The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (8 page)

Florian was nodding, looking a little more alert. “That makes sense. I bet the circle on the
Ravenna
changes as the ship moves. That it would feel different to you here in Capistown harbor than it did when we looked at it on the voyage here, in your world.”

“Right.” Tremaine folded her arms. “So we need to test it.” They all knew testing it meant using it, sending someone through. The Viller Institute had tried the first circle a few times before successfully making it work. Of course, it had been the badly constructed spheres that had killed the sorcerers involved, not the circle itself. Though somehow she didn’t find that very comforting at the moment.

“Those experiments were a little expensive, if you recall,” Ander pointed out, his expression dry.

“Yes, Ander, oddly enough I do recall Riardin’s dying before my eyes as his sphere destroyed itself in an etheric explosion,” Gerard said, still looking distractedly around for his scattered notes. “Nevertheless, I’ll be making the experiment myself.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Nicholas said, watching him with a trace of concern. “If Arisilde was trying to show us how he became trapped in the sphere, and this circle has something to do with that—”

“Oh, hell.” Tremaine stared at Gerard, horrified. She hadn’t thought of that. “You shouldn’t go, Gerard.”

Florian pushed to her feet, alarmed. “She’s right, Gerard. There’s dangerous and there’s…
dangerous
.”

“I’ll go,” Ilias said suddenly.

“No, you won’t,” Tremaine said, startled, at the same time as Giliead, sounding aghast, said, “What?”

Ander stepped forward, as if no one had spoken. “I’m obviously the one to go.”

“Why?” Ilias demanded, turning to glare at him. “I’ve done it more than you have.”

Ander rounded on him impatiently. “You don’t understand the spell. You don’t have any idea what happens when—”

Ilias snorted derisively. “And you do?” He flung an arm in the air. “Explain it to us, then.”

Not sure which one of them she wanted to argue with, Tremaine pointed out, “Hey, I’ve done it more than both of you put together—”

“Children, quiet,” Nicholas snapped. In the sudden startled silence he lifted a brow in ironic comment, and added, “Let’s listen to Gerard, shall we?”

Gerard gazed at the ceiling as if asking it for patience. “I’m going because I’m the sorcerer and it would rather help to be able to return.”

“But I could—” Florian began.

“No.” Gerard told her, pausing to look at her over his spectacles. Florian could use a sphere to make a circle work, but her results hadn’t always been ideal. “I appreciate the offer, but no.”

As Florian subsided reluctantly, Ander put in, “Of course, but you’ll need someone to—”

Gerard interrupted, “And I accept Ilias’s offer to accompany me.”

“And me,” Tremaine added, alarmed that she might actually be left out. It wasn’t fair. Going through strange circles was one of her few accomplishments.

“No.” Gerard told her. “I want to keep the first expedition to a minimum.”

First expedition?
Now Gerard was being a rampant optimist, to assume there would be a second. “But I always go. It’s… lucky,” Tremaine finished self-consciously as everyone stared at her.

“Not this time,” Gerard said firmly.

N
ow that the decision was made, Ilias was impatient to get it over with. “Shouldn’t you take some more time?” Florian asked, looking over to where Gerard stood near the circle. The wizard was still going through his papers but he had put on his coat, apparently the only precaution he was going to take. The other men were waiting with him, except for Giaren, who was still using the talking curse box to speak to Niles. Florian turned a little hopelessly to Ilias. “To make more preparations?”

“Like what?” Ilias slung his baldric over his shoulder and checked the set of his sword in the scabbard. He knew from what Gerard had said, and his own past experience, that either all would go well and they would quickly return, or it would go badly immediately.

Tremaine folded her arms, pacing impatiently. She had been running her hands through her hair, disordering it as if she had just gotten out of bed—which made him want to be in bed with her right now. “This is going to drive me crazy,” she said, sounding more angry than anything else.

“Now you know how we felt when you made that first experiment with Gerard,” Florian told her sharply.

Tremaine was unimpressed. “Yes, that’s why I always go. Then I don’t have to feel this way.”

Giliead had been standing at Ilias’s elbow, radiating increasing impatience. Finally, he said, “I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t— Hey!” Giliead seized his arm and hauled him into the cold hall, then through the first open door to one of the empty bedchambers. Ilias banged into the door and grabbed it, planting his feet to halt himself. “What?” he demanded, jerking his arm free.

Giliead planted his hands on his hips, glaring at him. “You don’t know where this thing will take you. Think what happened last time—”

“Either the sphere has a god in it or it doesn’t. And either we trust it or we don’t,” Ilias said, his voice flat with irritation. “If you’ve got another choice, I’d like to hear it.”

Giliead grimaced. “Why are you doing this?”

Ilias took a deep breath, trying to actually answer the question and ignore the peremptory tone. “If I don’t do something, I’ll go crazy. The only thing useful I’ve been able to do in days is help clean a floor.” He shook his head in frustration, shrugging. “Besides, he can’t go alone. If that thing takes us to the middle of a Gardier outpost—”

Giliead gestured in annoyance. “Have you not noticed that he is a wizard? He can take care of himself.”

Ilias stared at him, then said through gritted teeth, “So I’m useless. I’m still going.”

“Hey, that’s not what I—” Ilias cut him off by slamming out of the room, managing to bang Giliead with the door in the process.

He stamped down the hall and back to the ballroom, where everyone was gathered. Gerard was standing inside the curse circle now, the god-sphere tucked under his arm, still reading the sheaf of paper in his other hand.

“Hey.” Tremaine caught Ilias’s baldric as he passed her, forcing him to stop or strangle himself. She was frowning but instead of speaking she pulled herself forward and kissed him. The kiss deepened until their teeth scraped, then she released him. She still said nothing, but at the moment she didn’t need to. He knew Pasima was right, that he couldn’t live in Tremaine’s world, and what was between them had been born out of expediency. He could admit to himself he still didn’t know what it was they had together. And now he had to go off and hopefully not get killed.

He went to stand next to Gerard in the circle, conscious of everyone’s eyes on him. Giliead had followed him into the ballroom and stood next to Tremaine now, arms folded, watching him worriedly.

Gerard glanced up, folding the paper and tucking it carefully inside his coat. He said, “Ready?” He looked as if he just wanted to get it over with. Ilias felt the same. He nodded tightly.

Nicholas said in Rienish, “Good luck, gentlemen.”

Ilias was braced to fall into water. Every time he had been through the world-changing curse, it had been over water. Sometimes very cold water. The sphere sparked blue and spun, and the room vanished. His stomach lurched from a sudden drop and he felt the floor fall away under him. An instant later he landed on hard stone, staggering to keep his balance and stay on his feet.

Heart pounding, Ilias looked around wildly, reaching for his sword hilt. They were outside, in gray daylight, under the partial shelter of a soaringly high rocky overhang. Nothing moved nearby except Gerard, shakily getting to his feet a few paces away.

Ascertaining that they weren’t dead and weren’t about to be leapt on by anything, Ilias took a deep breath and actually looked at the place.

The ledge they stood on extended some fifty paces beyond the shelter of the giant overhang, ending in a jagged cliff. Beyond it was a sweeping view of a cloudy morning sky and the wall of a canyon. A dark green band of forest topped the buttressed cliffs directly across the gorge and clumps of greenery clung in pockets up and down the rock, all wreathed in drifts of mist. The air was fresh and cold and the roar of falling water echoed off the rock. Ilias moved forward, far enough to peer over the edge, and saw there was a broad river several ship’s lengths below. Further away, a cluster of toweringly high falls at the end of the canyon fed it, the water plunging dramatically in cascades of spray. Despite the cloud-streaked sky, it was a beautiful sight, the dark green against the gray of the rock, the whitecapped rush of the water.

Behind him, Gerard swore softly in awe. Ilias glanced back at him and saw the wizard wasn’t reacting to the view. He turned to look.

The gray-veined walls of the overhang were carved with square columns, narrowing as they arched up to gather in a domed circle on the rock high overhead. The floor had been smoothed by human hands and etched with strange symbols— Ilias skipped back away from the markings on the stone, realizing they were from the world-changing curse and formed a large circle.

“It’s all right,” Gerard said, though he sounded a little overwhelmed. He was looking around at the symbols, the sphere tucked under one arm. “It won’t—shouldn’t hurt to touch them.”

Ilias let his breath out, nodding. He looked around at the overhang again, following the line of columns. “Look, it’s broken off.” The right-hand wall was missing a last column entirely and the other had only the jagged remnants of one. “The end of the chamber is sheared off.” He carefully stepped over the curse circle and crossed the distance to the end of the ledge to look directly down, stepping cautiously as he drew near the edge in case it crumbled. He sat on his heels, leaning out to see the gray-green surface of the river below.

“My God, yes,” Gerard said, following him. “If these columns were evenly proportioned, there was at least another section of about this size extending out over the water.”

“Maybe more than that.” Ilias could see huge chunks of stone thrust up out of the water all along the rocky bank so far below, each creating whitecapped waves and eddies as the water rushed past. If that amount had fallen on the bank, no telling how much littered the deeper water toward the center.

A flock of birds flew by, white with long thin bodies and large graceful wings. Ilias stood and backed away from the edge. The cold was making the scars on his back ache, but at least it was clean air, fresh as the morning of the world. “Do you know where we are?”

Gerard shook his head. “I have no idea. I know we’re somewhere in your world, but that’s all I can say.”

“It looks a little like the Wall Port, like the same people built it,” Ilias pointed out, then found himself unable to say exactly why he felt that way. As Gerard stared at him expectantly, he gestured helplessly. “The way it’s so big. Or something. I don’t know.”

But Gerard frowned, looking over the chamber. “Perhaps you’re right. But this is clearly a spell circle and these symbols match the new ones Arisilde gave us. Though I don’t see any specific spot for the antagonist—the sphere or crystal—that controls it.”

Ilias headed toward the back wall, slowing his steps to let his eyes adjust to the shadows. The stone was darker back here as well, making it harder to see the carvings. Gerard stopped, tracing a band of faded figures with his fingertips. Following the curve of the wall, Ilias felt the faint rush of air from the doorway before he saw it. Closer, and he could see the narrow opening, set between two of the pillars. He paused in it, squinting to see. It was carved back into the cliff, and dim daylight filtered down through cracks in the rock, illuminating a wide passage with more rooms opening off it.

“It doesn’t appear to have been recently occupied,” Gerard observed, stepping to his side.

Ilias took a deep breath, tasting the breeze. The air held stone dust, moss, water, bird droppings, with no scent of human presence, at least not nearby. “Not this part of it, anyway.” He glanced at Gerard; he knew they had found something important. “The people who lived here, they made the world-changing curse.”

Gerard nodded grimly. “Yes, that spell circle carved into the rock is at least as old as the rest of this place.”

Ilias moved down the passage to the first door, taking a cautious look inside. It was a big room, dimly lit by an old crack in the high rocky ceiling, roughly squared off, with a circle of low stone blocks in the center. The circle was about the right size for a fire pit. Ilias stepped inside, but it was too dark to make out old burn marks on the stone or soot stains on the rock above it. This might have been a room for living in, though there wasn’t a stick of furniture or scrap of cloth left to prove it. There were carvings on the walls, in parallel bands, and half columns carved out to make it look as if they were supporting the rock overhead.

He went back out to the passage. Gerard had made a light, a little floating ball of yellow-tinged illumination, drifting along after him as he investigated a room across the way. Ilias had to shake his head, thinking of how a little wizard light like that would frighten people back in Cineth. He snorted to himself. That was the least of their problems. Gerard glanced up, asking, “Find anything?”

“Just another empty room.” This one was bigger and lacked the fire pit, and had an opening into the next empty chamber. Like the other, it was clean except for drifts of dust and blown leaves.

Gerard frowned thoughtfully, running a hand through his hair as he looked around. “We’ll have to come back when it’s evening here. If those clouds abate, we can get a look at the stars and have a better idea where we are in your world.” He stepped back out into the passage, the wizard light bobbing along after him. He stood there a moment, looking down the shadowy corridor. “Unless we can find more writing, or more significant carving, back there….”