The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) (27 page)

Now Keel understood why Luvix had been so sure that he had killed Bexoi.

“I should have guessed it,” said Keel.

“No one else did,” said Anonoei.

“Except you,” said Keel.

“I don’t guess,” said Anonoei. “You must be more patient than you have been so far.”

“What if I choose to ignore your warning?”

“Then I’ll find someone else to help me,” said Anonoei, “and you can watch the people suffer as you destroy Iceway. As I said, my loyalty is not to Iceway, though our plans can help each other if you choose.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Keel, believing her but also knowing that his belief was probably the result of her magery.

“Give me time,” she said. “Give me a chance to go work my plans in Gray. Let me shape events so Gray’s ambitious heir grows impatient with his father. Let it be Gray that collapses in chaos, while Bexoi is here, nursing and protecting her second son. Let’s see whether her motherly love is stronger than her ambition. Either she’ll stay here and remain safe, or she’ll go—and leave her son behind.”

Keel did not have to say all that immediately came into his mind. That Anonoei wanted Bexoi’s son, and not one of her own, to be the pawn in the game of succession. That if Bexoi left her child behind, the child would be under Keel’s control. That if she took the child with her, King Prayard would be without an heir if something happened to Bexoi and the boy. That if she remained here in Nassassa, under Prayard’s protection, then Anonoei would have a free hand to work whatever mischief she and her gatemage friend might be planning for Gray.

It was a much better plan than anything that had been within Keel’s power.

“I wish I could trust my approval of your plan,” said Keel.

“I’m not that strong a manmage,” said Anonoei. “I can’t make you want what you do not want. I can’t make you fear what you do not fear. I can’t make you think of what you do not already know.”

“Then what
can
you do?”

“I can work on weak-minded people who don’t know what they want, who aren’t smart enough to fear what they should fear, and who think they know already what they do not know. That’s the drawback of manmagery—all our forced servants are weak and dull. So I come to you, not to be my servant, but to be my friend and ally.”

Keel thought of how, at a touch, she had made him want her.

But he must have shown on his face that he was thinking of this, because she shook her head. “I did not make you feel what you did not feel,” she said. “I made you aware of what you had always felt.”

And he knew that it was true. That all the time the King had loved Anonoei, Keel had also longed for her. He had such self-control that he had concealed his desire even from himself. But it was always there.

“Let’s be clear on one point,” said Anonoei. “I know you have that desire, and I am specifically
not
exploiting it. Whatever you do, you must do it in the full knowledge that I will
never
be yours. I have all the sons I need and want, and all the husbands, too. Do you understand?”

It was as if she had erected a wall of ice inside his loins. “I do not act for such reasons,” he said.

“That’s why you’re worth dealing with,” she said. “You’re good at what you do, and I am good at what I do, each within our limitations. Mage against mage, neither of us is a match for Bexoi. Perhaps no one is in all the world. But we won’t stand against her. In fact, we will stand
with
her, protecting her, protecting her son. As long as she and that boy are alive, Gray will be torn apart by conflicting ambitions. And by her choices, she will reveal herself and expose herself and, in the end, betray herself.”

“You have a plan far deeper than the one you’re telling me,” said Keel.

“And you will have plans within plans. But know this: I keep my word. I know that you keep yours. So if you promise me that you will act together with me, then I know that you’ll be my ally until you give me fair notice that our pact is over.”

“Yes,” said Keel. “You understand me well enough, and I make that pact. I will not take the King’s life. I will protect Bexoi and her baby. I will give you time to work your workings in Gray.”

Anonoei smiled. “I always knew you were the natural king of Iceway. Because only you act for the good of all, and not just for your family or your own ambition.”

“I have no ambition.”

“You have the large ambition of a patriot,” said Anonoei. She took him by the shoulders and kissed him on the mouth—not a woman’s kiss, but the kiss of a sister, a friend. “Count on me, and I will count on you.”

And then her hands were not on his shoulders, her breath not on his cheek. She was gone from the room, vanished in an instant. Her gatemage had taken her.

And Keel was left there alone with the deep longing for her that had never caused him pain before, because he had not known that it was there. He would die for her, kill for her. He loved her more than he loved his wife or his children, more than he loved his own life. More than he loved Iceway.

If only she would use her power to take this powerful desire away from him.

Yet if he lost that desire, who would he be? What would be in his heart then, if she were gone from it?

15

R
UNNING ON
A
UTOMATIC

It wasn’t a real track meet. Officially, it was an “exhibition” between two high schools, Rockbridge County and Parry McCluer, months before the actual season began. More like two boxers sparring to keep in shape. Like pre-season football. Like
nothing
.

Only you’d never know that from the way Coach Lieder was taking it. Apparently the future of the human race depended on the outcome of every event. If a Parry McCluer athlete won, the human race was safe for another year. If one of the kids from Lexington won, then the alien assault ship was that much closer to landing and enslaving all of human life. Lieder didn’t get angry at the losers, he got
despondent
. He even said, “We’re doomed, we’re doomed.” Even though his team was doing a little better than the other guys.

When the manager—a sophomore that Danny barely knew—pointed this out, Lieder looked at him with pity. “Oh, we don’t suck as bad as Rockbridge. That’s like going out with an ugly girl and saying, ‘Well, at least she’s breathing.’”

Since Danny suspected the manager had never gone out on any date, “breathing” would have been an improvement for him. But the kid wisely said nothing.

Danny won the 1600 and 3200 meters easily, but Lieder glowered at him and pointed out that he was nowhere near his best time. “It was a race,” said Danny. “I won it.”

“But you didn’t
try
,” said Lieder.

“I didn’t have to,” said Danny. And then inspiration struck. “You want to show these guys my best? In November?”

Lieder thought about this. “So you think you’re our secret weapon.”

“I’ve only been running competitively for a few weeks,” said Danny. “If I’m a weapon, it’s still secret from
me
.”

Lieder turned his back and walked away. Which, for Lieder, was like an apology.

But then Lieder got the bright idea of tossing Danny into the 200 meters with no prep.

“I’m tired,” said Danny.

“You don’t get tired,” said Lieder.

“Of course I get tired,” said Danny.

“Ricken is limping like a big baby. If you’re in the race, he’ll try harder.”

Danny had committed to the team, which meant obeying the coach, even when he was pushing his athletes too hard in an event that meant nothing. So he said, “Sure thing,” and went to take his place at the starting line.

The 200 was almost a sprint, like running a football field from one end zone to the other and back again. But it was Ricken’s big event and Danny wasn’t going to shame him in it. Even though Ricken was glaring at him as if jumping into his event had been Danny’s idea.

Danny passed a gate over Ricken, just in case he really had hurt his ankle like he said. Then, to be fair, he passed all the other runners through gates that took them no distance at all, but got rid of any fatigue or stress injuries or cramps they might be suffering. Let’s have an even playing field, thought Danny. Everybody do your best.

It turned out that Ricken’s best was better than Danny’s after all. Of course, Ricken actually cared and Danny was tired. He hadn’t passed
himself
through a gate, so he was still fatigued from the two longer races. Truth to tell, though, he might have been able to stay ahead of Ricken when he made his move at the end. But Ricken wanted it, it was his event, and Danny didn’t want to be an asshole.

“You asshole,” said Ricken, still panting after the race. “You let me win.”

“You mean I didn’t trip you?” asked Danny. “I didn’t shove you?”

“You didn’t
sprint
.”

“I ran the thirty-two and the sixteen already today. I didn’t
have
a sprint in me.”

“You moron!” shouted Lieder as he approached.

“He talking to me or you?” asked Danny.

“Must be me, because you’re not a moron, you’re an asshole,” said Ricken. But he punched Danny lightly in the arm and moved off. They both knew it was Danny that Lieder was yelling at.

“I send you into the 200, you run the 200!”

“Ricken and I left all the Rockbridge guys licking our sweat,” said Danny. “And Ricken didn’t show injury, did he?”

“I don’t send you in to inspire the other guys,” said Lieder. “I send you in to win.”

Danny stood there.

“You got anything to say for yourself?”

“Besides how I already won two races?”

“Without trying.”

“But without losing.”

Again a silence.

“You’re still at war with me, aren’t you?”

“No sir,” said Danny. “The 200 is Ricken’s distance. He trains for it. He’s better than me.”

“Bull pucky,” said Lieder.

Danny leaned close and talked softly. “I told you I don’t compete. I hate competing. Ricken competes. He cares.”

“Start caring,” said Lieder.

“If I cared about track,” said Danny, “would I be at Parry McCluer, with you as my coach?” Danny turned his back and walked away. Not toward the stands. Not toward the team. But toward the fence, which he scrambled over almost like a hop, and then across the road. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like he was walking off the team. But to Danny’s more discerning perceptions, he was merely walking off the field because his last event was over.

Lieder must have seen this too, because he didn’t yell at Danny to get his butt back with the team, and all the usual abuse.

Or maybe it was because Nicki was there talking to her dad. Calming him down maybe. Or telling him that she liked putting her tongue in Danny’s mouth and so he’d better not piss the boy off. Whatever.

Danny didn’t go to the parking lot where the team bus was waiting. Instead, he started running up Greenhouse Road, away from Highway 11. Let it look like he was blowing off steam.

What he was really doing was following the voices.

He had learned to ignore the clamor of the captive gates; they were not so much voices as inchoate longings that did not speak to anything in Danny’s experience. They felt distant to him, though in the abstract he felt bad about their long captivity. That vague compassion had been, he supposed, the reason he had included the most eager of them in the Great Gate he made in Silvermans’ barn. Hadn’t that turned out well.

The voices that had been Loki’s own gates, however, were a different matter. At first their nagging chant had been like the pulse of a large beast, another heart beating somewhere in his body. Gate, gate, gate, they intoned; and when he made the Great Gate, they had seemed to panic. But them, too, he had pressed down and kept at bay, so that he could concentrate on other things. He thought that it must be rather like tinnitus, the unceasing whine that some people hear constantly in their ears. You just learn to blank it out.

But in the days since Loki had
given
his gates to him, everything had changed. The constant throb of gate, gate, gate was gone. At first, what remained had seemed to him like silence, except for the distant clamor of the captives that remained inside him.

It was not silence, though. It was something different. These gates that had once seemed almost insane in their monomania were now attentive, observant. Danny felt himself being watched. But not in an unfriendly way, not by a stranger. Rather it was as if his own inmost mind, the part of his mind that watched his conscious thoughts and responded to them, had been joined by others. They did not judge him, but they had suggestions.

That was what had taken him a while to understand. They did not speak in words. Even the gate-gate-gate of the past had not been in actual language. It was deeper than language. He knew the meaning of the pulse of desire. But he could not have named the language it was being spoken in, and then concluded that it was no language at all. It was self-speech. As was their conversation now.

Voices, then, but not words. And yet remembering their suggestions, even a half-moment later, he thought of them as words. His own words. His own language. Just as his conscious mind translated the impulses that came from his deep observer-mind into language the moment they surfaced into consciousness. When Loki gave his lost gates to Danny, they had become, if not an actual part of himself, the most intimate of friends. They were on his side. Their suggestions were designed to help him do better.

They did not care much about what happened with Coach Lieder, because Danny didn’t actually care that much. It was a part of the high school life that he had desired, but since arranging to come to Parry McCluer, things had become quite strange, and the whole enterprise of American public education seemed a little pointless to Danny. Homework? Really? A track team? He was going through the motions now.

To him, the only thing real about high school was his friends. His feelings about them—and Loki’s gates agreed. About
them
they had suggestions, though mostly they reinforced his own intentions. Don’t let Xena think for a moment that you return her imaginary affection—check. Pat might be something real; don’t mess with her or hurt her if you can help it. Check. Trust Hal, because he can be counted on, but recognize that Wheeler is the slave of impulse and doesn’t know how to keep his word. Right, right.