Megan Lindholm - The Limbreth Gate

Aslender red fissure appeared in the wall, dividing the stone like a snake cutting through water.

The Windsinger had no breath to give the cry of relief she felt. Instead she gathered her strength again, and let it flow from her. The stony goddesses and bearded warriors in bas relief on the wall stared past her unseeing. The uncertain light of her fluttering lamp touched their high cheekbones and rounded arms, but left their eyes in darkness. Yoleth paid no heed to them. They had stalked the walls of Jojorum long before she was born, and would still be slowly weathering away long after she was gone. The creeping fissure split the smiling lips and smooth brow of a minor deity.

The city was still; Yoleth had lulled the wind to silence, and the crowing of cocks and the stirrings of market stall farmers were still hours away. The soft dust of the city streets lay as fine as talc over the ancient paving stones. In all the predawn city, only Yoleth was awake and striving.

A fine haze of sweat misted her lightly scaled skin. It damped the tall blue cowl that framed her narrow face, sticking it to her brow and the back of her neck. Her eyes, grey streaked with white, narrowed with the intensity of her effort. Her arms were folded before her, slender hands clasping one another's wrists within the voluminous sleeves of the blue gown that proclaimed her a Windsinger of rank. Her body was still but her mind groaned with effort.

She must not waver now. Carefully she blanked her mind again, losing her identity, letting her strength be tapped by the Limbreth on the other side. The seam became a jagged crack. The dark red light that glowed through it was like a fire seen through treetrunks at night. The edges of the opening became regular, forming a tall thin rectangle. Her body steamed beneath her robes; the fine cloth grew heavy with damp. The rectangle stretched wider.

Yoleth struggled to remain apart from it. Curiosity broke and bubbled in her; she longed to peer through the opening Gate. But if the Limbreth were to be successful, she must not divert any of her mind's power. The Limbreth must control her vision and use her will to see the Gate from this side. She did not know how much longer she could support that need and remain standing. She banished the thought, trying for these moments not to think, not even to be.

The Gate was as wide as a Human now, and taller. But that would not be enough. She heard the hiss of her own breath between her teeth. With an effort that made the edges of the Gate waver, she returned her breathing to its deep regularity. The edges of the Gate firmed. The Limbreth stretched it wider. She felt herself drawn thinner with the effort. There. Surely that was wide enough now. But the Limbreth continued, drawing the sides of the Gate farther and farther apart. Her legs began to tremble, and she could not still them. Her strength was stretched thin as wire.

Slowly she sank to her knees, her robes wilting about her like the petals of a dying flower. Her proud head sagged forward. The Keeper stepped into the Gate, holding it, and Yoleth fell. The lamp beside her guttered, smoked, and went out.

The Keeper filled the Gate and held it. Yoleth's task was done; strength flowed back into her. She dragged herself to her feet, resuming a Windsinger's dignity. A trill from her throat brought a tiny breeze that cooled her skin. Withdrawing a small blue handkerchief from her sleeve, she dried her face daintily. She gave a short sigh; a flick of her hand stilled the breeze. 'It's done.'

'Yes,' the Keeper agreed, his voice like stones falling into a still pool. Yoleth regarded him with some curiosity. He was a squat and sexless thing, clad in layers of garments so ragged that they effectively concealed the shape of his torso and legs. His arms were lissome and shapely for all their grey color. His hands had three thick fingers that ended in squared-off nails. A shapeless hood hung low over his brow, but concealed no eyes. Two slitlike nostrils flared as he breathed, and his mouth was a puckered seam. But he it was that filled the Gate and held it, his presence and training keeping open the rift between the worlds.

'I am Yoleth, of the Windsingers,' she announced formally.

'I am the Keeper of the Gate, servant of the Limbreth.' Whatever name he had ever borne had been swallowed by his duty. 'Where is the one who would go through the Gate?'

'She has not yet reached Jojorum,' Yoleth said hastily, surprised by his directness. 'Her route is not a straight one; bad roads may delay her. But I thought it best to have the Gate ready before she arrived.'

'Your snare is set, then, but the prey has not yet arrived.' The Keeper chuckled sonorously. 'By trickery and by treachery do they come, those who go through my Gate. Is she a fool or a victim of her trust in you?'

'That is none of your affair,' Yoleth rebuked him haughtily. 'My agreement is with your master, and your duty is to honor it.'

'As I shall. I shall sit within my Gate and wait. When you are ready to use the Gate, you have only to bring your victim here. I will be ready. I have already selected the one from our side that will enter your world to keep the balance.'

Yoleth frowned quickly, the Human lines of it wrinkling strangely the alienized contours of her face. 'But I understood that you would call her in for me; that I had only to tell you that she was within the city, and you could call her through the Gate.'

The Keeper snorted. 'Your tales of us must be old indeed. As well ask me to call a particular bird out of a flock in the sky. I can call one through the Gate, yes. But the choosing is not mine when I call one from your side. I can but call, and those unwary ones within the range of my call must answer.'

'Unwary?' Yoleth echoed. Her web, so beautifully simple, was tangling to uselessness with his every word.

'Surely you know what I mean. The ones who have let go the reins of their minds; the drunken, the grieving, the mad, or the extremely weary. Those I can call at random, and do, sometimes, for the sake of balancing the Gate, or to find a new mind to amuse my Master. But I cannot call one of your choosing. You must set your own trap; I can but spring it.'

'Once sprung, will it hold?' Yoleth doubted bitterly. 'This is not the bargain I made. It is not what I thought your master offered. What else will you tell me is different? The Limbreth said that once she was through the Gate, I need trouble about her no longer. Is that true, or is there a string on this as well? What assurances do I have that this Gate of yours will hold her in, or others out?'

'You have our word on these things,' the Keeper replied stiffly. 'I can call the unwary through the Gate. And the Gate is impassable, unless I will otherwise, for I am the Keeper of the Balance and the Matcher of Worlds! The Limbreth, with your aid, can open the Gate. But only a Keeper can reconcile the meetingof two worlds. Their differences alone are enough to seal the Gate against most passage; I am enough to seal it against anything else.'

'Prove it!' Yoleth snapped out the words.

The Keeper drew himself up straight. 'I know not why my master would have doings with those who doubt my words,' the Keeper grumbled. 'But if the Limbreth has agreed, who am I to refuse? Wait, then, and watch. Speak no word, I will wastefully spend the one already chosen from our side; I will reach and call for one from yours.'

The Keeper went silent. He stood unmoving within the rectangle of the Gate, his dark bulk limned by the deep reds behind him. Yoleth gazed past him in suspicion. She saw nothing but the red background that framed him, but it was an ever-shifting curtain of reds and umber shadows. Through the Gate, she knew, was the Limbreth world, a place that just touched but did not border the world of the Windsingers. Rumors of it were many, and old tales spoke of it; but what could be truly known of a land that no one returned from? Yoleth leaned forward, peering, but could see only into the Gate, not through it.