Night Gate (24 page)

“What can we do?” the centaur demanded.

“Can’t we use the power in the waters here to make magic flow through Valley again?” a gray-clad woman called.

“Have you heard nothing?” Rue asked. “The magic must flow to us through the land before it can be drawn upon. Anyone attempting to reverse what the High Keeper did by using the shining waters will also be driven mad, and even so will fail. Only a wizard is strong enough to work magic against magic. Only the wizard who created this land we call Valley can save it.”

“But you have already said that you do not know where the wizard went,” someone pointed out bitterly.

“I said that
I
do not know where he went,” Rue said softly, yet a hush fell. “There is one here among us who does know, and on that one rests our only hope.” Slowly the witch woman’s eyes came to rest on Rage. “Will you speak of your quest, child?”

Rage felt everyone turn to stare at her. She had never been the center of so much attention. Standing on rubbery legs, she was infinitely grateful when Billy and the others stood with her. Even Goaty stood.

“I…I am Rage Winnoway,” she began.

“Speak up!” someone called impatiently.

She licked her lips. “I am Rage Winnoway, and these are my friends. I came from my world to Valley through a magic gateway. I wanted to see the wizard, but when I got here I learned he had vanished. I was given a riddle to solve that would lead me to him.”

“Say the riddle,” Rue commanded.

“‘Bring me to the shore of the Endless Sea, step through the door that will open for thee.’”

There was a burst of derisive laughter. “There is no such place as the Endless Sea,” someone cried.

“Oh, but there is,” the Mother said, her eyes holding Rage’s.

Rage opened her mouth to say that the riddle had been engraved on the bottom of the hourglass given to her by the firecat, but to her astonishment she could not speak. She tried again. Nothing came from her mouth. There
was
some sort of magic stopping her! No doubt this was the firecat’s doing.

“Who gave you this riddle?” Rue asked.

“I…I can’t say,” Rage said, and was relieved to find she had not been silenced altogether.

Billy gave her an odd look and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could not speak of the firecat, either.

“Then we will not press you,” Rue said. “But you have solved the riddle, have you not?”

“I thought I had,” Rage said, and despair welled in her anew. “I thought that since all rivers flow to the sea, then maybe a magical river would flow to a magical sea.”

“The Endless Sea,” Hermani murmured.

“I thought it would be possible just to get a boat and go down the river—until I saw it.”

“You would not make this journey for the sake of your mother?” Rue asked.

“I would gladly, for her sake and for the sake of Valley,” Rage said, feeling the weight of all those eyes on her. “But it wouldn’t be any use. No one could travel down the River of No Return and
live
.”

“It is not fitting to ask a child to undertake such a dangerous journey,” Hermani said with quiet dignity. “I will attempt it. Perhaps some of the rivermen who have been working to save the true beasts can accompany me.”

A man stepped forward, and Rage was not too surprised to see that it was the ferry captain. “Aye, we will aid you, keeper. It would be a quest worthy of a bard song and a nobler end than dying in a flood of water, if it comes to that.”

“A noble end indeed,” Rue said with some asperity. “But it is not heroic deeds for bard songs that we need. I tell you bluntly that you will not attempt this journey. You would fail. Death is the destination of any here who would attempt to reach the end of the River of No Return.”

There was a silence, and faces fell.

“You brought us here to tell us of our doom?” Hermani asked.

Instead of answering him, the witch woman turned to Rage. “Child you are, Rage Winnoway, yet more than that, too. I did not speak idly before when I said that upon you rests our only hope.”

Rage stared at her. “But…you just agreed that no one could survive the journey.”

“I said no one here. Look.” On Rue’s palm lay a pink-gold locket.

“Mam’s locket,” Rage murmured, glancing over at the ferryman.

“It is very old, and strong with images of many kinds of love and sorrow. Perfect as a focusing object. I saw the accident that hurt your mother, child. But know that her illness, this sleep, was not caused by that accident. It is the result of a deeper, longer affliction.”

Rage stared silently at the witch woman. The witch woman must be mistaken. Mam was certainly asleep because of the terrible head injuries inflicted on her in the accident.

Rue continued. “I saw you and your quest here. I had thought the Endless Sea a myth, but then I dug deeper. Finally, in an old tome, I found mention of it as a true thing. It was not difficult to discern that you believed the wizard had gone to the Endless Sea. But I could not guess how you meant to get there.”

“Why didn’t you send someone to ask me, or come yourself?” Rage asked.

“We witch folk have learned to move slowly and carefully in all things, but especially where magic is concerned,” Rue said. “For all I knew, your journey was wound about with delicate enchantments, which my interference would undo. I sent my people word to give you what help they could and to tell you that my desire was yours: to find the wizard and let him know that Valley needs him. I thought that if you reached the wizard, you would surely tell him this.”

“Why did you bring us here now?”

“Before you appeared, I had come to believe that no single group in Valley would be able to come up with a way to save us,” Rue said. “That it would take all of us to find an answer, and this gathering was long planned to that end. But once I reached Fork and learned from Ania of your shock upon seeing the River of No Return, I knew what I had hoped. Only then did I perform a difficult and costly working of magic, using that trinket as a focus. It was during this working that I saw Mr. Walker fall into the drain near one of our secret places, and you and your other companions trapped behind a grille in the lower tunnel system that leads to this cavern.

“I made arrangements for Mr. Walker to be met, and I sent Kelpie to find you and bring you here. It was Mr. Walker who told us of Goaty waiting for you by the river, and so I had him brought here, too.” Rue’s voice cracked. She made a motion that brought one of the sprites with a cup of water.

“I don’t understand why you say that
I
can survive the journey when no one else could,” Rage said.

“I performed the magical working to ask if there was any way in which Rage Winnoway could survive a journey down the River of No Return.”

“What did you learn?” Billy asked eagerly.

“I learned what I had sensed all along,” Rue said. She turned to look at those gathered. “Only in unity can we save Valley.” There were confused looks and muttered questions and exclamations that eventually dwindled to silence. “My vision told me that Rage Winnoway and her companions had the best chance of negotiating the river and finding the wizard, but that
we
must provide for her a vessel that will endure the journey.”

“But how?” a Fork man asked. “No boat could survive the waterfall.”

“I do not speak of any ordinary boat,” Rue said. “I mean we must create a magical vessel. Such a thing can be provided only at great cost.”

“What cost can be too great for the saving of Valley?” Hermani cried.

“Time,” Rue said flatly. “It will cost time. These vessels can only be created from magic, but this working will do what we witches have long been accused of doing—it will drain magic from Valley, to the extent that the six months or so we have left will be reduced to a few days.”

There was an aghast silence.

“You ask us to sacrifice the little magic now flowing in Valley to bring this girl and her companions safely down to the Endless Sea?” the ferryman asked. “Why not send only her? There will be less of a drain for a vessel for one than for six.”

“The chances of Rage Winnoway fulfilling her quest will decrease if all of her companions do not travel with her. I do not know why, but that is what I saw. To know more would cost more than I will pay,” the witch answered evenly. “Also, I do not know how long the journey to the Endless Sea will take, nor if Rage Winnoway will find the wizard. I know only that she
may
succeed where no other would.”

“Why her?” someone called. “She is a stranger to Valley.”

“This I tried to learn, but my vision was obscured in ways I do not understand. I saw only that there is some link between Rage Winnoway and the wizard, which increases her chance of finding him.”

There was a loud buzz of troubled talk. Rage knew that the link was the hourglass she carried, but of course she was unable to say so.

“We have no choice,” said Puck. “We will certainly die in six months if we do nothing. If we help her, we might die in a few days, but we might also save ourselves. We would be fools to choose six certain months of life over the possibility of living full lives.”

“Yet we may find our own solution in six long months, and remember, the witch woman has not said that the girl and her friends
will
reach the wizard, only that they have the best chance of reaching him,” a Fork man argued, sounding troubled.

“Maybe the wizard knows of all that besets us and will return at the last moment,” Hermani suggested.

“We must quickly make a decision about whether or not we will aid Rage Winnoway, else there will not be magic enough to do it without destroying Valley,” Rue said. “I will give you one hour to talk, and then we will see what has been agreed upon.”

“There is no point in us talking. We have never been able to agree on anything.” Hermani sighed. “I say the witch Mother will decide for us.”

There were cries of “yes” and “no,” mixed with groans of uncertainty. Rage had no idea what to say. She wasn’t even sure how she felt, because a queer numbness seemed to have stolen through her senses. The only thing she knew was that if there was a hope of her finding the wizard—the merest bit of hope—she would go.

Rue said nothing until all the shouts and murmurs faded. “Even if you wish it, I will not decide for you,” she announced. “I am Mother, yet you are not children. You must take responsibility for yourselves. Again I say, go and talk among yourselves. Seek for an answer together. In one hour I will hear what you have decided.”

She turned without waiting for a response and walked briskly away into the trees. After a moment of bewilderment, in which no one seemed to know quite what to do, the crowd broke up and began walking this way and that or sat in groups. A buzz of talk arose and became steadily louder.

“They will have to give us the vessels,” Elle said, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

“They don’t have any choice,” Billy agreed.

“But that man was right. The witch Mother only said we would have the
best chance
of surviving the journey,” Mr. Walker protested. “She didn’t say we
would
survive it.”

“She didn’t even ask if we agreed to go,” Goaty said timorously.

“She didn’t have to,” Elle said. “If we stay, we’ll only have six months to live, like everyone else. This way we have a chance at life. And besides, Rage must get to her mam.”

“I’m scared,” Goaty whispered.

“It will be a great adventure,” Elle said, clasping his shoulders.

Billy had a peculiar look on his face. Rage asked him what he was thinking. “I was wondering how Mama is,” he said, seeming to read her mind. Rage felt a stab of guilt, and he saw that, too. His expression changed. “It’s not your fault Mama is exhausted, Rage. I’m not sorry we came.”

“You’re not?” Rage asked in disbelief.

“If we had not come, Mama would be the same as she was before. She lets me come close to her now, and sometimes she tells me things. Last night she said she dreamed of me when she was inside that killing box in the conservatorium. She dreamed that I was calling her….”

Elle leaned over to them. “I’ve just been thinking. If they refuse to magic a boat, I will use the six months to visit Wildwood and see the winged lions again. Then Goaty and I will go to the mountain province.”

Goaty gave her a look of adoration.

“I would go to the castle in Deepwood,” Mr. Walker said dreamily. “Perhaps there is a magic mirror there. I have always wanted to look into one.”

“I would like to see the outermost villages,” Billy said.

He looked expectantly at Rage, but before she could speak, Kelpie appeared. “The Mother has asked me to bring you to her.”

They followed her through witch folk and gray-clad humans, wild things and true beasts, all talking earnestly and shaking their heads or pounding hands or paws or hoofs, and into the dense trees, which smelled of pine needles and sap. Silence descended around them, and the only sounds were of twigs snapping under their feet and their own breath.

Through the greenish black darkness Rage saw an ancient, thick-waisted tree with great serpentine roots coiling in and out of the ground. A chattering streamlet of the magic water ran close by, bathing the gnarled arms of the tree in a bright emerald glow. Beneath it sat Rue, with Puck and several sprites. The leopard lay dozing at her side, the nervous monkey curled between its paws. Rage was startled to see that in the midst of this exotic tableau, the witch woman was sipping tea out of a flowered teacup.

“Sit, and be welcome,” Rue said.

“Do you know what they will decide?” Rage asked.

“I do not, nor will I seek to know what a little patience will give me.”

“I taught you patience,” Puck said, and leered winsomely at her.

Rue smiled and stroked his shaggy hair. “I have learned much from you and your kindred, little one.” She looked at Rage again, her eyes gentler than before. “I am sorry I snapped at you, but the price a witch pays to foresee each glimpse of the future is the loss of that much of his or her own life. So you see, it is not done lightly. Now eat, for that is why I invited you to join me.”