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  A DAY, A NIGHT, AND PART OF ANOTHER DAY OF TEDIOUS TRAVEL. IMAGINE TIMKA KEPT DRUGGED AND DRAPED UNCONSCIOUS ACROSS SKEEN’S SADDLE, SKEEN AND TELKA RIDING IN UNFRIENDLY SILENCE, NEITHER TRUSTING THE OTHER, DOZING IN THE SADDLE, STOPPING ONLY TO GRAIN AND WATER THE HORSES.

  or

  IT’S PAYOFF TIME IN THE MOUNTAINS.

  The fountain glade.

  Skeen swung down, lifted the dreaming Min from the saddle and put her down beside the fountain. She straightened, started to turn. Warned by something, she was never sure what, she flung herself aside, plunged into the fountain basin and somersaulted out the other side as a black snarling fury leaped at her, slammed into the central pipe and slid round it into the water, yowled, gathered herself to leap again.

  Skeen darted her. Then did it again to make sure the drug would hold.

  Skeen stepped back from the fountain and contemplated the two Min propped against the basin wall. Both women were tied with strips sliced from the coverlet. Not that that would hold them if they shifted. Have to watch them both. Neither one I’d trust outside a Jinki slaver’s holding cell. Stubborn, hard-headed, grudge-holding.… She yawned. Djabo! do I want sleep. She settled herself with sandwiches and water from the fountain, eating a leisurely meal and struggling to keep awake while she waited for them to surface.

  “Buy you,” Telka spat at her. “And you stay bought.” She twisted her hands against the silk bonds, closed her eyes, apparently having forgotten entirely her attack on Skeen.

  “Try shifting, Min, and I dart you again.”

  Telka’s eyes popped open, rage making her teeth chatter so she couldn’t talk. Skeen watched, putting on an expression of polite interest she meant to be as infuriating as it was. She’d practiced it on Tibo and men before him. When she thought Telka was about ready to listen, she said, “Sure I stay bought. Did what you hired me to, didn’t I?” She waggled the nose of the darter at Timka. “Which is a lot more than you can say. You think you might explain that little exercise just now?”

  Telka looked at her with contempt and loathing. “Nemin,” she said, no more than a whisper but loaded with everything she’d kept suppressed till now. “Twisting us for treasure. Our ancient glories.” Then her discipline clamped down on her emotions. “What now?”

  “Wait till your sister joins us. I’m too lazy to explain twice.”

  Telka dug her elbow into the sleeper’s ribs. Timka groaned. Another jab and she muttered, blinked, tugged at her bonds. Her form began to shimmer.

  “Shift, Min, and out you go.”

  Timka frowned as she solidified once more. “What?” Her voice sounded thick, she was flushed and her eyes looked dull, though that dullness was rapidly vanishing. She turned her head, worked dry lips into a smile when she saw the strips of coverlet around Telka’s wrists and ankles. “So you finally met someone else you couldn’t fool.” Her voice was hoarse, breaking twice in midsyllable, but the satisfaction in it made Skeen laugh silently.

  Timka turned bright green eyes on Skeen. Coming more and more awake, her persona taking command of her flesh, the likeness between the two Min diminished considerably. She cleared her throat, coughed, said, “I know this place. You’re a Pass-through.”

  Skeen nodded absently. She contemplated the silently smoldering Telka. “You understand, Min, attacking me tore up the contract.” She bent her leg, flattened it and inspected the small pulls where the werecat’s claws had glanced off her leg, weren’t for the eddersil she’d ’ve got to the bone. She straightened the leg out, scowled at Telka. “Doesn’t matter, it’s finished anyway. You really want her, don’t you, and not to kiss and make up.”

  Telka stared at her, saying nothing, her lips almost disappearing as she screwed down her emotions and withdrew into herself.

  Skeen smiled. She turned to Timka. “Timka,” she said. “Listen a minute, then I’ll cut you loose.” She kept the darter on Telka and made sure the Min knew she was keeping an eye on her. “Seems to me you’ve got yourself a couple of choices. You can try for the city, doubt you’d make it, though, and unless you’re hooked on the Poet, I don’t see why you’d do that. Or you can head for Mintown, but me, I wouldn’t go near that hanging mob waiting for you. You know your folk better than me, you know what your chances are. Up to you. Or you can come through the Stranger’s Gate with me.” She grinned at the fuming Telka. “I owe your sister a kick in the butt, why not take advantage of that. Take a chance on my world. I’ll show you how to go on, then it’ll be up to you to keep yourself. Shouldn’t be too hard with your talents. Think about it, but don’t take too long. You Min make me nervous.”

  Timka lifted her bound hands, rubbed them across her face. “What did she do?”

  “Jumped me. Tried it anyway. Didn’t work out the way she thought.”

  “You’d have sold me to her without that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? Didn’t know you.”

  “What stops you from selling me again?”

  “Me telling you I won’t.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Throw the dice. And ask yourself what you’ve got here that’s so great.”

  Timka held up her bound wrists. “What about cutting me loose?”

  Skeen slipped the knife from her boot; watching Telka with additional care, she flipped the knife into the ground within Timka’s reach but on the side away from her sister.

  As Timka began the awkward job cutting herself loose, Skeen got to her feet and backed off a few steps so she could watch both more easily, trusting neither of them.

  Timka got to her feet, stood rubbing her wrists as she gazed down at her sister. “Hanging mob. That’s right, isn’t it, Telk. Don’t bother answering. Brain-burn me, won’t they, Telk. With you goosing them on if their enthusiasm flags, yes sister?” She ran her hand through her hair, grimacing at the greasy feel, struggling to bring some order to the matted mass. “I wonder how much control you’d have over them if I really decided to fight? I’m the oldest, remember? I could always beat you when I had to. Oh, don’t tense up so, I won’t. You were quite sure of that, weren’t you. Well, you’re right. I’m not going back to be caged in until I die of boredom. And you bore me worse than any of them.”

  “Whore,” Telka whispered, hate so thick around her it shivered the air like heat waves. “You like eating Nemin dirt.”

  “Same old song, Telk. Boring, Telk. Booorrriiing.” Timka turned her back on Telka, making a production of it, crossed the glade to stand in front of Skeen, making a production of that also, a graceful sway in her walk, exaggerated to intrigue Skeen and infuriate Telka. “Free woman?”

  “Free by me. You watch yourself cleverly enough, you can stay free. But don’t expect me or anyone else to pay your way forever.”

  Timka tapped the black compo handle of the knife against her cheek, then swung round to glare at her sister. “How long before you got tired of trying to fish me out and sent one of your dupes to cut my throat?”

  Telka glared back, said nothing.

  Timka started for her.

  “Nope, not that way.” Skeen tapped the Min’s shoulder with the darter. “Give me the knife.”

  Timka hesitated as if wondering whether she could successfully defy Skeen, then turned with a brilliant smile, a flutter of her hand in graceful surrender, offered the knife over her arm, hilt forward. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t let me finish this. I don’t know how she’ll manage it, but she’ll make you sorry you left her alive.”

  Skeen shrugged. “I’ll take my chances. Where I come from, cutting the throat of an ex-employer is bad for business. Makes the rest hesitate to hire you.”

  “This isn’t there. She tried.…”

  “Doesn’t matter what she tried—up to me to see she loses out. Which I did. Forget … no, you don’t, shifter.” She put a dart in Telka as the Min began to blur at the edges, then darted her again.

  Telka fought the drug, struggled to s
hift before it took her, but she lost the race and slumped against the basin.

  Skeen frowned at the two horses, stripped of gear, cropping languidly at the grass, then she shook her head, holstered the darter, caught up the pack and dipped her arms through the straps.

  “Why not take them?” Timka scowled. “Leave them for her? Why?”

  “No water, bad footing, too noisy. We go quiet-quiet like a mouse.”

  Timka sighed. “I hope you know I’m all over bruises and my head isn’t that steady.”

  “Exercise will work the kinks out and food will take care of the swim in the head. Let’s go.”

  OH SHIT!

  The gate looked different. The woods were full of noises. Buzz of insects, rustle of leaves. The white wall had lost some of its shimmer and menace.

  Skeen stepped to the gate and looked into it.

  And looked through it.

  Saw the trees on the far side of the glade.

  She looked over her shoulder, saw the despair dragging down Timka’s face, so it didn’t surprise her much when she walked between the posts, walked around the Gate and came back to where she’d started. “Gate’s closed,” she said. “How come?”

  Timka sighed. “Who knows.’

  Skeen closed her eyes, chewed her tongue. At that moment, she had a strong impulse to dart the Min and toss her back to her bonesucker sister. She cleared her throat. “You aren’t surprised.”

  “I was hoping you knew what you were doing.”

  Skeen lost her outrage in a sputtering laugh. “Now who’s the fool. Djabo!” She giggled some more. “Both, I suppose. All right. The Gate is closed. Not much I can do about that. When will it open again?”

  “When someone comes through from the far side, I suppose.”

  “Not helpful. Any way of working it from this side?”

  Timka gazed at her, mouth open, face blank.

  Skeen narrowed her eyes, read the laughter and the tension behind that blankness. “Come off it, sweetie.”

  Timka gave her a quick nervous grin. “The only folk who know that would be the Ykx.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the fountain glade, looked down at her feet, glanced very rapidly at Skeen and away. “Ykx.… I don’t really know anything. Not know. Just a place you could find out. Pass-through, let’s get out of here, I don’t want to stay so close to Telka. Believe me, you don’t know what she can do when she’s driven by fury.”

  “In a minute. A place, you said, where I could look for information about the Ykx.”

  “Rumors, something someone said at one of the Poet’s dinners.”

  Skeen thrust her fingers through her hair until it stood in short pale spikes about her head, swallowed irritation like a mouthful of burrs and nearly choked on it. “You say go away from here. Where do we go? Where do … we … go?”

  “I’ve never been beyond Dum Besar. Why don’t we just go back there? The Poet has a big library.…”

  “And he’ll bow politely and say oh yes forget that little contretemps, I’ve got plenty of pretty things, I’ll never miss what you took. Hunh!” She rubbed at her nose. “Library, hmmm. Where does the Poet get his books?”

  “That’s it, you’ve got it. The Tanul Lumat, most of them. Let’s get the horses and get away before Telka wakes up, or … or something happens.”

  “She will know the Gate wasn’t open for us.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’ll come after us?”

  “Yes, yes. But if we can break away, lose ourselves … she can’t be away from Mintown too long or she’ll have to step down from the Synarc. She won’t do that, but she has got a lot of influence with the holavish and holavay; they’re the war party, they want to raid in the valley and kill every Pallah they come across; there aren’t a lot of them, bless lifefire; the Mountain Min want nothing to do with Nemin, but aren’t hot to kill them; these Min just want to be left alone to live like they always have.” This was spoken slowly, softly, with considerable reluctance, a reluctance Skeen didn’t understand, but didn’t question, no time for that; at least Timka didn’t use that lifeless neutral tone Telka favored.

  “Whatever we discover, we have to come back here.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if she doesn’t catch us first, she’ll be waiting.”

  “Yes. Not alone.”

  “Sheeit.” Skeen walked over to the gate, kicked at one of the posts, lightly so she wouldn’t break her toe or scratch her boot. “Fuckin” useless.…” She swung around, set her shoulders against the post. “Little more information before we move anywhere. Where’s the Tanul Lumat and what is it?”

  “The Rekkah passes through a pair of lakes southwest of Dum Besar. There’s a city, Oruda, on the first lake. The Tanul Lumat’s there, too. A place where scholars gather, a library, a place for things forgot elsewhere.” She made a brokenwing, aborted gesture, said nothing more … just waited.

  Skeen walked away from the Gate, started for the fountain glade. “The thing behind that wall. What’s that? It’s behaving itself today.”

  Timka was trotting beside her, having to hurry to keep up with her, three steps to her one. “The Ever-Hunger.” She was panting a little, speaking in quick bursts. “Must be asleep or some thing.” She managed a shudder without breaking stride. “It’s more dangerous when the Gate’s shut down.”

  In the fountain glade, Timka pulled in the two horses, sat on the basin lip a short distance from the limp, comatose Telka while Skeen saddled and bridled the beasts. “The Poet was always having visitors,” she said. “They came from all over, but most of all they came from the Lakes. Dinners. Went on for hours. Booorriinng, you wouldn’t believe. Talk about things like the third poetic cycle of the fifth wave gonheleurs in Dipsy Dor. Whatever. Argue for hours over if a word meant jewel or toadshit. All the time the food getting cold and no one paying any attention to the singers and musicians right there. All they could talk about were ones long dust. And after the meal, they’d read at each other and the Poet would read his scribblings and they’d talk about them as if they were really important. Well, he wasn’t bad, but it was all pretty words, nothing real. Maybe if he had to go out and earn his keep with his songs he might have been more than good; sometimes he even wanted to do that, but his family leaned on him when he was young and he didn’t like being hungry and dirty and tired, so he caved.”

  Skeen came over and stood looking down at Telka. After a minute, she took out the darter, held it up. “Put your finger here if you need to shoot. I’ve got some things to do before we leave; among other things I want another look at the Gate.”

  “Be careful of the Hunger.”

  “How?”

  “Well … I don’t know. Stories say you feel it when you come through, that it is always more dangerous when the Gate is closed.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, something about the Gate, I suppose. The Wall shines more, it feels different, or so the stories go. Min keep away. Too close and we get called in and eaten.”

  “Hm. Let me think about that a while. Oh yes, how long is the Wall?”

  “It makes a square around the Hunger, a side is somewhere around four days’ ride.”

  “Four days. If Telka looks like coming out of it, dart her twice. And you could be filling the waterskins while you wait.” She caught up a bulky bundle resting beside the limp skins. “I’ll be back in a little.”

  Skeen toed over a flat section of shale, part of the tumbled rock piled against the posts. She dropped to her knees and began shifting stones, smiled when she uncovered a neat hollow lined with dried grasses and bits of fur. Some small rodent was about to lose its home. Maybe had already lost it, the place smelled old and musty. She undid the bundle and began tucking away the rings, broaches, necklets and other items from the Min, adding some of the smaller items she’d picked up in the Poet’s house, as much as she could fit into the hollow. She set the stones back in place as carefully as she could, scraped up a handful of dust and s
cattered it over the pile, got to her feet, and looked over her work. She couldn’t see any signs of tampering; that didn’t reassure her much, these rural types were quick to pick up on the smallest hints. She took her boot knife and scratched obscenities from a dozen languages onto the stone of that left-hand post, then threw a minor fit, kicking at the stone piles, gouging up clumps of grass and kicking these over the stone, having herself a fine and furious tantrum that not only eased her anger and frustration, but provided an adequate explanation for the disturbance of the stones. She stood back, hands on hips. “Djabo bless,” she said. “You might even be there when I get back.” She caught up the swords and capes and the heavier items from the Poet’s house and stood holding the loose bundle, wondering how she could hide the things so the Min wouldn’t find them.

  She rewrapped the bundle, tied it shut with the increasingly raveled silk strips and started walking slowly back to the fountain glade. Werebeast noses would track her if she left the patch she’d beaten into the soft soil going back and forth between the Gate glade and the Fountain glade. A limb arched low over that path. Leaves brushed against her face. She stopped, blinked. “I see,” she said. She slipped her arm under one of the strips, jumped, caught hold of the limb and pulled herself up onto it, then ran along it to the trunk. That trunk split into six smaller ones, with a dark and rather smelly hollow between them; smells wouldn’t hurt anything, and she hoped to be back before the damp was too damaging. She eased the bundle into the hollow, moved back out along the broad limb. Even before she reached the path, she could no longer see the things. She swung down and went on to the fountain glade.

  Timka was sitting on the basin lip, the darter in her lap. Telka was curled up on the grass in a slightly different position. “She started waking,” Timka said. “I put half a dozen darts in her.”

  Skeen took the darter, slipped it into the holster, snapped the flap down. “That won’t kill her. Won’t do her much good. She’ll wake with a sore head, that’s all.”