Gatewright (20 page)

The
carriage was almost identical to the one that burned on the Emor road.  As
soon as I saw it, I jerked, expecting it to explode at any moment.  It
didn’t, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of profound dread.  Two unarmored
elohi
drove it, and another pair of
kawoli
, a cart with our tents
and gear.  Hands shaking, it took all my courage to get into the
carriage.  Riven’s mouth was a hard line as he watched me struggle, but
successfully kept himself apart.  I nodded to him, determined.  He
returned the gesture and called out for us to depart, swinging himself onto a
thickly-built bay stallion.  We rolled out, Riven riding comfortably next
to the carriage.  A mounted
amayi
alternated between scouting ahead
and behind, checking in with Riven at each interval.  I carefully noted
that all the fey with us – with the exception of their Kusay leader – wore the
beads of
adail.

I
stuck my head out of the window to peer up at him.  “Aren’t six
adail
kind of overkill? I thought you handled five assassins with just Hazel
before.  Are you expecting twenty assassins this time?  Just to kill
one human?”  I had sort of hoped that it would be a small contingent, and
not an entire squad of fey.

“I
have to honor my vow.  Any less and I would not be doing my utmost,” he
told me stiffly.  He refused to make eye contact and nudged his horse
forward.

“This
is gonna be
such fun.
” I growled and flopped back down onto the
cushioned seat.  I grabbed the cushion at the far end and tossed it to the
other side, intending to take a nap.  As soon as I moved it, however, a
book fell out from behind it.  I blinked in surprise before I whisked it
into my lap.  It was in Anowir.  Shit.  Julip hadn’t even taught
me enough for me to spell my own name, let alone read a book.

The
wind out of my sails, I opened it anyway to the front page.  Maybe I could
at least sound out the
title
so I could figure out what Riven – I assume
it was Riven – had given me.  My eyes widened.

“Oh.
My
. God.” I whispered, and turned the page to make
sure what I was seeing was real.

Riven
had transcribed the characters into English.  He hadn’t actually
translated it, but I could sound it out.  He’d done it for the first full
five pages, enough of an example I was sure I could figure out the rest.

And
the best part?  The title.  ‘
Theories on Gates
.’

I
was going to kiss that man so hard.

The
fey guards had no problem creating a comfortable atmosphere at our random
campsites with the supplies we had.  Using simple hand gestures, the two
elohi
worked in unison to shake the earth, dirt boiling in an area large enough for
our campsite.  Once they had broken up the ground, they set about evening
out the terrain, sweeping piles of dirt here and there until it was perfectly
level.  They reached out once more, and the ground settled into place, all
twigs, stones, and roots expunged from our site.

The
amayi
coaxed fresh water from the ground as needed, or pointed us to the
nearest stream if he was feeling lazy.  All of the fey said little in my
earshot, and it was always in hushed Anowir.  Riven’s infuriatingly cocky
attitude had returned, but at least he treated the
adail
with respect.
In return, they deferred to him, accepting his leadership willingly.  I
gave him as much sass as I dared without pissing him off
too
much. 
Trading barbs became a way of life, especially when it was exceedingly
difficult to hurt my feelings.  The more he harassed me, the more I knew
he was trying to protect me.

We
steered clear of the small villages we passed along the way, and barely greeted
the travelers we passed.  Riven always steered his horse to shield me from
any curious eyes.  My challenge was not letting my memories overwhelm
me.  Once, I was forced to put my head between my knees to keep from
passing out from quiet hyperventilation.  I hated myself for it.  It
felt weak.  But at least no one saw me.

No
one attacked us.  Perhaps they didn’t bother.  Or, perhaps, they saw
six
adail
and a formidable
atsili
and decided it was
suicide.  Either way, our journey went unremarked.  My other
challenge, when the panic lay dormant, was keeping my focus
off
of Riven
(both literally and figuratively) and keeping the boredom at bay.  I’d
never before had a road trip with so little conversation.

I
distracted myself as best I could with the book.  Each page was a struggle
to translate.  I kept it hidden behind the cushion, carefully pulling it
out when I was certain I had my privacy.  Then I would set to work, slowly
referencing each character to the pages Riven had already completed for
me.  It was excruciatingly slow.  Yet, I soon learned three
invaluable facts.

First,
hellstones were found randomly, sometimes just lying on the ground.  Most
interestingly, very often they were found in craters
.
Judging by the
description of the rocks, I started to believe they were actually
meteorites. 
The hellstones the author described were all larger than a fey’s head, so I
assumed a $20 souvenir meteorite from my local observatory wouldn’t cut
it.  What was it about outer space – or impossibly high speeds – that made
them tools of interdimensional travel?

Second,
gatewrights suddenly appeared only 400 years ago.  They were foreigners
‘from across the sea’, but the book offered no indication which sea or whether
they looked remotely human.  Just a lot of language about how dangerous
the gatewrights were to the fabric of society and how to potentially identify
one by mysterious absences and unusual habits.

Third,
the fey had a
really
low opinion of humankind.  The book continued
to circle back to abhor the latest human mistakes.  The author’s
information was sketchy and seriously outdated, illustrating earth as a real
hell.  It took me some time, but I deduced its latest info was from
shortly after World War II, as the Holocaust and the nuclear bomb were obsessed
over in excessive detail.  I wish I could say we’d progressed beyond that
utter horror, but it was always there, demons in our history and in the
forgotten places of the world, consuming the beauty of life like so much
tinder.

By
the time we began our approach into Emor, I’d gotten halfway decent at
reading.  I no longer needed to reference the more common symbols. 
Yet, my rising nerves cut short my ambitions.  Perhaps one day I’d get to
read the rest of the book, but it certainly wouldn’t be for a while.

My
companions became tense and terse the closer we came.  Riven instructed
me, quite forcefully, to be careful and defend myself “by any means
necessary.”  I stayed on my toes, as much as I could within the carriage
and with the curtains drawn.  I bent all of my energy listening, but all I
picked up was the ambient noise of the city and the plodding of the horses’
hooves.

I
remained nervous and hypersensitive for the two hours it took us to travel from
the outskirts of Emor to its crystalline center.  When we finally stopped,
Riven
opened the door and guided me from the carriage
into the now-familiar fanciful entryway.  His guards took up positions on
either side of us, to the front and to the back.  A second contingent of
fey fell into step behind us as we headed down the glass halls toward Emor’s
gate.  Ping-pong balls instead of butterflies bounced around in my
stomach.

“Jack’s
gift to me is with your gift to me,” I whispered.  I’d reluctantly tucked
the knife next to
Theories on Gates
in its hiding spot behind the
pillow.  I had no idea what sort of situation I would be walking into on
the other side, and I wanted to give the humans one less reason to overreact.

We
entered the gate’s impressive chamber, and I swallowed hard.  I’d never
seen so many fey in one room; I had never felt so vulnerable.  Over forty
fey turned from milling with each other as one to evaluate me with hard,
emotionless eyes.

One
brunette fey, probably about Jack’s age, separated from the crowd to meet Riven
at the entrance.  I noted a single braid running down the side of his
head, and my eyes widened.  Was I supposed to bow?  Was I supposed to
even know what the braid meant?

Riven
bowed his head slightly, hands wide at his sides.  I eavesdropped freely.
“Kusay Vaal, I am pleased to see you and your charge.”

“The
pleasure is my own, Toran Elir.”  Riven’s voice was smooth and
respectful.  It jarred with my own experience of him.  “On behalf of
my aunt and cousins, we thank you for handling this delicate situation and
representing the best interests of Anowir.”

Elir
chuckled a little.  “Well, it could have gone better.  No fey is
currently permitted to enter the human realm on pain of death.  But, there
has been no outward display of an intent to cross to our realm to exact their
blood price.”

“Perhaps
the return of the human will allow for negotiations to resume,” Riven – no,
Kusay Vaal – offered.

“We
can only hope,” Elir admitted.  “Jan Leeman, we ask you to convey our
deepest, most sincere apologies for what transpired.”

I
was no Kusay Vaal.  “Um. Yes.  I’ll, uhh, try to make sure people
know.”

Toran
Elir nodded to Riven, vaguely amused by my reply.  I prayed he’d just
assume I wasn’t a fluent speaker, and not hopelessly uncouth.

Riven
turned to look me in the eye.  “Be careful.”  Impulsively, despite
all the eyes on him, he reached out to take my hand, squeezing it firmly. 
A stupid move, if he was trying to convince
anyone
in this audience I
was just ‘the human’.  We’d gotten so close to getting me through the gate
without wrecking this charade.

My
thought stalled as a powerful wave of his warm magic crashed through me, more
than he’d ever shared with me before.  Then a flicker of something
else.  The odd feeling lodged itself in my chest.  Riven’s eyes
widened slightly, and he released my hand as if I’d burned him. 
What
the hell? 
Whatever just happened, this wasn’t the time or place to
deal with it.

“I’ll
miss your infuriating face,” I told him in English.  Riven’s face was steeled
against barely concealed horror.  As bewildered as I was, I didn’t have
time to puzzle it out without putting him under more suspicion.

I
deliberately left his side, braved the remaining fifteen feet to home.  I
felt the crowd’s eyes on me the whole way, and most of all, I felt Riven’s
presence.  I paused before entering the portal, gripped the amber stone
around my neck, steeled myself, and stepped through to home.

And
Riven’s oath was done.

Immediately
chaos assaulted my senses, shouts for me to put my hands in the air.  Like
any good suburban girl, I threw my hands in the air in panic.  Through the
blinding spotlight I pieced out the trampled fey garden and crouched men in
black body armor aiming rifles.  I shouldn’t have been surprised at their
carelessness for the beauty of his place, but the destruction still stung.

Orders
rang out as they recognized me, the guns lowered, and another team of
black-armored operatives materialized from the shadows to surround me. 
Gently guiding me with a hand on my back and another on my arm, they hustled me
away from the portal as fast as I could walk without falling.  One of
them, a short, fit, middle-aged man with pale blue eyes, introduced himself in
a rush.  “I’m Agent Porter with the Special Investigations Unit of
DIDA.  Are you in any pain?”

“No. 
I’m ok.” I attempted a reassuring smile.

“Did
they hurt you in
any
way?” he insisted.

“No,
really, the fey took every last precaution they could
-“ I
was cut off as more men swarmed me, showing me into a small agency that looked
like it had been turned into a triage center by all the medical equipment and
people on standby.  The florescent lights reinforced my impression. 
“Seriously, guys, relax!”

They
guided me firmly to the single hospital bed in the room, where Doc Newell, a
spritely woman well into her 60s, introduced herself while peering into my
eyes.  She didn’t hesitate to bark at the men to be quiet so she could
listen to my heart.  My senses reeled with the sudden silence.  After
a moment, Doc nodded.  “A more in-depth exam and blood tests will be
needed, but she seems as healthy as she claims.”

Would
being a gatewright show up on a blood test?  Possibly.  Was I willing
to take that chance?  More importantly, did I have a choice?

“Transport
is standing by,” another uniformed man reported at the door.

“I
want to see my family,” I told them firmly and moved toward the exit and the
fading daylight.  “Now. And I’m sure they want to see me.”

“We
do need to ask you some questions first.  In light of recent events, we
are taking you to a secure location.   Your parents will meet you
there.”  Porter sounded apologetic.

I
reluctantly followed them out of the exam room, through the narrow city streets
to a comic stereotype of a government vehicle, a black SUV with deeply tinted
windows.  It wasn’t the sketchy type with doors in the back, but a more
comfortable version that would have been a soccer mom’s dream.  Porter
guided me to the middle seat, and three other agents piled into the car with
us.

We
left the Inner Circle driving slowly, around numerous blockades, and I spotted
even a military presence.  National Guard?  Who was running this
show?  Whoever it was, our driver kept a running stream of jargon and
commentary through his radio that I couldn’t follow.

The
Outer Circle was profoundly empty except for agency vehicles, some small
desert-painted tanks, and a black helicopter standing by, blades roaring
through the air.  We stopped, and young men in green camouflage uniforms
opened the door to the SUV, helping me out and hustling me across the open
space to the chopper.  The wind blew my hair wildly around my face, and
half-blinded, I let myself be guided.  They bodily lifted me up and in,
and helped me with the seatbelt, yanking on the straps to ensure I was
secure.  Agent Porter sat across from me, Doc Newell next to him, and one
of the older soldiers next to me.

They
shut the helicopter door and I breathed a sigh of relief, scraping my hair off
of my face and mouth, away from my eyes.  It must have been less than five
minutes since I walked through the portal, and my body still tingled.  I
reflexively gripped my harness as we lurched unsteadily into the air. 
Outside the window, the ground quickly receded, but I could still pick out the
game store, closed, windows dark.  Not closed for good, I hoped. 
Just how much money did my “rescue” cost?  Probably more than I’d ever
make in my lifetime.

Once
I could see over the Outer Circle’s wall, the incredible size of the gathered
crowd amazed me.  Media vans stretched their satellite dishes and antennas
into the sky, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of men, women, and children
holding signs and shouting muffled slogans at each other.  I shrank a
little in my seat, suddenly much happier I was going to a “secure location.”

The
last time I’d flown, I’d been ten years old going on a summer vacation with
Nick, Mom, and a three-year-old Thomas.  I grinned as I leaned against the
window, enjoying the experience.  Virginia became a brown blur with
patches of scattered evergreens.  Most likely, I’d never have this
opportunity again.

My
new guardians seemed slightly bewildered by my good spirits.  They
informed me we were on our way to Fort Belvoir, an Army base between DC and
Quantico, VA.  Doc Newell seemed to be the chattiest, and asked me a few
general questions about where I’d grown up and went to school.  I
suspected she knew the answers but was checking for amnesia or head
injury.  If she knew about
nagali
, she’d be a lot more concerned.

When
we landed little less than an hour later at the hospital at Fort Belvoir, I
sighed in disappointment that my ride was over.  As silly as it seemed,
they insisted that I stay in the wheelchair that was provided on the helicopter
pad at the top of the hospital.  I wasn’t about to argue with these folks,
since they seemed to be taking everything so seriously.  Riven’s guard of
adail
no longer seemed like overkill.  Although,
Riven
alone made me feel as secure as the SIU of DIDA.  For one thing, I’d seen
him in action.  I knew what he
was capable of. 
And what I
was capable of.
  I shuddered.

As
they wheeled me through the sterile, quiet back halls of the hospital to a
private room, the nurses that caught up with us gently asked me if I was in any
pain or had suffered any trauma.  I continued to insist that I was fine,
but they still had me change into a hospital gown and hooked me up to an IV.

“If
you’ll give me your right arm, we’ll take some blood samples.”

Well,
if gatewrighting was in my blood, they were about to find out.  No excuse
I could think of made me sound
less
suspicious.

I
refused to part with my necklace, despite their consistent coaxing. 
Doctors in white coats came in and listened to my heart, poking and prodding
me.  “Does it hurt when I do this?” they would ask.  They did notice
that my feet were excessively calloused, and seemed suspicious of my
explanation that I’d had to walk a lot.

Once
they were convinced I was physically healthy and the commotion finally died
down, I took stock of my surroundings.  The hospital room was small, with
two chairs, and a single window that was closed and curtained.  One
thoughtful individual had attempted to add some décor, by the Thanksgiving
decals stuck on the small window on the door.  A slightly crooked, framed
picture of a forest scene caught my eye, reminding me of Jack and his gift to
me in years past. 

I
poked at the IV, and hoped they hadn’t put anything weird into the saline.
 As a kid, I’d been rather good at staying out of the hospital.  I’d
sprained my ankle, dislocated my shoulder, and had pneumonia twice, but luckily
never enough to land me in the ER.  Thomas, on the other hand, had made up
for it.  Doctors assumed he was a skateboarder or daredevil, by the number
of breaks.  Nope.  Accident magnet.

Eventually,
after I’d inspected and figured out how to reposition the bed, boredom and
curiosity drove me to turn on the TV.

I
really shouldn’t have.

I
watched recorded footage of myself being hustled to the helicopter, then
close-ups of the crowd I’d seen from afar.  The protesters held signs,
which varied from “Welcome Home Jan!” to a lazily-drawn fey with a giant red X
over it, to “FACIST CONSPIRACY”. I turned up the volume on the news anchor.

“…can
confirm that Jan Leeman is now at the Fort Belvoir hospital, where she is
undergoing evaluation.  Mark, I’d say from the footage we’ve seen so far
she seemed unharmed.  Some folks we talked to were afraid that even if the
fey released her, we’d be carrying her out on a gurney.  It’s a relief
that they seem to have upheld their end of the bargain.”

The
other anchor replied, “The question is, how did she survive?”

I
turned it off abruptly, my breath catching, just as Agent Porter came in. 
“How are you feeling?” he asked, friendly.

For
the 1000
^th
time, “Good.”

“Well,
Doctor Brandt will be here shortly to talk to you about your experience,” he
informed me. “I will come back in the morning to start the debriefing process,
and then, if Doctor Brandt feels you are well enough for visitors, we will
bring in your immediate family.”

“Okay.”

“Do
you need anything?” he asked, concerned.  My calmness this whole time
seemed to confuse him to no end.  What had his past rescues been
like? 

Newfound
gratitude at the fey – other than those who’d tried to murder me – filled
me.  “I’m fine, thank you,” I replied.

Yet,
I was trapped, with no way of ducking out to communicate to Jack or my parents.
 Gates were out of the question; I was on the second or third floor. 
It would be rather ironic to fall out of a hospital and die.  And worst of
all, there was no way to tell Riven I was ok… although I had the sneaking
suspicion he knew.

Something
had
happened between us as I’d left Azry, I’d felt it.  I closed my
eyes and took a deep breath.  If I concentrated, I could still feel the
odd sensation in my chest.  The more I thought on it, my confidence grew
that Riven was ok.  Reassuring yet profoundly unsettling.

Dr.
Brandt was a tall, gangly fellow with a greying beard, who introduced himself
in gentle tones and took a few notes on my vitals.  “I can’t imagine the
ordeal you must have endured,” he told me seriously, pulling up a chair.

“It
really didn’t go as planned, that’s for sure.  But I’m handling it
ok.”  I bet he was the psychiatrist.

“I
want you to know this is a safe space,” Brandt reassured me.  “How have
you been sleeping?”  He leaned forward, clasping his hands in rapt
attention.

“I
had a few nightmares at first, but then they went away.”  I wasn’t going
to tell him that magic had a role in that, and when it wore off, the nightmares
came back with a vengeance.  Or that I killed a fey and kept thinking I
had blood under my fingernails.  Or that I was dealing with superpowers
that people would want to kill me for, or that I might be falling for the
entirely wrong non-human.  I took a breath to clear my head.   I
didn’t have much use for a shrink right now.  But what else could I
say?  If I didn’t tell him anything, he might be suspicious and hold up my
release. 

Brandt
forged ahead.  “The nurses tell me that your necklace is very important to
you.  Can you tell me why?”

I
gripped it reflexively.  If I let it go, everything would go to
shit.  The stone’s magical protection had kept me alive. Otherwise,
wouldn’t I have gotten in the carriages, too?  Would I be dead?  “I
guess I feel like it’s my security blanket.  Call me superstitious,” I
mumbled.

“May
I see it?” he asked.

I
handed it over tentatively.  Did it have settings?  Would giving it
to him mess them up?  He turned it over in his hand, inspecting it
closely, before returning it to me.   I secured it on my neck again,
relieved.  I felt a little like a Baggins with the One Ring. 
Technically, I shouldn’t need it now that I was back in the human world, but it
was bad enough being without Jack’s knife.  Hell, I didn’t even know if
the stone worked here.  But in this instance, I’d rather be safe than
sorry.

“Do
you mind if I ask you a few questions?” Brandt continued.

And
thus, the psych screening began, all questions about my well-being, none of
them about my actual experiences in Anowir.  My answers varied between “oh
GOD no” and “absolutely”.  I felt confident by the end I’d fooled him into
thinking I was entirely in possession of all of my senses.

“Lastly,”
he shifted, and I had the feeling this part of the conversation may not have
been his idea, “Can you describe the attack?”

I
expected this from Agent Porter and Co., not him, and it threw me off a
little.  I guess this wasn’t just a psych screening after all, was
it?  “Um.”  Hell, where did I even start?  I’d planned it all
out in my mind during the lengthy carriage ride, but now that I had to speak,
my version of the story seemed paper-thin.  “We were on the road, having
lunch, when we were approached by five riders.  They shouted something at
us, and then they attacked with fireballs and earthquakes.  I was too
scared to move, but everyone else except the fey ran to the carriages. 
The fey tried to fight them off, but it was five against two, and they managed
to not only kill Hazel, but also destroy the carriages.  Riven managed to
kill the remaining attackers, who must not have seen me, considering how I was
cowering in the bushes.  Once everyone was dead,
Riven
put me under his protection and took me to the safest place he knew, his
home.”  Even this simplistic version made me feel vulnerable and raw, but
it covered all the main points I wanted people to know.