Martha Wells - Fall of Ile-Rien 03 - The Gate of Gods

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WellsPDFThe Gate of Gods

The

Gate of Gods

Book Three of the Fall of Ile-Rien

Martha Wells

To Lisa Gaunt and Katrien Rutten

Contents

ONE

This isn’t a good idea,” Tremaine said under her breath.

TWO

It was evening and cold with mist-drizzle when Tremaine arrived…

THREE

Several hours later, Tremaine sat in one of the spindly…

FOUR

The next morning dawned far too soon, at least for…

FIVE

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Giliead had given up counting explosions. The distant blasts were…

SIX

Tremaine woke huddled against the corridor wall with Ilias’s coat…

SEVEN

Florian wearily slumped in a red leather club chair, her…

EIGHT

It was Giliead’s turn to go with Gerard next, and…

NINE

So, you were right,” Florian said, stirring her coffee with…

TEN

All the tracks had given Ilias a vision of a…

ELEVEN

Of course, the old man couldn’t find it in the…

TWELVE

Tremaine sat on a rock on the cave’s little beach,…

THIRTEEN

The next morning a galley arrived at Dead Tree Point,…

FOURTEEN

You sure it’s here, miss?” The big Parscian sailor was…

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FIFTEEN

Wincing at the bright lights, Ilias followed Tremaine down the…

SIXTEEN

They stepped in the circle, Gerard used the sphere, and…

SEVENTEEN

You were awfully quiet around Morane,” Tremaine said to Gerard,…

EIGHTEEN

Again, Tremaine found herself with nothing to do except wait…

NINETEEN

This time the abrupt vertigo knocked Tremaine down. She shoved…

TWENTY

Giliead and Ilias would have reached Cineth sometime that night,…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY MARTHA WELLS

CREDITS

COVER

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

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Chapter 1

This isn’t a good idea,” Tremaine said under her breath. She was aware she had said it before but she

hadn’t been counting.

“Do you really think so?” Radiating annoyance, Gerard was cleaning his spectacles with his

handkerchief in a way that could only be described as aggressive. “I’m afraid that wasn’t made clear to

me the first seven times you said it.”

Gerard, evidently, had been counting. “All right, fine.” Tremaine folded her arms, looking around the

meeting room foyer. She resented being here. This building, part of the Capidaran Senate, was prized for

its age and historical significance rather than its comfort or utility. Cold and not well lit, the foyer was

lined with dark wood and the high coffered ceiling had yellow patches from old water damage. Colonel

Averi and several dignitaries, including the Rienish and Parscian ambassadors to Capidara and members

of their staffs, were waiting too, standing about in small groups, pretending to chat amiably. Gerard was

the only Rienish sorcerer present; safety decreed that the Queen Ravenna remain crewed and ready to

leave Capistown harbor at any time. At the moment Niles was on board with one of the spheres he had

constructed, so the ship could defend itself from Gardier spells and be taken through the etheric world-

gate at will.

They were all here in the Capidaran Senate to discuss the plan to liberate Lodun, the Rienish city where

dozens of sorcerers, plus hundreds of other townspeople and students, had been trapped behind the

town’s defenses in a magical Gardier blockade since the beginning of the war. And with all their past

and ongoing problems with Gardier spies, Tremaine felt any discussion in a virtually public forum was

an incredibly bad idea. But while the Capidarans had lost some of their merchant ships, they hadn’t yet

come under direct attack, and it was hard to convince them of the immediate danger.

Tremaine could almost understand why. Up until a few weeks ago they had all believed the Gardier had

come from a hidden city somewhere in the empty ocean between Ile-Rien and Capidara. Discovering

that the Gardier came from another world entirely, that they used an etheric world-gate spell to transport

their military vessels to a place they called the staging world, inhabited mostly by primitive peoples with

no sorcery or modern weapons to protect them, and from there to Ile-Rien and Adera, had been hard

enough to swallow, let alone explain.

And when it came down to it, Tremaine felt her presence here was useless. Not that her presence

anywhere else would have been particularly helpful. There was plenty of work for sorcerers; the

Capidaran and the expatriate Rienish and Aderassi sorcerers who had been trapped in Capidara when the

war started had all been conscripted to build Viller spheres, the only real defense against the Gardier.

The Viller Institute researchers were busy examining the prototype airship brought back from the

Gardier world, but Tremaine really didn’t know enough about mechanics and engines to help with that.

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She grimaced and looked around again, impatient. Everyone wore sober wool or broadcloth suits, except

for Averi and the other military men present, who had on their dark blue dress uniforms. She noticed

Averi’s uniform hung on his thin frame, making it obvious he had lost weight since it had first been

issued. Tremaine wore a new outfit of dark wool serge, and the narrow skirt and long-waisted jacket

might be fashionable, but she found it constricting and drafty. She didn’t think the cloche hat did

anything for her either, but Capidaran polite society insisted women wear something on their heads. On

her bad days, she felt as if a dead albatross might be more appropriate headgear for her, suiting her mood

and her apparent role in life. Since they had arrived in Capistown, nothing seemed to be going right, or if

it did go right, it moved at a snail’s pace.

“Where the hell is your father?” Gerard muttered, pulling out his pocket watch to check the time. Again.

The watch had been one of the first things he had purchased in Capistown, a replacement for the one

broken during an attack by the Gardier’s mechanical disruption spell. The same spell that Rienish

sorcerers couldn’t defend against without the help of the spheres. The spell that had devastated Rienish

and Aderassi military forces.

“Oh, come now, Gerard. Considering what you sent him out to do, does either one of us really want to

know the answer to that?” Tremaine said dryly, and considered him paid back for the “seven times”

comment.

Gerard gave her a brief glare, putting his watch away. “If we can just get this nonsense over and done

with so we can get on with the experiment—” He stopped, relieved. “There he is.”

Tremaine looked at the double doors standing open to the dark marble-floored hall. Nicholas Valiarde

was just stepping into the room, nodding cordially to Colonel Averi, who nodded back with a closed and

somehow wary expression.

Tremaine regarded her father with as much suspicion as Colonel Averi did. Nicholas wore a black suit

and overcoat, managing to make the impeccably expensive cut look rakish, despite the gray in his hair

and the beard he had recently grown. He didn’t look as if he had been robbing a bank; but then, he

wouldn’t.

Then the door to the inner chamber opened and Tremaine followed Gerard inside.

No weapons were allowed in the meeting and had to be handed over before anyone entered. This

produced quite a collection. Everyone expected Colonel Averi and the other military men to be armed. A

few eyebrows were raised when Tremaine produced the pistol she had been carrying for the past two

weeks, and Gerard surprised everyone by emptying his pockets of a flick knife and a revolver. Nicholas

was the only one unarmed. Tremaine snorted to herself in derisive amusement, knowing weapons or lack

thereof was no measure of who was dangerous and who wasn’t; if the Capidarans had any inkling, they

would never have allowed Nicholas inside the building.

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The meeting room was as drafty as the foyer and the hall, with a dark marble floor and dark paneling

lightened only by electric sconces, newly installed in the old building. Rows of long, finely carved tables

and uncomfortable benches faced a dais with a table and chairs for the principal figures.

Tremaine was making her way toward a seat, already feeling the room’s damp chill penetrate her bones,

wishing she was back at their refugee hostel with a cup of coffee, or in bed with Ilias, or better yet on the

Ravenna in bed with Ilias and coffee, when Gerard grabbed her arm. This was not something Gerard

normally did, not unless he strongly suspected they were about to be killed. Instinct freezing her into

immobility, Tremaine hastily surveyed the room.

She had noted in a general way the several well-dressed men and women taking seats at the head table,

shuffling papers, addressing casual comments to one another. Now she saw that the man seated quietly

at one end of the table was Ixion.

Oh, for the love of God, she thought, mostly disgusted with herself. I should have expected this. The

sorcerer was wearing a gray wool suit with high pointed lapels in the latest fashion; for some reason this

made Tremaine’s skin crawl. None of the other Syprians would wear Rienish clothing except for a coat

against the cold.

There was no hint now to show that the body Ixion was wearing had been grown in a homemade vat on

the Isle of Storms; his brows and eyelashes had grown in and his hair was dark, if too short for fashion.

His face was ordinary, that of a reasonably handsome older man.

Beside her, Gerard echoed her thought, quietly furious. “I should have known this was coming.”

Tremaine turned to him, appalled, then read his expression. “Don’t walk out,” she said sharply. If ever a

man looked as if he was about to take his sphere and go home, or at least back to the Ravenna, it was

Gerard.

Count Delphane, highest-ranking Rienish noble in Capidara, and representative of the Queen and

Princess Olympe, took his place at the table. He was tall, sharp-featured, with carefully cut gray-white

hair. He met Gerard’s gaze steadily, as if letting the sorcerer know his reaction hadn’t gone unobserved.

Gerard pressed his lips together. “No, I won’t walk out. They would know it for an empty gesture.”

They would know Gerard wouldn’t desert the people who depended on him, no matter how great the

provocation.

Nicholas stepped past them, commenting dryly, “This surprises you?”

Tremaine set her jaw and studied her feet in her uncomfortable new shoes. She supposed it made a

horrible kind of sense. They were desperately short of sorcerers, and only the most skilled were able to

successfully build Viller spheres, the only things that made resistance to the Gardier possible. Even with

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every available sorcerer at work constructing them, there were still far fewer than they needed to repel

an invasion of Capidara, liberate Lodun and the rest of Ile-Rien and protect their ally Parscia. To people

who didn’t know Ixion’s history, it must seem mad not to make use of him. Ignoring Nicholas, she said,

low-voiced, to Gerard, “The request to give up our weapons takes on a new aspect.”

“Yes, doesn’t it,” Gerard agreed, his expression grim. Nicholas had moved on, finding a seat at the front

row of tables, near the outside aisle. Tremaine caught Gerard’s sleeve, hauling him to an empty place in

the middle row, anxious not to be the only ones left standing. She wanted to give Gerard time to recover.

As everyone found a place, the Capidaran minister, a grim-faced older man, stood on the dais, saying, “I

don’t think I need explain the gravity of our situation to anyone here. The Low Countries, their colonies

in the Maiutan islands, Parscia and Bisra have all suffered terrible losses. Adera, and now Ile-Rien, have

fallen.”

Unexpectedly, Tremaine felt her stomach clench. Was this the first time someone had said it aloud? The

minister paused, staring inquiringly at Tremaine. She stared back blankly, then realized he was actually

looking at Gerard, seated next to her, who had raised a hand. The minister asked, “You have a

comment?”

“I have a question,” Gerard corrected, and Tremaine rubbed her brow to shield her expression, hearing

that tone in his voice.

“Yes?”

“What is he doing here?” The question was pointed and obviously directed at Ixion.

The minister threw an unreadable glance at the Syprian sorcerer. It was Count Delphane who answered,

“He’s offered to help defend Capistown from the Gardier.”

Gerard shook his head slowly, incredulously. “You must be out of your minds.”

Ixion spread his hands, the picture of reason. “I have never done anything but defend myself.” He spoke

Rienish with less of an accent than Ilias and the other Syprians did; he had learned it from his captors the

same way he had learned the Gardier language on the Isle of Storms.

Gerard lifted his brows. “By concealing your identity so you could murder three young women in their

own home, among other crimes too numerous to list.”

This gathering was too orderly to actually stir or murmur, but Tremaine detected a sudden shift in

interest and a new alertness around her; she suspected that the members of the Rienish Embassy to

Capidara hadn’t known this.

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Three young women. Ilias’s cousin, Giliead’s sister and stepsister. Tremaine hadn’t known them,

couldn’t remember the names she had been told. But she knew how close Syprian families could be and

how painful that loss must have been. Not the least because Giliead and Ilias both felt responsible for

failing to see through Ixion’s deception. And since Giliead’s sister had been all that had stood between

the Andrien household and the more acquisitive branches of the family, it was a loss that continued to

have repercussions. Tremaine knew why Gerard had brought up that crime rather than any of the many

others that could be laid at Ixion’s door. Ilias and Giliead had seen it happen, and if the Capidaran

government could be persuaded to hold a hearing, they could testify to it.

Ixion, of course, seemed impervious to the accusation. He said simply, “I was angry. I felt I needed to

revenge myself. Something you could perhaps understand in your current circumstances.”

Gerard sat back, his lips thin with distaste. But he had made Ixion’s character public and it would be

impossible for the Capidarans to ignore.

A voice, quiet but amused and clearly audible to the entire room, said, “It’s been my experience that

such ‘indiscretions’ are invariably committed by men who are enraged by their own sexual inadequacy.”

The room went silent. Tremaine choked on an indrawn breath and clapped a hand over her mouth to

keep from ruining the moment by gasping for air. The speaker had, of course, been her father.

Ixion contemplated Nicholas in bemused silence. Nicholas, slouched on the bench, chin propped on his

hand, gave him back a thin predatory smile.

Ixion lifted a brow. “You find such behavior cruel and immoral, of course.”

“No,” Nicholas answered with a slight shrug. “I find it dull and unimaginative. As well as enormously

predictable.”

Ixion’s brows drew together. Tremaine read that look with unexpected clarity. Nicholas wasn’t what the

sorcerer expected and Ixion couldn’t decide if he was facing an opponent or a kindred spirit, and it

clearly intrigued him. He said slowly, “That could be construed as a challenge.”

“A challenge?” Nicholas didn’t bother to seem innocently surprised; he said mockingly, “To an entirely

reformed character such as yourself?”

“That’s enough.” Delphane cut off Ixion’s response firmly, throwing a forbidding look at Nicholas. “We

have much to discuss and little time for it.” He glanced at the Capidaran minister and got a nod to

continue. “You all know that we’re here to discuss the plan to use the etheric world-gates to liberate the

Rienish sorcerers trapped by the Gardier in the city of Lodun. If you’ve studied the notes at all, you

realize there is some protection against materializing inside solid objects written into the gate spells, but

creating gates on land is still problematic, at least for us. We originally thought Lodun’s wards must be

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keeping the Gardier out, but we don’t know if that’s the reason the Gardier haven’t entered Lodun

through a world-gate, or if they were unable to establish any spell circles in the corresponding location

in the staging world, or if…” His expression hardened. “They have entered Lodun, and have simply

allowed the barrier to remain in place to keep whoever remains alive inside imprisoned.” Tremaine

winced. The Gardier used large crystals they called avatars in place of the spheres, but all were inhabited

by the displaced souls of sorcerers, none of which had gotten there by accident. The Rienish still had no

idea how the Gardier did this, or what happened to the captured sorcerers’ bodies, or the answers to a

number of unpleasant questions. “None of our prisoners can shed any light on this.” Delphane paused to

look around the room, his eyes hard. “But if any of those inside are still alive, we have to attempt a

rescue. The spheres now make this more feasible.”

No, really? Tremaine thought, rolling her eyes. There were some quiet comments exchanged in the

audience, then Delphane continued, “Of course we know now the barrier must be maintained through

use of the crystals. Now if anyone has any thoughts…”

After an interminable period, the meeting broke up for a short interval. Tremaine suspected it was to

give the older members of the Capidaran delegation a chance to retreat to one of the retiring rooms

where there were working radiators. She noted that Ixion had guards who conducted him away, burly

young men in Capidaran dress militia uniforms of red and gray. There was also an older man with old-

fashioned muttonchop whiskers, dressed in a well-tailored civilian suit, who would be a sorcerer, and a

correct young woman in a dark dress who must be his assistant or apprentice. Tremaine snorted to

herself in disgust. Small use that would be if Ixion decided to make trouble.

She caught up with Gerard out in the foyer in time to hear him tell Averi, “I think that demonstrated that

Ixion’s claims are completely false. Even under mild provocation, he couldn’t keep himself from

making a threat.”

“Yes, but I hardly think what Valiarde said was mild provocation,” Colonel Averi pointed out wearily.

“The man is impossible.”

Well, yes, Tremaine mentally agreed. She looked around, noting that Nicholas was not only impossible

but absent, off on his next mission. It looked suspiciously as if he had only shown up for the meeting to

invite Ixion into that confrontation. She stopped abruptly, letting Gerard and the colonel draw ahead of

her, wondering if that were the case. He would have had to know that Ixion would be there, she thought,

annoyance turning to anger. And he didn’t tell us…. But she didn’t see how he could have known; they

had only been in Capidara two weeks, surely not even Nicholas could have set up a spy network in that

time. Unless he already had one in place, and he just had to find it again….

“Tremaine, if you have a moment.” Giaren stepped up to her, opening a brown cardboard portfolio. He

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was a young man, dressed very correctly, with his hair slicked back. He was Niles’s assistant in the

Viller Institute, though he wasn’t a sorcerer himself. “I thought you might want some of these.”

The portfolio was filled with photographs. Tremaine took the first he handed her, diverted. “You took

these?”

“Yes.” He paged through the others, selecting a few. “I’ve been using the camera to help catalog the

Institute’s experiments with the spheres and it seemed natural to take some exposures of the Ravenna.

Though,” he admitted, apparently realizing just how many photographs were in the portfolio, “I seem to

have gotten a bit out of hand.”

The black-and-white image Tremaine held was grainy but she recognized the Ravenna’s boat deck

immediately. It had to have been taken when they were disembarking at Capistown port; the long hulls

of the lifeboats that nearly made a roof over the deck were swung out in their davits and a crowd of

refugees and sailors milled around the railings. Back against the wall, Giliead was seated on the steps

that led up to one of the hatches, Ilias at his feet. Many of the other figures were a little blurry as the

camera had caught them in motion; the two Syprians, sitting still, were in sharper focus.

There was a hard edge to Giliead’s face and his expression was guarded and suspicious. Ilias looked

more relaxed but still watchful. His hair had come mostly loose from his queue and hung down past his

shoulders in a mane of curls and tangles. The lack of color muted the effect of their Syprian clothes, but

the sleeveless shirts and jerkins, the leather boots and braid, armbands and earrings and the pants with

lacing rather than buttons still looked exotically different from the dungarees or tweed or pullovers that

everyone else seemed to be wearing.

From this distance the curse mark branded into Ilias’s cheek was just a glint of metallic light against his

skin.

She sorted through the other photographs, finding one of the ship’s officers posed rather stiffly in the

wheelhouse, and one of Gerard and Niles, Gerard’s dark head bent down near Niles’s sleek blond one,

their backs half-turned toward the camera and their attitude that of conspirators. So the last great

sorcerers of Ile-Rien will be remembered to posterity, she thought dryly, if there is a posterity. But the

next was of Arites, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a lounge she didn’t recognize, his parchment

sheets in his lap and his wooden pen in his hand, gazing earnestly up at someone standing over him. His

braids were loose and his hair was falling into his eyes, making him look much younger than he was.

Had been.

Giaren must have read her expression. He said quietly, “That’s the young man who was killed, isn’t it?”

Tremaine let out her breath, ignoring the tightness in her chest. “Yes. One of them.”

Giaren cleared his throat and sorted through the folder of photos again, changing the subject. “I thought I

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Martha Wells - Fall of Ile-Rien 03 - The Gate of Gods

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