Gatewright (8 page)

A
larger crowd had gathered for the Becot match.  The two combatants both
had the trademark red hair of
atsili
.  I walked up to stand right
at the edge of the balcony, tired of sitting. 
This
should be
fun. 

Oh
boy, was I right.  Flames erupted from the ground, flames shot from their
hands, and I could almost feel the ground shaking with the force of their
explosions.  The maelstrom of their own creation obscured them except for
brief moments.  The flames suddenly winked out only three minutes into the
match, and as the smoke cleared, I could make out two fey scraping a prone mage
off the ground.  Meanwhile, the victor strutted around the arena,
encouraging cheers from the crowd.

“How
did the fire get extinguished so quickly?”  I asked Hazel.

“If
the team of mages down there see someone go down, they immediately halt the
match,” she explained. ‘Try to’ being the operative words, I thought.

“Damn.” 
Too bad there weren’t more matches.  Then I thought of Jack, and the other
Exiles, never able to use magic again, and my heart sank.

Riven
emerged from the stairwell, sweaty and breathing hard.  I hadn’t noticed
him leave.  Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him join us after
lunch.   “Damn good thing I was there, otherwise that
shecoa
would have burned,” he muttered in Anowir to Hazel as he took a seat on a
bench.  I knew the translation of ‘damn’ in Anowir, but
shecoa
was
a new one.  Jack would need to translate for me.  I doubted any fey
around here would share its
actual
meaning.

“You
didn’t
have
to,” she pointed out.

“You
go teach the mutts.  I’m tired.”  Riven stretched out along the bench
and closed his eyes.

Hazel
rolled her eyes before returning to her perky disposition.  “Everybody
with fey blood, follow me, let’s go see what you can do!”

Everyone
left, including Kim.  Perhaps he’d tested to have a trace amount of fey
blood.  Though I’d never gotten the blood work done, I knew well enough
based on my exposure to magic.  Aside from the fact that those tests were
really expensive, even if I had a few drops, it wouldn’t have made much
difference.  It likely would’ve meant I’d be frustrated and angry trying
vainly to make magic happen down there, instead of frustrated and angry up
here.  I was 100% human, and I was just going to have to get used to
that.  Eventually.

Unfortunately,
that left just me and Riven watching from the second tier. “I can go down, if
you’d like to join them,” I offered.

He
wrinkled his nose without opening his eyes.  Got it.
 

I
stuck my hands in my coat pockets and tried to shift to a more comfortable
position as I gazed down at my companions.  Hazel had arranged them in a circle,
each holding what looked like a large stone.  From this distance, I could
hear her voice, but not make out what she was saying.

“I
didn’t think
atsili
were very common in Anowir,” I commented.  Fire
magic tended to be dominant in northern areas, such a Scandinavia, Russia, and
other places where creating heat out of nothing gave them an evolutionary
edge.  Earth magic, a more dominant gene, from my understanding, generally
made up the majority of the fey in America, with a good number as well throughout
the rest of the world.
Amayi
, water mages, tended to come from either
extremely arid
regions
(like deserts) or particularly
wet ones, like swamps and rainforests, where again, it could make the
difference between life and death.  Wind mages,
kawoli,
were most
often found in Asia, particularly East Asia, but weren’t rare enough to call
attention to themselves in other areas of the world.

Riven
scowled.  “I heard humans do a thing called a ‘census’.  We do not do
this thing and do not know how many
atsili
are born to us. 
Atsili
are prized for their fighting abilities, and are more likely to die during
training or combat.”

“Your
training can kill you?”  I was aghast.  What was this, Sparta?

He
sighed impatiently.  “Lack of control can kill us.  We spend years
learning how to protect our focus points.  If we fail, we might be lucky,
and just lose a hand or an arm.  If we’re not, we die in our own inferno.”

Riven’s
accent was thick, but his superb vocabulary had just given me very ugly images. 
Riven, screaming as he died in his own fire.  I shuddered.  No wonder
atsili
weren’t common here.

“Why
are you here?”  Riven asked, still lying on his back.  His voice had
a nasty edge, and I wondered if I’d said something to offend him before anger
ran away with my tongue.

“I’m
sorry, could you be more specific?  Do you mean, why don’t I have
magic?”  I crossed my arms. “Or, do you mean, why did I get picked for
this trip?  Or better yet, do you mean, why do I exist at all?”

Irritation
flashed across his face.  “Why are you obsessed with the fey in the first
place?”

“Obsessed?” 
My eyebrows rose.  “Pardon me if I’m not rather curious about an
entirely
new species
that shows up on my doorstep with a portal to an
entirely
new world.
  I don’t know why more humans
aren’t
learning.”

“Curiosity
generally doesn’t lead to possibly lethal vacations.” He met my eyes.

“What
do you mean, lethal?” My breath caught.  Was my own guide admitting to my
face that my life was in danger?  I’d been hoping Jack was wrong about
this trip.

“I
got the impression from your thesis that you weren’t stupid for a human,” he
growled.

“You
read my thesis?”  I wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or not. 
Did he just call me stupid?  Was that what passed for a compliment?

“Yes,
but that’s beside the point.  Remember, you made me
swear
to
protect you.  Which I don’t appreciate. 
At all
.”

He
had me there.  I had laid it out within two minutes of meeting him that I
thought I needed protection.  Well, shit.  I tried to actually think
my answer through this time,
before
I stuck my foot in my mouth. 
Again.  “Well, first of all, I
am
legitimately curious.  And I
want to know why I was picked to go on this trip.  Plus, it’ll give me a
much greater chance of securing a job at DIDA.”

“Why
DIDA?” The fact he actually knew what DIDA
was
made me take note
again.  He’d been studying us.  Probably the same way I’d been
studying them.

“Because
it’s obvious a lot of good could come of it.  Anowir could use our tech,
we could use the skills of the mages.  Just think, mages could come and
build a road in just a few days.”  If he did know as much as I was
beginning to suspect he did, the opportunity should be apparent.

“Not
going to happen.”  Riven was confident.

“Why
not?”  Did he have to rain on all of my parades?

“We
don’t like living in hell.”  His conversational tone made it less of an
insult, and more a matter of bad translation.  Maybe.

Nevertheless,
I shut up.  I didn’t think our world was hell.  I rather liked it.

Riven
continued.  “And there’s a far greater chance that humans will become
violent and start massacring fey, like they tried to do when the gates
broke.  I think it would have been better if we’d never opened portals in
the first place.”

That
hurt.  I didn’t want to think about that.  If we gave up on the fey,
the deaths of the Exiles, the beatings of the humans who tried to defend them,
and the chaos the world had suffered would be for nothing.  Fey and humans
had amazing things to share.  Even the simplest pleasures.

“Ever
eaten pizza?”  I asked.

“No,”
he replied carefully, as though unsure whether this was a good thing or a bad
thing.

“Then
your opinion is invalid.  Until you’ve had pizza, you don’t know what
you’re missing.”

Riven
grunted and turned to observe the field below, then swiftly sat up.  “Look
at that,” he called softly, and I came to sit next to him.  Erikah was
rolling a small rock around without touching it, and Isabel and Peter looked
like they were deep in concentration but I didn’t see any evidence they were using
magic.  Kim and Neville were leaving the field, and from their gestures I
suspected they were lamenting their lack of magical aptitude.

“Erikah
can do some magic after all,” I observed.

“Yes.” 
Riven sighed.  “So growing up in the human world doesn’t kill magical
talent completely.  That’s going to complicate matters.”

I
followed his train of thought.  “Which means that the fey lose their
monopoly on using magic.  But I’ve never seen it used on Earth.”

“It’s
not
impossible
.”  Riven answered vaguely.

Were
the gates originally opened with magic?
 I sucked in my
breath.  Oh, no wonder the fey were curious what mixed-blood humans could
do.

As
evening fell, we headed back to our lodgings.  Erikah was rather put out
that she wasn’t allowed to do magic outside of the arena (for now, at least),
and Isabel and Peter lamented that they hadn’t been able to get in touch with
their inner fey mages. 

“What
did it feel like?”  Peter asked Erikah.

“A
little like trying to hold water in my hands,” she struggled to explain. 
“Or maybe strings going in a bunch of different directions.  When I close
my eyes, I can feel the magic here.  It’s like the air we breathe. 
There are little eddies and ripples, and it’s constantly moving.”

“It
is a form of energy,” Kim confirmed.  “We know that much, at least.
 Perhaps it behaves like the magnetic field.”

Erikah
shrugged.  “I wouldn’t know.  I think I could get the hang of
harnessing it in time.  Like Hazel said, I grabbed as much as I could, and
tried to move the magic around.  It’s like trying to explain colors. 
I’ll figure out eventually how to describe it.”

“Isabel,
Peter, did they give you any water to try to work with?”  I
asked.   “Fire?  Maybe it’s just you’re not
elohi
or
kawoli
.”

Peter
snorted.  “Yeah, they gave us a bowl of water.”  A small smile played
at the edges of his mouth.  “No fire, though.”

That,
I understood.  I didn’t want to think of any of my new friends
accidentally frying themselves.  I also failed to mention
nagali
,
although how one would practice that skill without pissing people off?
 Jack had trusted me with that secret, and I was going to keep it.

We
enjoyed another dinner in the great hall and spent the rest of the night in
better spirits, sharing the strange and very different journeys our lives had
taken us to find ourselves in Azry.  Neville had been a zoologist before
he’d tired of his charges trying to bite him and switched careers to become a
doctor.  It still happened, but less often.

“Jan,
what about you?”  Kim asked, after sharing a bit about his difficult early
years at Homeland Security.

I
laughed.  “Nothing compared to an irate military officer telling me how to
negotiate a peace process.”  Yet. I would love that job.
 
“I’ve
lived my whole life in Charlottesville, went to college for both my undergrad
and Master’s at the University of Virginia.  Best thing was my internship
at DIDA last summer.”  I grinned at Kim, then turned my attention to
Peter.  “So, Erikah told me that you were an actor before you hosted
Answers
to Azry
.”

Peter
enthusiastically described his early career, starring in terrible
direct-to-cable featurettes. Though his performances didn’t win him any awards
then, his comic retelling had us all in stitches.  I couldn’t remember the
last time I’d had that much fun around near-strangers without copious amounts
of alcohol.  I was still wiping tears of laughter from my eyes when we
finally turned in for the night.

Breakfast
dared me to try new foods.  I succumbed to an unidentifiable pastry that
tasted like rye but had the consistency of a cinnamon roll.  I wasn’t sure
if I liked it, but treasured the strange favor for the simple fact that it
belonged entirely to this world.

As
promised, we visited Emor’s gardens and zoo.  The gardens weaved around
and through the city, small parks dotted with trees and plants of all kinds.
Late-blooming flowers lent crimson, yellow, and purple to the streets. 
Simple landscaping was transformed by a botanical cornucopia. 
Elohi
saw to the ongoing cultivation, including weeding and planting.  We
encountered two mages
meditating in the middle of their work, but when
they saw us approaching, they excused themselves with haste.  So far, we
hadn’t had a single opportunity to interact with fey other than Riven and
Hazel.  As disappointed as I was now, I trusted we’d get the chance later.

The
zoo was laid out formally, with earthenworks and nasty, dense thorn bushes
separating sets of herbivores from carnivores.  About five minutes into
the tour, I desperately wished I’d brought a camera.  The Emor Zoo held
not only local species, but also featured life from the width and breadth of
North America.  I couldn’t imagine how long it must have taken to compile
this collection without motorized transport.

Neville
was beside himself with joy to see the diversity and numbers of so many
creatures that fought for survival in our world.  He pointed out the
flocks of passenger pigeons, a bird extinct in our world for some time but here
served as the fey’s main form of long-distance communication.  When we
encountered a mastodon, my jaw dropped.  It was
massive.

“We
sometimes ride them,” Riven informed me.  Was he gloating?

“No
shit.  I wanna ride one.”  I imagined riding one through traffic with
relish.

He
shrugged.  “We might have some retired ones that are docile enough for a
human.  I’ll check if the opportunity presents itself.”

I
blinked at him.  “Seriously?  Thank you.”  I pointedly ignored
the implication that humans couldn’t handle a younger one.  I could
vividly imagine Riven finding the
most ornery
mastodon
around for me to ride if I protested.  And as much as fun as that might
be, I’d rather not start off riding in Challenge Mode.

“Again,
if
I see the chance.”   Despite his tone, he did seem pleased
with the idea.  My estimation of him climbed slightly.  Just
slightly.

About
to move on, I realized Neville still hadn’t moved, one hand over his mouth
either in grief or awe.  Perhaps both.  “Neville?” I prompted him.

He
couldn’t wrench his gaze from the animal.  “There’s hope for every
creature we’ve driven to extinction.  There’s a chance we can
fix
what
we’ve destroyed.”

I
rubbed his shoulder awkwardly.  I loved the idea, but I wasn’t having the
same reaction to it as he was.  I knew how unlikely it was that we’d ever
see the reintroduction of even one species.  But, I hadn’t spent half my
life pursuing zoology, either.  I tried to imagine how I’d respond if we’d
encountered the Library of Alexandria here in Azry.  Yup, I’d probably be
a sobbing mess on the floor.

Another
highlight of the zoo was the Great Northern Cat, a smaller descendant of a
saber-toothed tiger.  Its canines only hung out an inch or so past its
lower jaw.  I eyed the feline, making sure to keep a good distance. 
No barrier protected us from the predator.  It stretched out in the sun,
watching us through slitted, lazy yellow eyes.  I think it decided we
would be too much effort to hunt; it looked pretty well-fed.

For
the evening meal, we visited a fey restaurant that closed its doors except for
our small party.  The seating evoked Middle-Eastern dining, with long, low
tables and embroidered cushions for us to sit on.  Our hosts, a
husband-wife pair of older
elohi
, welcomed us in Anowir, and we replied
in kind, making an effort to be on our best behavior.  They generously
presented us with a three-course meal, and I deduced that dinner was the
primary meal for the Anowir.  I bet they fed us lunch only because humans
were accustomed to three square meals a day.

As
we polished off dessert, a team of four musicians joined us.  They handed
us rattles and drums and set up a much larger drum for themselves, a stringed
instrument that looked like the bastard of a guitar and a bass (the orchestral
kind), a wooden xylophone, and a long flute.  The musicians introduced
themselves in broken English as Chime, Flower, Shine, and Wren, probably the
closest translations they could find of their Anowir names.  They led us
through some participatory music, some of their original work, and what they
told us were Anowir classics.

I
wished I’d brought my phone to record them.  Beautiful and so entirely
different. The original works experimented with contrasting rhythms and time
signatures.  Sometimes a little discordant, it kept me on my toes. 
Isabel whispered to me that it reminded her vaguely of jazz, but with an
entirely new set of instruments.  Their classics were more like human
music, and we happily joined in on the steady beat.  Neville recovered
fully from his emotional experience at the zoo.  Even Peter’s growing
attitude problem from nicotine withdrawal vanished for the duration of the
concert.  Hazel genuinely loved it and couldn’t stop thanking the
musicians afterwards.

We
left well after sunset, carefully watching our footing to make sure we didn’t
trip over the rare obstacle in the road.  The
elohi
did a fine job
maintaining the city, down to the stones of the streets.

As
I drifted to sleep, studying the glass ceiling in the faint light, I mused how the
Anowir carefully shaped our experience with their world.  Out of all the
fey, they had chosen Hazel and Riven as guides.  Hazel happily opened up
about her life.  Her love of her world was contagious, yet struck me as
terribly vulnerable.  She obediently followed a plan that ensured we saw
only the best of their country.  Riven, on the other hand…  Why on
earth would
he
have been picked for this mission?  Because of his
English proficiency?  If he’d deferred to Hazel, I’d have written him off
as the muscle of the operation.  But he was sharp, calculating, and Hazel
treated him like the leader.  Yet he didn’t seem to give a damn what we
thought about Azry.  Had someone strongarmed him into being a guide?
 He certainly felt no obligation to play along with their sanitized tour
of his world. 
That
was what made him such a good guide.  As
aggravating as he was, I’d rather spend a day with him than Hazel.

No
wonder Jack had been so preoccupied with fey politics.  Who had forced
Riven to go, and why?  
Plus
, why on Earth had he read my
thesis?  Only Jack, Rose, my parents, and the obligatory professors had
read it before.  And what type of fey was he, that he even had
access?
 
Who
was
he?  I flopped over in frustration, plumping my pillow with
force.

Tuesday
was only our fourth day in Anowir, although it seemed like we had been there
for weeks.  My entire thesis had been built around the concept that days
in Anowir were the same length as days on Earth, but this was truly putting my
theory to the test.  How had we done so much in so little time? 
Hazel encouraged us to sleep in, since we would have a late night… if we could
stay up long enough.

The
day began with a trip to the markets.  Hazel provided each of us a small
allowance of Anowir currency, gold and silver rings strung on a chain.  “A
gift,” she told us.  I gave her some coupons to the game store in return,
and she threw her head back and laughed.  “Is your way to make sure I’ll
come and visit you in the Outer Circle?” Her eyes crinkled up in amusement and
delight.

I
grinned back at her.  “I’d love to return the favor and personally give
you a tour.”

“We
have an accord.”  Happiness radiated from her.

The
market had more color and life to it than any other I’d seen before.  Fey
hustled about on their business, wearing festival garb of bright reds and
greens and blues.  The stores were painted with fresh shades in a myriad
of colors, accented by small banners of contrasting colors flapping in the
breeze.  We split into two groups based on interest:  Erikah, Isabel,
and Peter went with Hazel on a tour featuring fey religion and entertainment,
while Kim, Neville, and I went with Riven on a whirlwind tour of fey
manufacturing and commerce.  I mostly chose the second tour because Kim
was going, and a little bit because I was curious about Riven.

Riven
walked us from merchant to merchant, translating as needed, letting us explore
fey wares and converse with the storekeeps.  Isabel might have preferred
this tour, since our first stop was a Weaving Home.  Fey of all ages and
abilities,
atsili, elohi, amayi,
and
kawoli
labored side by side
to create beautiful fabrics and clothing. Over fifty worked in the building
every day, from expert craftsmen to young apprentices.  Even a few
children helped here.

 
I drifted from our host, only half-listening to his technical description of
their methods.  Amiable chatter filled the air of the tall, stone
building, drowning out the swishing of looms and the humming of spinning
wheels.  Skylights and windows cast a muted glow, illuminating the dust
motes that drifted through the air, reminding me of a cathedral.  I ran my
hand over the cloth, admiring the colorful patterns woven into the
fabric.  Most of the staff ignored us, but like most of the fey we’d
encountered, watched us from the corners of their eyes or cast curious glances
our way.  A young child peered at me from behind their mother with open
eyes, and I winked.  They giggled and disappeared.

Turns
out, the hand-powered cotton gin had been obtained by the fey a mere 75 years
ago.  Plant matter was difficult for even an
elohi
to
manipulate.  The magical element of clothing production was in their dye
process, since an
amayi
could evenly color fabric with just a small
amount of dye.  The hum of the wheels relaxed me, and I hesitated to
leave.  I hoped to return to this special place.