The Gates of Sleep (2 page)

“Alliance,” he whispered, and touched his
forefinger to the baby’s soft, dark hair.

Alanna blinked with surprise. This was a gift more akin to
those given in the ancient days! Roderick had just granted Marina the ability
to speak with and beg aid from, if not command, the Elemental creatures of the
Air! He had allied
his
power with hers, which had to be done with the
consent of his Elementals. She stared at Roderick, dumbfounded.

He shrugged, and smiled sheepishly. “Belike she’ll
only care to have the friendship of the birds,” he replied to her questioning
look. “But ‘tis my line’s traditional Gift, and I’m a
man for tradition.”

Alanna returned his smile, and nodded her thanks. Who was
she to flout tradition? Roderick’s Mage-Line went back further than their
status as landholders; they had
become
landholders because of Magical
aid to their liege lord in the time of King Stephen and Queen Maud.

She was grateful for the kinds of Gifts that had been
given; her friends were practical as well as thoughtful. They had not bestowed
great beauty on the child, for instance; great beauty could be as much of a
curse as a blessing. They hadn’t given her specific talents, just the
deftness and skill that would enable her to make the best use of whatever
talents she had been born with. Even Roderick’s Gift was mutable; it
would serve as Marina decided it would serve. While she was a child, the
Elementals of the Air would watch over her, as those of her own Element would
guard her—no wind would harm her, for instance, nor was it possible for
her to drown. Once she became an adult and knew what the Gift meant, she could
make use of it—or not—as she chose.

Only Elizabeth was left to bestow her gift. Alanna smiled
up into her friend’s eyes—but as she took her first step toward the
baby, the windows rattled, a chill wind bellied the curtains, and the room
darkened, as if a terrible storm cloud had boiled up in an instant.

The guests started back from the windows; Margherita clung
to Sebastian. A wave of inexplicable and paralyzing fear rose up and
overwhelmed Alanna, pinning her in her chair like a frightened rabbit.

A woman swept in through the parlor door.

She was dressed in the height of fashion, in a gown of
black satin trimmed with silk fringe in the deepest maroon. Her skin was pale
as porcelain, her hair as black as the fabric of her gown. She raked the room
and its occupants with an imperious gaze, as Hugh gasped.

“Arachne!” he exclaimed, and hurried forward. “Why,
sister! We didn’t expect you!”

The woman’s red lips curved in a chill parody of a
smile. “Of course you didn’t,” she purred, her eyes glinting
dangerously. “You didn’t invite me, brother. I can only wonder why.”

Hugh paled, but stood his ground. “I had no reason to
think you would want to attend the christening, Arachne. You never invited me
to Reginald’s christening—”

Arachne advanced into the room, and Hugh perforce gave way
before her. Alanna sat frozen in her chair, sensing the woman’s menace,
still overwhelmed with fear, but unable to understand why she was so afraid.
Hugh had told her next to nothing about this older sister of his—only
that she was the only child of his father’s first marriage, and that she
had quarreled with her father over his marriage to Hugh’s mother, and
made a runaway marriage with her wealthy tradesman.

“You should have invited me, little brother,”
Arachne continued with a throaty laugh, as she continued to glide forward, and
Hugh backed up a step at a time. “Why not? Didn’t you think I’d
appreciate the sight of the heir’s heiress?” Another pace, A toothy
smile. “I can’t imagine why you would think that. Here I am, the
child’s only aunt. Why shouldn’t I wish to see her?”

“Because you’ve never shown any interest in our
family before, Arachne.” Hugh was as white as marble, and it seemed to
Alanna that he was being
forced
back as Arachne advanced. “You
didn’t come to father’s funeral—”

“I sent a wreath. Surely that was enough, considering
that father detested my husband and made no secret of it.”

“—and you didn’t even send a wreath to
mother’s—”

“She could have opposed him, and chose not to.”
A shrug, and an insincere smile. “You didn’t trouble to let me know
of your wedding to this charming child, so I could hardly have attended
that.
I only found out about it from the society pages in the
Times.
That
was hardly kind.” A theatrical sigh. “But how could I have expected
anything else? After Father and Mother determined to estrange me from our
family circle, I wasn’t surprised that you would follow suit.”

Alanna strained, with eyes and Sight, to make sense of the
woman who called herself Hugh’s sister. There was a darkness about her,
like a storm cloud: a sense of lightnings and an ominous power. Was it magic?
If so, was it her own? It was possible for a mage to bestow specific magic upon
someone who wasn’t able to command any of the powers. But it was also
possible for one of the many sorts of Elementals to attach itself to a non-mage
as well.

As thunder growled and distant lightning licked the clouds
outside, Alanna looked up and met Arachne’s eyes—and found herself
unable to move. The rest of their guests stood like pillars, staring, as if
they, too, were struck with paralysis.

Hugh clearly tried to interpose himself between Arachne and
the cradle, but he moved sluggishly, as if pushing his way through thick muck,
and his sister darted around him. She bent over the cradle. Alanna tried to
reach out and snatch her baby away, but she could no more have moved than have
flown.

“Well, well,” Arachne said, a hint of mockery
in her voice. “A pleasant child. But
so
fragile. Nothing like
my
boy…”

As Alanna watched in horror, Arachne reached out with a
single, extended finger, supple and white and tipped with a long fingernail
painted with bloodred enamel. She reached for Marina’s forehead, as all
of the godparents had. The darkness shivered, gathered itself around her, and
crept down the extended arm. “You really should enjoy this pretty
child—while you have her. You never know about children.” Her eyes
glinted in the gloom, a hint of red flickering in the back of them. The ominous
finger neared Marina’s forehead. “They can survive so
many
hazards, growing up. Then one day—say, on the eighteenth birthday—”

The finger touched.

“Death,” Arachne whispered.

Like an animate oil slick, the shadow gathered itself,
flowed down Arachne’s arm, and enveloped Marina in a shadow-shroud.

Lightning struck the lawn outside the window, and thunder
crashed like a thousand cannon. Alanna screamed; the baby woke, and wailed.

With a peal of laughter, Arachne whirled away from the
cradle. In a few strides she was out the door and gone, escaped before any
could detain her.

Now the paralysis holding all of them broke.

Alanna snatched her child out of the cradle and held the
howling infant to her chest, sobbing. As lightning crashed and thunder rolled,
as the baby keened, all of her godparents descended on them both.

“I don’t know how she did this,”
Elizabeth said at last, frowning. “I’ve never seen magic like this.
It doesn’t correspond to any Element—if I were superstitious—”

Alanna pressed her lips tightly together, and fought down
another sob. “If you were superstitious—what?” she demanded.

Elizabeth sighed. “I’d say it was a curse.
Meant to take effect between now and Marina’s eighteenth birthday. But I
can’t tell
how.”

“Neither can I,” Roderick said grimly. “Though
it’s a damned good job I gave her the Gift I did. She got some
protection, anyway. This—well, call it a curse, my old granddad would
have—with the help of the Sylphs, this curse is drained, countered for
now—else it might have killed her in her cradle. But how someone with no
magic of her own managed to do this—” He shrugged.

“The curse is countered—” Alanna didn’t
like the way he had phrased that. “It’s not gone?”

Roderick looked helpless, and not comfortable with feeling
that way. “Well—no.”

Elizabeth stepped forward before the hysterical cry of
anguish building in her heart burst out of Alanna’s throat. “Then
it’s a good thing that I have not yet given my Gift.”

She took the baby from Alanna’s arms; Alanna resisted
for a moment, before reluctantly letting the baby go. She watched, tears
welling in her eyes, hand pressed to her mouth, as Elizabeth studied the red,
pinched, tear-streaked face of her baby.

“This—abomination—is too deeply rooted. I
cannot rid her of it,” Elizabeth said, and Alanna moaned, and started to
turn away into her husband’s shoulder.

“Wait!” Elizabeth said, forestalling her. “I
said I couldn’t rid her of it. I didn’t say I couldn’t change
it. Water—water can go
everywhere.
No magic wrought can keep me
out.”

Shaking with hope and fear, Alanna turned back. She
watched, Hugh’s arms around her, as Elizabeth gathered her power around
her like the skirts of her flowing gown. The green, living energy spun around
her, sparkling with life; she murmured something under her breath.

Then, exactly like water pouring into a cavity, the power
spun down into the baby’s tiny body. Marina seemed too small to contain
all of it, and yet it flowed into her until it had utterly vanished without a
trace.

The darkness that had overshadowed her face slowly lifted.
The baby’s eyes opened; she heaved a sigh, and for the first time since
Arachne had touched her, she smiled, tentatively. Alanna burst into tears and
gathered her baby to her breast. Hugh’s arms surrounded her with comfort
and warmth.

Elizabeth spoke firmly, pitching her voice to carry over
Alanna’s weeping.

“I did not—I
could
not—remove
this curse. What I have done is to change it. As it stood, it had no limit; it
could have been invoked at any time. Now, if it does not fall upon her by her
eighteenth birthday, it will rebound upon the caster.”

Alanna gulped down her sobs and looked up quickly at her
friend. Elizabeth’s mouth was pursed in a sour smile. “Injudicious
of Arachne to mention a date; curses are tricky things, and if you don’t
hedge them in carefully, they find ways of breaking out—or leaving holes.
And injudicious of her to come in person; now, if it is awakened at all, she
will have to awaken it in person, and I have buried it deeply. It will not be
easy, and will require a great deal of close contact.”

“But—” Alanna felt her throat closing
again, and Elizabeth held up her hand.

“I have not finished. I further modified this curse;
should Arachne manage to awaken it, Marina will
not
die.”
Elizabeth sighed, wearily. “But there, my knowledge fails me. I told you
that curses are difficult; this one took the power and twisted it away from me.
I can only tell you that the curse will not kill outright. I cannot tell you
what it
will
do…”

Alanna watched a hundred dire thoughts pass behind
Elizabeth’s eyes. There were so many things that were
worse
than
death—and many that were only a little better. What if the curse struck
Mari blind, or deaf, or mindless? What if it made a cripple of her?

Then Elizabeth gathered herself and nodded briskly. “Never
mind. We must see that it does not come to that. Alanna, we must hide her.”

“Hide her?” Hugh said, from behind her. “By
my faith, Elizabeth, that is no bad notion! Like—like the infant Arthur,
we can send her away where Arachne can’t find her!”

“Take her?” Alanna clutched the infant closer,
her voice rising. “You’d take her away from me?”

“Alanna, we can’t hide her if you go with her,”
Hugh pointed out, his own arms tightening around her. “But where? That’s
the question.”

Hot tears spilled from Alanna’s eyes, as the others
discussed her baby’s fate, heedless of her breaking heart. They were
taking her away, her Marina, her little Mari—

She heard them in a haze of grief, as if from a great
distance, as her friends, her husband, decided among them to send Marina away,
away, off with Sebastian and Thomas and Margherita, practically into the wilds
of Cornwall. It was Hugh’s allusion to Arthur that had decided them.
Arachne knew nothing of them; if she had known of Hugh’s childhood
schoolmates, she hadn’t recognized the playfellows that had been in the
artists of now.

Elizabeth tried to comfort her. “It’s only
until she’s of age, darling,” her friend said, patting her
shoulders as the tears flowed and she shook with sobs. “When she’s
eighteen, she’ll come back to you!”

Eighteen years. An eternity. An age, in which she would
never see Marina’s first step, hear her first word, see her grow…

Alanna wept. Wept as they bundled Marina up in a
baby-basket and carried her away, leaving behind the little dresses that Alanna
had embroidered during the months of her confinement, the toys, even the
cradle. She wept as her friends smuggled the child into their cart, as if she
was nothing more than a few apples or a bottle of cider.

She wept as they drove away, her husband’s arms
around her, her best friend standing at her side. She wept and would not be
consoled; for she had lost her heart, and something told her she would never
see her child again.

BIRDS twittered in the rose bushes outside the
old-fashioned diamond-paned windows. The windows, swung open on their ancient
iron hinges, let in sunshine, a floating dandelion seed and a breath of mown
grass, even if Marina wasn’t in position to see the view into the
farmyard. The sunshine gilded an oblong on the worn wooden floor. Behind her,
somewhere out in the yard, chickens clucked and muttered, and two of Aunt
Margherita’s cats had a half-minute spat. Marina’s arm was starting
to go numb.