Chapter Two: Encounter at the Gate

[mirimsgate]

Tev of Mala

Northern Leaf Season, Year of Lessa

Contar fastened his weapons belt and then checked his pack. “I think I’m carrying most of the heavy tech, as always. Clever of you. What’s the name of that accursed planet?” Contar growled.

“Remenoth. They have various names of their own.” I did not bother to check my own pack. Contar usually grumbled. When I was in a good mood, it got him a lighter pack.

“The stef who live there can’t even pick one name for their world? And they’re doing magic?”

“Magic is appearing. We don’t know how, remember? That’s why we’re going.”

“Why did I ever agree to walk the gates?”

“Somebody had to.” Our officer always said I was more trouble than all the rest of the illadrim put together. Nonetheless, Contar always chose me as his partner. Which meant he walked the gates. I find stef interesting. They do not think like us, even the ones who look like us. Contar had too many prejudices against stef anyway. Not to mention stef worlds.

“I remember Remenoth now. It’s cold and it stinks.” Contar reached in his pack and found his loma twigs, and stuck one in his mouth.

“That stuff stains your teeth.”

Contar grinned. He often had stained teeth anyway, or a stained tunic, or muddy boots. “Yes, but if you’re chewing loma you can’t smell anything else. Who wants to smell a place like Remenoth? When we get there, let’s just capture the nearest remen, stim it until we find out where the magic is, grab a magic user, and come home.”

I closed his flaps for him and held it up for him to slide on. “You are just irritable because the verassi have a personal interest in this.”

“I do not like being briefed directly by the verassi. They have such unreasonable expectations.”

“They are wise. They would not expect too much.”

Contar laughed. “You are so innocent, Tev. Your loyalty scores must be off the charts.”

I checked my burner and kept it in my hand. “Well, let’s cross. Sooner there, sooner home.”

The gate looked empty. We assumed it was. The demons never got near enough to Elassium to make the Remenoth gate dangerous. We illadrim did not allow demons that close to our people, if we could help it. Usually, we could help it.

I went first, as always. I was the better fighter. This time there would only be remen at the other end. But sometimes there were more dangerous stef, even demons, and Contar and I were used to working together. Standard procedures mean that you have less thinking to do in emergencies.

Elassium is well-defended. Demons cannot come to it. Usually, they cannot even successfully fight us in worlds other than their own, because we are always a moving target. So demons seek us at the gates, and that is where illadrim die.

I do not perfectly understand how they kill us. I comprehend the technology of magic, but never have been able to comprehend the technology of science to the same degree. All I know is that the demons cannot kill us so easily when we are solid, because we are good fighters. But we have no defense in the gates except luck. We are vulnerable for minutes at a time. It does not feel like time passes to us - we walk down a tunnel, we blink, we find ourselves walking out into a different world than our own. But if the demons are waiting, with their weapons on line, they can destroy us in the brief time we are in transition. Therefore, I hate the gates. All of them. I like to be under my own control. When I am, I can control anything around me as well.

We could see nothing on the other side. Of course, demons wait just outside the gates, around corners, until elassi step through. Then they rush in, set up their weapons, bring them on line, and . . . and we are dead.

We looked again, and saw no signs. We didn’t expect them, and they do not always leave them, but demons are often sloppy. Sometimes, they even have technicians working in the gates. So I went through, feeling the familiar tingle in my nerves, my adrenalin at its base level.

Against all odds, there were demons waiting at the Remenoth end. As I was rematerializing, they had just brought the weapon on line -I do not think they were expecting us. It washed over me, but they were too late. They aimed further down the passage. I saw the flash of violet, so I knew Contar was dead.

One of them reached for another weapon, but I had my burner, and sent them after Contar, although more messily.

I looked around at the four I killed, breathing harder than usual, and realized one had been a technician. They are unarmed, and I would not have killed it on purpose. It was not a good day.

I was alone, half-equipped, on a world where demons stalked.

It took me over an hour to get to the tree enclosure. Illadrim scouts had found that this was almost the only stand of trees on this continent - the only one within a thousand miles. The verasso who briefed us thought getting to trees would help us access our magic. Suddenly, with my technology lost and the demons abroad, this became extremely important. As well, I did not care to sleep indoors, surrounded by stef, with Contar gone.

It was cold on this part of Remenoth. Elassi do not care for cold; we live in temperate areas. Of course, I was trained to survive anywhere. Nonetheless, by the time I made camp under the trees and set up basic privacy and silence wards around it, my fingers were numb. The trees were strange. There was precisely one of each kind, and they had little signs with their names on them-in remen, of course.

I pulled my leather jacket more tightly around me. Leathers are best to walk the gates, but I wished I had thought to wear wool as well. The intelligence report said full winter had not yet settled into this area. Temperatures just above 0 degrees centigrade, local measure, and a heavy fog were winter enough for me.

There was almost no fallen wood in the tree enclosure. Intelligence reported they cleaned the area regularly. I am an orderly person, but I cannot imagine tidying up a forest like that. There was almost no dead wood; the forest floor actually looked as if someone swept it, as we do outdoor food booths.

It took some hunting to find dead branches, but I did not want to risk smoke. I was too tired and chilled for the stronger wards. After I stacked it, I put my hands to the wood. It did not catch.

I was so weary then, and shivering, I barely had energy to say the words. I sighed.

“Mardus, ko remen.”

It was a small fire, but welcome. I pulled as close as I could.

Without Contar, and half our supplies, I was crippled before I began. Contar had been right - not about the weight, but what he was carrying. He had had most of our instruments, as well as remen money. It is simple to survive on Remenoth with exchange, but difficult without it.

No choice means no thought. The old saying did not comfort me as it should, but then, what would? This was a world of machines, and I was lost in it. I had been through Remenoth often, but I would never understand it, or the remen, any more than I would understand demons.

At any rate, when I am in trouble, I like to think. We always have choices. Always. While it was not my assignment, I needed to know more about the demons’ presence here. They were a surprise, and illadrim do not like surprises.

I was almost without instruments, but I carried one - the komor. The komor is elassi technology, and works with magic, not science. It can find demons, and the beings most touched by demons. I could also calibrate it to find magic users.

While by itself this was not much, with interrogation I could find how the demons came to a new world and, with luck, what their strategy was. This was a world stripped of its resources by its own people. The only interest a demon might have in Remenoth would be that it had a gate directly to Elassium.

There are gates on every world we know - but then, how would we get to a world if it were not for the gates? Some worlds have many, and others have few. We do not know who made the gates. They were probably a dead race long, long before an elasso climbed the first mala tree. Not every people knows their own gates yet - the remen were a pre-gate people. I did not have to review the path from the demon world to Elassium - every illadro learned that path the first week he joined the illadrim. The shortest chain was seven gates.

Illadrim patrolled those gates regularly. The gates closest to Elassium were patrolled less frequently, because demons have been driven back from any foothold there, and it only needs occasional cleaning. Nor did we patrol the ones closest to the demon world often - too dangerous for us, and usually there was no need. The middle gates, however - those are well guarded by illadrim, and the illadrim are the best fighters in the universe.

To get to the Remenoth/Elassium gate, then the demons would have had to defeat three patrols. We would have heard if they had managed it. Nothing like that had ever happened to the illadrim. Demons have seldom defeated one patrol. That is one reason they hate us so much. Nor would demons especially want simply to guard the Remenoth/Elassium gate. It, like the other gates to our planet, is always guarded on the home side. They would have to come in force if they came, and killing illadrim coming to Remenoth would only reveal their presence. So the only reason they would be here had to do with Remenoth.

But why the sudden interest, anyway? Surely not because magic was appearing. The demons do not believe in magic. On the other hand, illadrim are trained to be suspicious of coincidence. The congruence of magic and demons on Remenoth was an odd coincidence indeed.

I decided not to form an hypothesis before interrogation. The komor showed me five strong connections to demons within a hundred meras. Four, predictably, were in the remen’s capital, Deesy, which was a few meras away - maybe 30. Also predictably, none of these remen had any touch of magic. They were in good health, all but one a bit older than the average - probably important people among the stef.

The fifth was the strangest reading I have ever seen. It was young, not long beyond childhood, and its connection to demons was fainter, neither of which were surprising in themselves. But it also had an aberrational magic reading. In fact, the reading was in the violet range, the only time I’d ever seen one. The remen was near me-in woods somewhere close by.

That gave me a simple task. I set the trace and began to hunt.

I found it quickly. It was small - not so many centimeters shorter than I, but small-boned, very slight, with no sign it had ever attempted to improve muscle mass or otherwise build its defenses. Remen have a wide physical range, but many are small, owing to protein deficiencies. It was light ochre-colored, as are many of the stef on Remenoth; dark-haired, no scars, basically unmemorable. The only attribute that would make it unusual for a remen were its eyelashes, the longest I had ever seen, and darker than any elasso’s. We are a fairhaired people, though similar enough to remen to pass easily, which is not the case on every world. I could not immediately determine why it was so near death. Perhaps hunger, perhaps cold - I could find no significant wounds. It was weaponless. I picked it up and carried it to my camp.

It was so fragile, I thought it would be easy for even a civilian to kill. If I just left it for a day, it would die. Certainly, it could not defend itself from anything I chose to do to it. Perhaps it would be kinder to kill it now. If it were indeed a close associate of the demons, I would probably have to kill it later, anyway.

But I knew nothing about this place, and it might help. And I do not kill without need.

So I spooned water into it, and saw that it could still swallow, and then I gave it some teshke from my flask. It coughed, but a little color came into its face. I wrapped it in my jacket to warm it.

I missed Contar. Contar was always crude and funny, and I tried to imagine what he would say about this new burden. Probably something about its uselessness for business or pleasure. Both certainly true as far as I was concerned. I was probably a fool to waste my teshke on it.

Contar could have stood watch and watch with me, too. Sleeping alone in a strange world is bad enough, but sleeping with a stranger nearby is worse. This one looked harmless, but the magic reading was so odd that I could not predict what it might be able to do. And even the most harmless may attract attention.

I bound it, and used the stim to freeze its vocal chords.

I ate some bread. Then I soaked a second piece in teshke and water, and spooned it into the stranger. Doing this felt rather like the times as a child I found a nestling and fed it until it could fly. My family laughed at me, but they were indulgent. There was a joy when it spread its wings and began to circle worth the nuisance of weeks of hand feeding. I doubted there would be any reward like that with this one.

I slung my hammock high, dragged the stef up there with me, and made it a stopgap hammock of a sort - hung it next to me, near enough I could cut its throat in an emergency.

So I was set for the night.

In the morning, I heard voices nearby from the keepers of the place. They were driving small machines with sharp blades attached along the edges of the paths. The blades cut down every wisp of grass or flower that struggled through the soil. I thought how strange, to take what barely resembled wilderness at all and destroy it even more. Why have the trees in the first place? Why not make tapestries of trees, or paintings, or stone statues?

The stef was still alive, and looked somewhat better. Its eyes were open, and followed me as I started to bring it down. It tried to say something, and I could see it realize that it could not speak.

“It’s temporary,” I told it. “I needed to keep you quiet.” I could see the edge of panic then, and its hand clawing at its throat. It takes them that way often - they confuse talking and breathing. But this one was intelligent. After the first, reflexive gasps, it stilled, and watched me.

I could feel it gather power into itself. It had decided to alar - and despite its weakness, it might be able to do it, too. Alara was strong in it.

I moved my hand above its face and said, “Ne alara.” Of course, after that it panicked, and it was all I could do to finish getting us both down safely, as it struggled against the ropes and they tangled, strangling it.

I had no time to remember what I was supposed to do when a capture struggled with both ne alar and physical holds. As we neared the ground, I cut its ropes with my knife and grabbed its shirt at the nape of its neck, lifting it off its feet. I had to be careful to avoid the kicking, but got it to eye level. I kept my knife where it could see.

“Hold still, and I won’t cut your throat,” I told it.

That got through. It stopped struggling immediately, though I could tell by the way its muscles tensed that it was waiting for an opportunity to escape.

Curse this stef. I was not in the mood for this, but it was the best I had at the moment. I gathered my thoughts, and then set it down.

“You were near death when I found you,” I said. “Do you really think that running from me will make your situation better?”

It shook its head.

“Have you any curiosity about who I am, or why I am here?”

To my surprise, that got a small smile, and it nodded.

“If I promise to give you breakfast, and tell you who I am, will you give your word not to run or to make a noise until we are done eating?”

It nodded again.

“Very well.” I reversed the stim.

It hits you hard - they teach us in training how it feels the obvious way, and I always hated it - and the stef crumpled to the ground and lay there, gasping. But it could hear the sound of its own gasps, and that seemed to reassure it.

I found my supplies and handed it more stale bread and cheese. It looked suspiciously at the cheese, but finally bit into it. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Mirim.” It tore into the food as if it were starving. Perhaps it was.

“Call me Tev.”

We ate in silence. I gave it my teshke flask, and the stef sipped it hesitantly. Then it blinked.

“What is this stuff?”

“We call it teshke. Something like alcohol, but more nutritious.” Remen drank alcohol, as well as many other poisons.

“It slugs you in the gut, picks you up, and shakes you awake.” The remen took another sip, and I took the teshke away before it drank too much.

The day was filled with silence. While the trees smelled with that heavy green that is so comforting to all elassi, there was no birdsong, no small animals running up the branches, no larger animals moving cautiously down the paths. Well, the paths were hard. Why would they?

“Where are your animals?” I asked.

“In the zoo.”

“I mean the woods animals.”

“In the zoo.” This world was near to lost - the demons would love it.

“What do you call this place?”

“The arb. It’s a tree zoo.”

Arb. Guttural, unpleasant word. I would do my job and get out as soon as possible.

“Does your . . . do you have any theories about other planets being inhabited?”

It stared at me. “I’m not an idiot, I’m a scientist. I’ve read a bit. I never made my mind up, one way or another, till about a year ago.” It was indeed not an idiot. Its eyebrows knitted, and I could see it weaving together my question with its own observations. “Are you saying you come from another planet?”

“I was not saying that. But, if you like, I will. I have come to you from the world we call Elassium. Where you live, we call Remenoth.”

“Remenoth.” The stef took another bite of bread and chewed it, perhaps to give itself time. “Why are you here? Accident?”

I shook my head. “Very much not accident. You have to understand that those from Elassium have an enemy. We stand against a destructive entity that has conquered half the galaxy and is seeking to capture and destroy more worlds.”

“And what does . . . Remenoth have to do with it?”

“Can’t you guess? You say you have analytical ability.”

It shrugged. “You must think our world has something to do with the destructive force. That either it’s coming from here, or nurtures it, or is on the verge of falling victim to it, or - there are too many damned possibilities, frankly, and my head hurts too much for guessing.”

“Why does your head hurt?”

“Because the POAs. . . “ and then its eyes slitted. “Does this have anything to do with Hokkanreth?”

I looked in my pack for dried fruit, so it would not see how shaken I was. I had not heard that word in some time. I held the fruit out to it, but the stef shook its head. I put it and the other provisions away. Breakfast, and the truce, was over.

“Tell me, Tev, are you here because of Hokkanreth?”

It was persistent as well as intelligent. That could be both useful and dangerous.

I had got my face together, and imitated its shrug. “I think it will be easier if you tell me your story, and then I can tell you mine.”

“My story. That sounds like you want the long version.”

“Yes, I think it will be long.” I got out the recorder and the stim.

The stef’s eyes slid over my tools, and then it looked away. I was careless. As I reached to adjust the recorder, it leaped to its feet and ran.

It took me ten strides to catch it, twice as many as I would have predicted. It was hard to hold when caught as well, and kicked me viciously in a place I prefer not to be touched. Since it had mentioned a headache, and there might be an injury, I did not want to risk an additional one until it had been interrogated, which left little with which to immobilize it.

I am not used to being rushed. Another dependency I had on Contar, it appears; when you have backup, you can take your time. I abandoned gentleness and slammed the stef to the ground, and as it struggled, got the stim onto the back of its neck and pressed the freeze key.

Success. Finally. Complete and perfect immobilization, for as long as I chose. I attached the recorder to the stim, and threw myself down to breathe, then tapped the “query” key and began interrogation.