Nine Gates (49 page)

Gaheris had dropped his gaze to the carpet as Pearl spoke. Now he set down his sample case—clasped in his clenched fist since he had crossed the threshold—and bent his head. After a moment, he looked up and forced something like his usual grin.

“Yeah. You told me when you called all that about the House of Expansion. I guess I didn’t think you’d ask Brenda to step in when I couldn’t go.”

He drew a deep breath, and when he let it out, his shoulders had relaxed and his smile looked almost natural. “Brenda is probably fine, probably just a little frustrated by her ‘uselessness,’ even.”

“Or,” Pearl offered, “she is pleased because we have let her be part of something important. Either way, I’m certain she’s fine, just fine.”

Pearl glanced at Albert, hoping that her words sounded convincing to Gaheris. When she thought about the days that had passed, and the ambiguous results of the auguries they had cast since the expedition’s departure, she was less than certain that everything was “just fine.”

But I can’t swear
, she thought as she listened to Albert make stilted attempts at conversation with Gaheris as she ushered them to the kitchen and a snack she hoped would smooth over some of the awkwardness.
And I hope to heaven that Gaheris doesn’t ask me to do so.

Brenda wasn’t certain what finally made the transformation possible. Maybe it hadn’t been any one thing. Maybe it had
been the meditation Deborah had guided her through. Maybe it had been her memories of the little rat that had sat on her head and guided her from disaster.

Maybe—and she suspected this rather strongly—Deborah had used a little magic to push the tranformation along.

Whatever the case, after a timeless interlude, Brenda found herself looking at the face of a rat in the small mirror Deborah produced from a powder compact she took from her saddlebags.

As rats went, it wasn’t a bad-looking rat. The fur was silvery grey, and not in the least coarse. The—her—dark brown eyes were rimmed with a darker pigment, making them seem luminous, like she was wearing eyeliner. Her ears were pale pink. So was her long, naked tail.

Brenda had the most difficulty getting used to that tail. All the other parts of her Rat self more or less matched limbs she’d had before, but the tail was something else entirely. She could move it and curl it. It came in very useful for balancing when—under Deborah’s urging—she practiced standing on her hind legs.

“That’s good,” Deborah said. “Very good. You’re probably going to need to do that when you push up into the springs whatever our friends have concocted for the Leech. How are your paws for manipulation?”

Brenda tried and found them remarkably agile. They weren’t hands, but they weren’t as clumsy as she had worried they would be.

“That’s nice,” Deborah said with a slight sigh. “Pigs have trotters. It’s like having your hands in mittens knitted from steel wool. On the other hand—if you’ll pardon a humanocentric phrase—the snout is amazing.”

Brenda nodded. She’d already discovered that although she could squeak, she couldn’t talk. Deborah had told her that there were spells that permitted mental communication, but that they’d better check with Righteous Drum before trying one.

It turned out that this would not be necessary.

“Dragons,” Righteous Drum said, “are highly magical. When I am in that form, I will be able to understand Brenda if she wishes to talk to me.”

Can he read my mind?
Brenda thought dismayed.

Righteous Drum was not a father for nothing. He anticipated her question.

“No. I cannot read your mind, but if you ‘talk’ to me in whatever fashion seems most natural to a rat, then I will understand.”

Relieved, Brenda sat up on her haunches on Deborah’s shoulder. Her rat’s vision was different from her human vision—the focus narrower, the colors in some spectra more muted—but the difference didn’t bother Brenda. Her sense of smell was marvelously acute, as was her hearing. Her skin seemed more sensitive as well, fur and whiskers both transmitting a wealth of information.

Brenda glanced over at Riprap and Flying Claw and found them both looking at her: Riprap with a certain degree of doubt and admiration, Flying Claw with what she took for pleased speculation.

“What have you come up with while Brenda and I have been gone?” Deborah asked, looking at a makeshift table that had been constructed from the heaped saddlebags.

“Amulets of banishment,” Righteous Drum said. “Nine of them. I wrote three and Flying Claw—with Riprap using a spell of Knitting to enhance the available ch’i—wrote the other six.”

Deborah looked at the folded packets of paper. “Won’t the ink run off as soon as you go under water?”

“No. Proof against that has been written into the spell. When Brenda inserts each amulet into the appropriate intake tube, she will say ‘release.’ This will both give the spell a nudge in the right direction, and remove the waterproofing.”

Riprap met Brenda’s eyes, and Brenda thought he must have seen some aspect of her personality, because a tension went from his posture.

“Squeak ‘release’ actually,” Riprap clarified with a grin.
“We made sure the spell would be sensitive to intent, not actual sound. The ‘nudge’ Righteous Drum spoke of is similar to the spell they use when they’re throwing the spells—that stiffening that makes them fly like darts rather than blow around.”

Brenda squeaked understanding and felt her whiskers curl forward in what she realized was a rat’s equivalent of a smile. It felt simultaneously natural and very, very odd.

“The sun,” said Loyal Wind, “will not be here for a while yet. I have sent my associates back along the river so that we will have news of the sun’s arrival relayed almost as soon as it descends. Still, since none of your timekeeping devices are working, perhaps we should begin.”

Riprap glanced at his wrist from which he’d removed a useless watch soon after their arrival in the guardian domains.

“Who would have thought simple mechanical timepieces would be so hard to find on short notice? Everything at the stores Des and I hit used a battery.”

“Or that we would need watches,” Deborah agreed. “Des has promised to check while we’re away. We’ll have plenty next time we come this way. Now, Righteous Drum, are you ready?”

“I will be,” he said. “I will step away and meditate to focus my ch’i. Thanks to Riprap’s ability to assist Flying Claw, I needed to spend very little to make the amulets. I shall return shortly.”

And then
, Brenda thought, eyeing the dark chasm into which the Suns’ River made its thundering fall,
we’ll go.

Why Righteous
Drum had chosen to go away from the larger group to change his shape became readily apparent when he returned. Brenda had wondered, having read that, like the Rooster, the Dragon enjoyed showing off.

True, he’d probably have to strip unless he wanted to ruin his clothing. Deborah had told Brenda that clothing could be a real problem if the creature you were shaping was larger
than you or very differently shaped. Brenda hadn’t had this problem. She’d just crawled out of the tangle of her shirt, leaving the clothing behind like a shed skin.

This meant, of course, that she left her amulet bracelets as well, and leaving them left Brenda feeling more naked in some ways than did her lack of clothing.

Righteous Drum did not return by land. Instead, he swam down the shallows at the edges of the Suns’ River, sliding the length of his body between the larger rocks with sinuous grace. With the current to carry him, his missing foreleg did not appear to be much of a disadvantage.

“Flying Claw,” Righteous Drum said, revealing yet another advantage the Dragon had over the other members of the zodiac, “tie the amulets to my antlers if you would. Brenda, I believe you will find a somewhat wider, flatter area on my neck, directly behind my head. If you seat yourself there, you will be able to reach the amulets with ease.”

He had been treading water while he spoke, his long tail coiled around a rock to hold him steady. Now he came further into the shallows, resting a segment of his body against the stone of the riverbed, and raising his head.

Brenda very closely examined the dragon Righteous Drum had become as Deborah carried her down to the river.

Unsurprisingly, given his fondness for the color yellow in all its hues and shades, as a dragon, Righteous Drum had scales of a deep rich gold so pure that it was almost metallic. The scales that banded his belly were a lighter gold. His contrasting dorsal fin was a pearlescent white, as were his claws and antlers. The long whiskers that trailed from his lower jaw mingled white and gold in about equal parts, with the pair of long—almost tentacle-like—whiskers above each nostril being white.

His eyes, however, were brown, startling in their very human expression.

Brenda was squeaking at Deborah to let her down when Flying Claw turned from where he had been tying the amulets—each strung on a length of fine cord, this in turn
tied to a slightly thicker cord that was suspended between the two antlers. He reached up and took Brenda from Deborah’s shoulder, cupping her very securely in his warm hands.

Brenda felt very glad that rats couldn’t blush, because she was pretty sure she was blushing all over at the thought of her naked body cupped in those strong hands. Flying Claw carried her over to Righteous Drum and set her on the promised wider space.

“Riprap and I made you a seatbelt,” he said, showing her an extra strap tied to the one that connected to the amulets. “I will loop it so, and tie it snugly. It has sufficient play to permit you to move into the intake tubes, but it should keep you from getting carried off by a strong current.”

Brenda felt very grateful, and wished she could tell Flying Claw and Riprap how much she appreciated this, but when she tried, all she did was squeak.

She heard Righteous Drum chuckle. “Brenda asks me to tell you that she is very grateful for your forethought. She was so worried about everything else, that she didn’t think about something as mundane as currents.”

“Thank you, Righteous Drum,”
Brenda thought at him, shaping the words as if she were talking.

“No inconvenience at all,” he said. “Now, are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“Then we will go. Give us some time before you reenter the cavern where the Leech is,” he reminded the others. “Loyal Wind will have the best idea how long this may take us.”

“We’ll watch,” Deborah promised, walking swiftly along the bank of the river as Righteous Drum moved out into the current. “I’ve cast an All Green in the hope that we’ll see when your spell starts taking effect.”

Brenda had thought her fur would be plastered flat by the water, but apparently the dragon’s affinity for water included providing a protection from getting soaked, as well as the promised ability to breathe water. She felt the spray, but as
one would feel the touch of the wind: there, but not in the least cold or uncomfortable.

“Righteous Drum
,” she thought at the Dragon,
“just what is this spell we’re going to give the Leech? Someone called it a banishment spell—where are we banishing it to? Will banishing it kill it?”

“I don’t know,” Righteous Drum replied. “While you and Deborah were away, I did some calculations. One of these confirmed what we all felt—that the Leech is not, or is at least not wholly, a natural part of this place. We considered trying to poison it, but could not decide what poison to choose—after all, it might be immune. We considered trying to put it to sleep, but Riprap pointed out quite sensibly that since it was obviously meant to be a guardian, it might not need to sleep.”

“So you decided to banish it,”
Brenda said,
“to make it go back where it came from—and that’s why you don’t know if this will kill it. Okay, but why do we need to give the spell to each head? Wouldn’t one do?”

“It might,” Righteous Drum admitted, “but we decided to be careful. There are snakes that when cut into piece become a nest of snakes. We did not wish to risk creating more difficulties for ourselves. Now, we are approaching the lip of the chasm. Hold tightly. This will be where we go under.”

Brenda held on as tightly as her little rat claws would let her. She considered biting down on something, but decided against it. Righteous Drum might slap her like a fly, without realizing what he was doing. Or she might cut through her “seatbelt.”

The noise of falling water was deafening now, echoing up from the rocks, amplified by the rounded hole in the rock as a shout is amplified by cupped hands. She felt her ears fold down closer to her head and her whiskers flatten back against the length of her nose. Then they were going over the edge and as once before there was a sensation of falling.

This time, however, Brenda was not securely in a saddle
with knees to grip and hands to hold. Without the length of ribbon tied around her midsection, she might have been dragged away. As it was, she could feel her tail trailing behind her, snapping alarmingly as the competing forces of air and water pushed her about. Then there was a splash, more felt than heard, and they were in darkness, the thunder of falling water muffled, and only the fizz of air bubbles to remind her that they were under water.