Gatefather (22 page)

“Who is she?” asked Wad.

“You mean, which of your lovers?” asked Danny softly. “Which do you want her to be?”

“I can see what body it is,” said Wad tersely. “Is it the mother or the monster?”

“She is the woman the body wanted to be,” said Danny. “But the monster isn't gone yet.”

“Make her go,” whispered Wad.

Danny only gave a low chuckle. “You saw how I did this,” he said. “How Anonoei did it. You know that neither of us can
make
Bexoi do anything.”

“Then we'll never be rid of her,” said Wad bitterly.

“Perhaps not,” said Danny. “But it's not about us or what we want.”

Is it about me? thought Anonoei.

And from Bexoi came a wave of rejection and hatred.

Anonoei felt it as emotion because now she was directly connected to the body as if it were her own.

No, she was connected to it because it was her own. It belonged to her now.

She could feel the urgency of Bexoi's demand: Where can I go? I don't want to die.

Anonoei had no answer. Nobody wanted to die, and Anonoei couldn't think of a good reason why Bexoi should be willing to die when her body remained alive, in someone else's possession.

“It doesn't want you now,” said Danny, and Anonoei realized that now he was using his voice. “It's been offered a better life. A better self. What can you offer?”

Again Bexoi reached for the body's voice, but she was not connected to it anymore. Yet Anonoei knew, without words, what she was trying to convey: It's mine.

“It's yours because you were such a powerful pret, back on Duat,” said Danny. “Such brilliance and strength. Of course it wanted to follow you. But look what you did with it. You might have felt no shame, but the beautiful beast you dwelt in was ashamed of how you made it live, what you made it do. Back then it had no choice. Now it has one. It's hard to imagine a living soul that it would not rather be.”

Bexoi raged—or would have raged, if the body had obeyed her. What do you know about me? I don't know you, you're nothing to me, a boy, a stranger!

But Danny responded with perfect calm. “Bexoi,” he said, and the very act of naming her pulled her even farther out of the body which she was still desperately trying to control. “You know me. At this moment, you know me better than you have ever known anybody. I'm hiding nothing. You know me, Loki knows me, Anonoei can see me plainly. And you know that I have done nothing to you. Everything that grieves you, you did to yourself. You took life away from others without a moment's regret. Did you think that meant that
you
would not also someday die?”

Anonoei felt Bexoi's fury turn to a mix of fire and fear. She was trying to burn up Danny North, and she was terrified because her body gave her no such power now. It would not harm Danny North.

And then Anonoei realized why. All the power to burn things was part of the body still, but Bexoi could not consume young Danny with that fire, because Anonoei did not wish to harm him, and it was Anonoei's will that the fire responded to now.

Danny's words had finally reached Bexoi's deep understanding, and her inself echoed the wordless understanding beneath his spoken words. Everybody dies, and Bexoi realized for the first time that there would be no exemption for her.

“This is that day,” said Danny—gently. Even kindly. “No one has harmed you. No one else is causing your death. You gave up any claim on life when you killed your little boy. You handed your life to Anonoei when you burned her own body out from under her. You know that I have done nothing but teach Anonoei how to love your body better and more deeply than you ever did. And in return it serves her, as faithfully as it served you, and more joyfully. Now go home to Duat, Bexoi. There is One there who remembers what you meant to be, when you left there and came to Westil. He knows your whole story, while you know only a part of it. Go home and find out who you were, and who you are, and who you might yet become.”

Only then did Anonoei recognize another presence in that place. Not really in the
room
they occupied, not here in the palace of Prayard. But wherever he was, he had decided to let them sense his … attention. The watchful concern of Duat.

Danny seemed unsurprised. Anonoei could feel his relief. Whoever this was, whatever powers the stranger had, Danny welcomed him, because to him this one was no stranger at all.

Anonoei felt something like a shudder, not in the body, but in Bexoi's inself; Bexoi was not prepared to endure the visitor's attention. Yet it could not be escaped, so she shrank. Whatever part of Bexoi it had been that tried to reach into the body and control it now withered, and any part of the body that still clung to Bexoi's inself was now stripped away. She was only herself now, the ancient part of herself that had once been given such power. Nothing but her naked self, small and terrified. Pain and loss. Alone.

Are we all this small in death? Anonoei didn't mean to ask the question; she barely knew she had thought of it.

But the answer came immediately and clearly, not from Danny but from the one who had come for Bexoi:

You will be as small or as great as you made yourself.

Then the stranger was gone, and Bexoi with him.

Anonoei was in sole possession of the body. It was now
her
uterus that held the baby.
Her
hands now clutched herself with a fervent mix of gratitude and unworthiness. Why am I being given such a chance to live?

“You'll have to speak aloud now,” said Danny. “I could only communicate with you that directly because you weren't fully in the body. Now I sense that you're asking something, but I don't understand it.”

That disappointed Anonoei more deeply than she could have expected. It had only been a few minutes that she had felt such a deep connection and communion with Danny North—but she missed it already.

“I miss it too,” said Danny. “With you. With Pat—the woman I love.”

“I know who she is to you,” whispered Anonoei.

“I miss it with This One.”

It took Anonoei scarcely a heartbeat to understand whom he meant.

“‘This One'?” It was how she had thought of him, too.

“It's what he called himself when we first met. I have no other name for him. But ‘This One' is name enough for him, when dealing with us. Maybe we're not capable of understanding his real name.”

“Does he come to everyone who dies?” asked Wad.

“I don't know the rules of Duat,” said Danny. “But when I die, I'd be so … grateful. Honored. If he came for me.”

“I was grateful that he didn't notice me,” murmured Wad.

“He noticed you,” said Anonoei. “He noticed everything.”

“I know,” said Wad. “But he didn't make me answer him. I'm not ready to answer him.”

“Yes, you are,” said Danny. “Answering him is easy, because he already knows.”

After months of darkness, Anonoei realized that she did not have to remain blind. The eyes were hers now, and she opened them for the first time in months. She had felt so many other sensations in these minutes since the body became truly her own, but now at last she was ready to join the world again, ready for sight.

Wad was closer to her than she had thought. And he was kneeling beside the bed. Seeing that she could see him now, he reached out a hand to touch her cheek. She welcomed the touch, though it made her tremble, having been so long without sensations of such intensity and power.

“I know what happened here,” said Wad. “I don't know
how
, but I understood it as it happened. And yet when I look at you, it's still the face of Bexoi.”

“But not the heart,” said Anonoei.

“Well,” said Danny, “organically speaking, it is.”

“Not the mind. Not the
will
,” said Anonoei.

Wad pulled her closer to him as he half-rose from the floor. He kissed her lightly and then sat beside her on the bed. “Yes,” he said. “I loved this face once, and these hands. And then, another time, later, I loved this heart and mind, though they wore a different face.”

“You never gave up on me,” said Anonoei.

“No lies,” said Wad. “I didn't understand at all what was going on here. I kept such close vigil because I was afraid that Bexoi would suddenly wake up and begin killing all the wrong people. I didn't even believe your son when he told me that you weren't dead.”

“I mean,” said Anonoei, “that you were willing to believe that I was here after all.”

Wad shook his head. “Danny
showed
me where you were. I saw what he was doing, and I saw you learn from him. I never really understood till now how we connected with our bodies.”

“You still don't,” said Danny.

“But I'm closer,” said Wad. “I saw Anonoei take true possession, because the body gave itself to her.”

“This is the last time,” said Anonoei. “The last time you can say who I am and call me by my own name.”

“I know,” said Wad.

“From now on, I have to answer to
her
name.” Then she realized something else. “I'll have all her enemies.”

“Not all,” said Wad. “You will have, as your friend, her worst enemy.” And he bowed his head with false modesty.

Anonoei wanted to kiss him, as a lover this time. But then she realized: “I have to be faithful to Prayard.”

“And it's about time
I
was his faithful friend and subject, too,” said Wad. “I won't offer, and you won't ask. Friends now, and nothing more than that.”

“And nothing less.” Anonoei kissed him again—not long, but not too briefly, either. “After your long vigil, Wad, will you be kind enough to go invite my husband to come and welcome me to the land of the living?”

Wad looked at Danny, and Anonoei could see that Wad was asking permission, or so it seemed.

“We'll talk about it after you've brought Prayard here,” said Danny.

“I can't explain
you
to him,” said Wad.

“Gatemages don't have to explain anything,” said Danny with mild amusement. “But I'll wait somewhere else. What about returning to Ced? I want to talk with him, too.”

“You know where he is?” asked Wad. And then: “Of course you do. The gate marks him.”

“Don't worry. Set is
not
here. You know that now.”

“When This One came,” said Wad. “I could see everybody's ka as bright as fire. Set wasn't here. And neither was Danny North, though when This One arrived, I knew exactly where you were, and how many billion leagues away.”

“This temporary body of mine is a good one, a good gift that gave itself to me. I'll be able to hold on to it until we talk again.”

“The important thing is that Set is gone,” said Wad.

“Set isn't gone,” answered Danny. “He's still inside my body back on Mittlegard, and I don't know whether he's capable of taking control again. I know that if he sees a chance, he'll try. So I'm not coming to Westil, not in person.”

Wad nodded. “I think I need to go and get the king. His wife misses him.” He smiled at Anonoei, and to her relief, the smile was kind and gentle—though not without irony and just a touch of bitterness. That was the best part—that he seemed to harbor some regret that she would never again belong to him.

“If I didn't have so many reasons for hating Bexoi,” said Anonoei, “I would be jealous of her now because she carries her babies so high and lightly. I know the baby's due in a very short time, and yet I barely feel pregnant, compared to what it was like with both of the boys.”

“That's a comparison you should avoid making,” said Wad. “Because Bexoi only had one other son, and you never saw him.”

“And you did,” said Anonoei. “I'm so sorry that what
you
lost can't be restored to you.”

“I'm content,” said Wad. “The monster is gone.” Then he looked at Danny. “Or, well, one monster.”

Danny laughed. “Go and tell the king.”

Wad left at once. By gate, not by walking.

Anonoei laughed. “I think you're the only person that Wad could possibly obey.”

Danny looked flustered. “I didn't command him.”

“You didn't even say please,” said Anonoei.

“But I wasn't—I didn't—”

“No, you didn't,” said Anonoei. “But if you did command him, do you have any doubt whether he'd obey?”

Danny shook his head. But then the sound of shouting came, and someone running down a stone-floored corridor. When Anonoei looked up to suggest that Danny really ought to go, he was already gone.

 

11

Pat knew she should dislike Hermia so intensely that she would hate every moment she spent in her company. And for a while, stuck in Veevee's condo with Hermia, Pat tried to resist any kind of conversation. Terse replies, a clear sense that whenever Hermia spoke to her it was an inconvenience, a burden.

But that wasn't how Pat was raised. It bothered her to treat anyone with open rudeness. Pat knew how to be self-protectively quiet, but she also knew that she must answer politely when spoken to. The first rule of good manners was to make the other person comfortable.

I don't want Hermia to be comfortable.

You're not her jailor. You're not one of the Furies. Punishing her isn't your job.

And, when Pat was honest with herself, she had to admit that Hermia was not only personally charming, she had also experienced many things that Pat envied. World travel—even before gatemagery had reared its head. All the perks of being from a wealthy family. Superbly educated—far beyond anything available to Pat in Buena Vista, Virginia. And more than that—Hermia had seen Danny's wide-open gates and followed him, then practically
forced
him to learn how to close his gates. She took bold action at the first opportunity, and then tried to help him.