The Lost Gate (48 page)

“I will,” she said, and closed her eyes. Then she opened them, reached out and touched Wad, then drew back her hand as if she had burned herself.

“If there is any blessing in me,” Wad replied, “then it is yours.”

She arose and ran up the path that led to the abandoned hovel.

Wad gated himself to the tree in the Forest of Mages, where he had lived so long. He gathered in the last of all his gates and pressed himself against the tree. “Take me back,” he murmured. “I have failed at everything.”

But the tree did not obey. Perhaps without his power it did not know him. Perhaps his time for dwelling in a tree had passed. But Wad remained there, clinging to the rough bark, because he had no other place to go.

“Trick,” he whispered. “My son, my son, if only I had died and you had lived. O Trick my son.”

23

G
ATEFATHER

He heard them calling to him, as if from far away. Leslie, weeping over him, saying over and over, Danny, come back, Danny, we need you, please come back. Marion, his voice stern: Daniel North, you have work to do. Get your chores done before you play. Do you think a farm runs itself? Stone, speaking softly, We have to know what happened, Danny. You have to report to us. This is all wasted if we don't understand. Danny, come back to me.

Veevee and Hermia didn't speak to him. Instead he felt them, felt a pinching and a caressing inside himself, probes that moved through him, not in his body, not even in his mind, but in that place where his gates all stayed.

Only gradually did he realize what they were doing. All the screaming outselves that had been drowning out his own thoughts, threatening to swallow him up in their agonized, frustrated wishes and demands, one by one they were closing, closing, closing, as Hermia worked to shut them all. Meanwhile Veevee was touching the ones that Hermia had not yet reached, as if to assure them that they were being heard, they did not have to scream, they would be heard if they only spoke one at a time, each in turn, not all at once like this, patience, patience.

Only one voice inside him was not touched or closed or changed. It was the outself of the Gate Thief, and he was not screaming. Not shouting, not doing anything.

Pulled out of his stupor and terror and solitude by the voices of his friends, freed from more and more of the burden of all the stolen gates by Hermia and Veevee, it was to the outself of the Gate Thief that Danny turned.

Who are you? Danny asked, not in words, but as a kind of exploration. Why did you try to steal my heart? What did you want? What did you fear?

Bel Bel Bel Bel, came the answer. Only it wasn't an answer. It was simply a kind of watchfulness, a continuous probe. Let Bel not come into the world again, he will eat us all this time, he will ride the drowthers, all of them, ride them through the gates to Westil, he will devour us all. Close the gates, all the gates, keep the worlds apart. Is that a gate? Is there a gate? Gate? Gate?

Gradually Danny came to understand that the Gate Thief's outself was simply continuing to do the task that had been set for it, waking and sleeping, for centuries. Watch for a Great Gate, for any gate, wake me when a gate appears, all gates must be stopped, must be eaten, must be owned. No gates anywhere, or the enemy will make it through.

It was still the war with Bel. Carthage was long since broken, plowed and salted, but still the Gate Thief watched out for the dangerous and implacable foe.

Gate Thief? Danny knew him now. It was Loki. It had always been Loki, the Last Loki, the one who closed the gates between the worlds. Somehow he was still alive, still watching, and until Danny ate his outself, he had still been laboring to keep the worlds apart.

Why? Danny asked, again and again. But Loki's outself did not hear him. Instead it continued its vigil, intensely watching, scanning.

Lying where he was, still hearing the other captive outselves, still feeling Hermia and Veevee inside him, still hearing the voices of Leslie, Marion, and Stone, Danny made a gate, a single gate, going only an inch or two.

Immediately Loki's outself outshouted everything. Gate gate gate gate gate! And Danny felt what Loki's outself made him feel: Must consume the gate, must eat all the gates this mage will ever make. Danny was
hungry.
And yet it was his own gate that he would have to eat, if he was to satisfy Loki's need.

The Gate Thief had carried this hunger around inside himself for more than thirteen centuries.

“He made a gate,” said Hermia aloud.

“A locked one,” said Veevee. “Very small.”

“Was it Danny who made it?” Hermia asked. “Or has the Gate Thief taken him over from the inside?”

Danny opened his mouth and tried to speak.

Leslie cried out, “He's trying to talk! Hush!”

“You're the only one being loud, my love,” said Marion.

Danny searched for his own voice, the one the outside world could hear. “It's me.”

He opened his eyes. “Still in the gym?” he asked.

“We didn't know if we could move you,” said Veevee.

“And Ced didn't make it back through the gate,” said Marion.

“He didn't want to come,” said Leslie.

“But we came back,” said Marion. “We touched the earth of Westil and then we came right back. While you fought, we made the passage.” The awe in his voice was almost palpable.

“So move us some mountains, tough guy,” said Danny, his voice feebler than he expected. “What about Stone?”

“I didn't go,” said Stone. “I stayed with Veevee. What would I do with more power? Grow giant tomatoes and get my picture in the paper?”

“Florist shop?” asked Danny. “How long?”

“Half an hour, maybe,” said Veevee.

“Who's crying?” asked Danny.

“Leslie, of course,” said Veevee.

“And Hermia,” said Stone.

“Oh, really?” asked Veevee. “I thought she was still busy locking gates.”

“I am,” said Hermia. “I'm not crying. Shut up.”

“We thought we lost you,” said Veevee. “So many gates, so many outselves. We couldn't imagine how you could contain them. Keep them from taking you over. Especially with the Gate Thief's outself in you—so thick with power, so … but the dust of your outself overwhelmed him. You're really something, Danny.”

“My gates?” asked Danny.

“All inside you,” said Hermia.

“The Great Gate?”

“Especially that one.”

“Make it again,” said Danny.

“Not yet,” said Veevee. “You don't know what would happen.”

“What about Ced?”

“He
chose
to stay,” said Marion. “He could have made it back. You can open another Great Gate in a day, a week. Let him do what he wants to do there. In a month you can go to him. Give him a chance to do what he can do as the most powerful windmage in Westil.”

“If he
is
the most powerful,” said Stone.

“If you try to make the Great Gate again,” said Hermia, “you don't know what the Gate Thief will do. He's not dead. If you open up a way for him to come through, he might know a way to take it all back again—his own outself, the captives, and you as well. He's still dangerous.”

Danny nodded. His head hurt. “My head hurts.”

“You hit the floor kind of hard,” said Veevee. “I'm thinking we need to pass you through a gate. You might have a concussion.”

“He might have fractured his skull,” said Leslie.

“Can you put yourself through a gate?” asked Hermia.

Danny took the little gate that he had made and passed the mouth of it over his own head, then down his entire body.

He felt fine now. He sat up. Stood up.

“You beat him,” said Hermia, grinning. Then she threw her arms around him. “You beat the Gate Thief.”

“It's Loki,” said Danny. “The Gate Thief is Loki. The very one.”

“After thirteen hundred years?” asked Stone, incredulous.

Hermia let go of him, stepped back. “I guess he really wanted to keep the worlds apart,” she said.

“Well, Ced is there now,” said Stone. “And Marion and Leslie went through to Westil and back again.”

“Powerful cows,” said Danny to Leslie.

She strode to him and hugged him tightly.

“What now?” Danny asked them all.

“We get the rental car away from here,” said Veevee. “Which means I have a drive ahead of me.”

“You've put enough miles on the car for them to believe you actually used it,” said Danny. “I'll gate you back. The rest of you—Yellow Springs?”

“They certainly don't want to stay in the miserable shack you're living in here,” said Veevee.

“Let's get out of here,” said Danny. And added, to Marion, “Now that we know how to do it, we can rig our own rope in the barn.”

They came to the crash doors, pushed them open.

A huge bird dropped on top of Danny and knocked him to the ground, started pecking at him savagely. Danny instantly gated about ten feet away and, completely uninjured now, jumped to his feet.

Thor was there, about two rods off, and Baba and Mama were with him. Thor was yelling at the bird. “Stop it, Zog! Stop!” The bird was beating with its great wings, moving angrily toward Danny.

Then the bird was calm.

“I can't believe Uncle Zog would give up,” said Danny.

“He didn't,” said Leslie. “I took the bird away from him.”

“You can do that?” asked Danny.

“Nobody can do that,” said Thor.

“I've been to Westil,” said Leslie. “I still can't ride a beast that isn't bound to me, but I can break anyone's connection with their heartbound. Do you understand me?”

The ground trembled under them.

“Gyish!” cried Baba. “Don't!”

Now Danny saw Gyish standing near the Family's truck. Gyish was paying no attention to Baba. A crevice opened in the ground at Danny's feet.

Danny simply gated to one side.

A new crevice opened.

“Oh, for pete's sake,” said Marion.

A gash opened in the earth under Gyish and the old man dropped down into it. So did the truck.

Mama screamed.

“Marion, what have you done!” cried Leslie.

“Don't worry,” said Danny. “I gated the old man away and sent him home to the compound as soon as he fell in.”

“You didn't have to,” said Marion. “I wasn't going to kill him.”

Leslie strode toward Baba and Mama and Thor. “Yes, he made a Great Gate. Yes, the Gate Thief tried to take him. But Danny is the greatest Gatefather who ever lived. Get it? He fought the Gate Thief and he won!”

“Oh, Danny!” cried Mama. “It's what we hoped for you!”

“This is why we kept you alive,” said Baba. “So you could make a Great Gate for us.”

“How kind of you,” said Danny.

“Now let us through,” said Baba. “Let us go through the gate.”

“It doesn't exist right now,” said Hermia.

“But you can make it again,” said Mama. The greed in her eyes was more than a little scary.

“If I decide to,” said Danny. “But one thing is certain, Mama, Baba, Thor. No one from the North Family will ever use it.”

If he had stabbed a knife into his father's heart, he could not have looked more stunned. “You're my son!” Baba cried. “We made you for this!”

“How many gatemages before me did the Families murder?” said Danny. “Thank you for not killing me. Thank you for not murdering your own son. What a sacrifice. I have better parents now. If you come anywhere near us, I'll gate you to the Moon. Do you understand me?”

Thor was about to say something, but before he could get any words out, Danny gated them all back to the Family compound.

“So how do you really feel?” asked Stone.

“Give me credit here,” said Danny. “I didn't kill them.”

“Should I bring the truck back up to the surface?” asked Marion. “It isn't damaged much.”

“Crush it,” said Danny. “They can buy another, and think of me whenever they use it.”

“Can we visit my Family next?” asked Hermia.

“All in good time,” said Stone. “What you just did was probably a mistake. It's their worst fears realized—it gives them all the more incentive to kill you. You'll be able to remake the Great Gate and send only your friends—their enemies—through it. It'll be the destruction of their Family.”

“I suppose you're right,” said Danny.

“We can work it out,” said Marion. “Negotiate. No more killing of gatemages. They turn gatemages over to us as soon as they're identified. And when we make a Great Gate again, each Family can send one member through and right back again. If we promise to share equally, maybe we can keep a war from breaking out.”

“And gates for everybody,” said Stone. “Leading from Family to Family. Public gates that can't be closed, so everybody can check on everybody else without buying an airplane ticket.”

Danny laughed.

“What's funny?” said Veevee. “I wet myself a little when he opened up that crack in the ground.”

“I just—we had no plan for this,” said Danny. “For complete, total success.”

“It isn't total,” said Hermia. “The Gate Thief—Loki—he's still there, and he knows a lot more than any of us. The Families can't be trusted even if they make the most solemn promises. We're safer than we were, but only barely.”

“You really are a pessimist, aren't you?” said Stone.

“Danny won,” said Hermia. “But only by taking Loki by surprise. Now it's time for us all to knuckle down and
study
this. So when Danny faces him again, he'll have a better idea of what he's doing. Did Loki have anything left, Danny, or did you take it all?”

“He has six gates left,” said Danny. “Or at least that's all I sensed before I cut him off.”