sara with contempt?

She was still worrying over the problem, when she became aware of a noise coming from the gorge.

She retreated a few steps, then stopped as a young Temborian man emerged. Astonished, Sara recognized Primus Vidor’s great-nephew—the one said to have been killed during a Legion skirmish. What was he doing here?

Almost as soon as she asked the question, Sara realized the answer. He had to be Primus Vidor’s ambassador.

He could be a vital source of information. Sara tried frantically to remember his name.

“Lord Giles,” Julen breathed near her ear, obviously sharing the same thought.

Lord Giles brushed at the dirt on his red toga and in his dark hair, his upper lip curled in disgust. Sara donned a winning smile and advanced on him. “Lord Giles?”

Lord Giles looked up, and Sara found that her beauty still had an effect. He blinked, looking rather stupid.

Sara gave him a moment to gather his wits then said, “I’m Lady Sarathena Remillus, and I’m so glad to meet a fellow Republican.” Sara looked at the looming gate and had little trouble faking a shiver. “Please, what can you tell me about Kandrith?”

“You mean Slaveland?” Lord Giles frowned. “It’s no place for a lady—for any civilized person.”

“Oh, dear,” Sara said faintly. “What should I expect?”

“If I may be blunt, it’s a latrine of a country,” Lord Giles said. “Everything is poor and cramped and dirty. You should have seen where they expected me to sleep—it was a hovel, and when I complained they moved me to a smaller room!” he ranted. “In four years, I was never once served a decent meal. It was always too cold and or burned or tasted rotten or all three. But what can you expect?” he asked, sneering. “The country’s run by slaves, the laziest people in the world. Every joke you’ve ever heard about the stupidity of slaves is true.”

“Joke?” Sara asked uncertainly.

“You know, the riddles. ‘How did the slave improve his hearing? Answer, he broke his eardrum.’ ‘How did the slave learn to see? He blinded himself.’”

Sara moved her mouth in what was more grimace than smile. Lord Giles was a petulant idiot. He’d probably treated everyone he’d met with contempt and had earned likewise.

After a quick glance to be sure Lance wasn’t listening, she broached the subject of magic. “I heard the Slavelanders were crude, but powerful in their magic. Is it true?”

“They make big claims, but I never saw anything to back them up,” Lord Giles declared. “Their priests are a bunch of cripples.”

Cripples?

Before she could ask, Lord Giles gave Sara a quick bow. “You have my pity going to such a place.” Then he strode up to Marcus. “Are you the captain? Let’s be on our way. I want to shake the dust from this place off my sandals.”

Marcus bowed and politely informed him that his mission was to escort, not just Lord Giles, but the new Kandrithan ambassador to Temborium as well.

“So leave half your men here with her and send the rest with me now,” Lord Giles said impatiently.

The gatekeeper got into the act then. “He—” a knobby finger pointed at Lord Giles, “—ain’t leaving until that woman—” he pointed at Sara, “—enters Kandrith.”

Sara didn’t like being referred to as
that woman.
“I’ll do whatever I—”

“Refer to Lady Sarathena with respect—” Julen started.

A third voice trumped them all. “You!”

Wenda glared at Lord Giles as if he were an insect. “I told you to stay in Kandrith until your replacement came through. The Watcher should have stopped you.”

“That child?” Lord Giles sneered. “I got tired of waiting.”

“Well, then you’ll just have to go back,” Wenda said coldly, arms folded.

Lance laid a hand on her arm. “Peace, sister. It’s time for me to continue on—it’s not safe for both of us to be on this side of the border either. May the Goddess watch over you.” He formally kissed her forehead, then bent low so she could do the same.

“May the Goddess watch over you.”

Sara pretended not to notice the unpretty tears that blotched Wenda’s face. Lance looked strained. The intensity of the siblings’ farewell made Sara’s stomach drop. They were carrying on as if they were never going to see each other again.