Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (12 page)

“You’ll have to leave them behind,” Wenda said. “They’re too wide.”

Sara didn’t believe her, but Lord Giles nodded. “I had to leave all of mine behind.”

“It would be better to buy new on the other side,” Lance said.

Sara turned stubborn. “I refuse to enter a strange country with only the clothes on my back.” She marched over to the carriage and commanded one of the outriders to unload her trunks.

The gatekeeper fussed and fumed, and Lance shifted from foot to foot, but Sara ignored them as she rummaged through the trunks for necessities. Underwear, several silk dresses, and a nightgown. Some jewelry, a cloak that she slipped over her shoulders. She was a Remillus: She would not go begging.

Sara demanded a bag and stuffed everything inside it. Her fear had fallen away from her, replaced by anger. The Kandrithans were obviously trying to humiliate her.

At the last second Sara remembered Felicia also had no luggage and filled a second bag with a set of clothes for her too.

Lance watched silently, his eyes narrowed, as if ready to chase her down if she bolted.

“Ready now?” the gatekeeper asked.

Sara didn’t answer, just walked up to the Gate, head high.

The shadowed gorge put her in mind of a gaping mouth. And now it was her turn to be swallowed.

Three steps into the gorge and the tall walls shut off the sunlight. Sara waited a moment to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Ahead of her, the pathway twisted and turned.

“Julen? Can you hear me?” She paused. The mountain seemed to devour her words.

Picking her way carefully over the uneven ground, Sara walked further into the fissure. Her shoulders brushed against the narrow walls, so she put out her hand as a guide. The rock left behind an unpleasant chalky residue, but better on her fingers than on her clothes. No wonder Lord Giles and Wenda had both looked so unkempt.

She glanced back—and could no longer see the way out. Stone ahead and stone behind, stone walls stretching up and up so that the sky was a mere ribbon of blue above… She felt enfolded. Smothered.

There was nothing to do but go on, so Sara did. Perhaps if she hurried she could catch up with Julen. It was measure of how much things had changed that she could admit she would appreciate his company.

She hoped every twist and turn of the passage would be the last, but the gorge seemed to go on forever. And then it narrowed. Two people could no longer have passed side by side; Lance, with his broad shoulders, would be forced to walk sideways. A fat man would have had to crawl—the passage was slightly wider at the bottom.

The trapped feeling grew. She imagined that the mountains were pressing in on her, that the crack might close at any time and crush her. Her breathing fractured. Sara began to hurry, and her bundles of clothes became a nuisance, bumping against her legs.

She heard a noise behind her like pebbles rubbing together. “Lance?” she called, but got no answer.

She turned her head—and banged it on a rocky overhang hard enough to make her gasp. The careful hairstyle Felicia had achieved that morning slipped loose from its pins and fell in her sweaty face.

Up ahead the two sides of the gorge almost met. She was going to have to walk stooped over. She wouldn’t be able to see the sky anymore. What if it got worse? What if the gorge narrowed to a tunnel? The thought pinned her in place.

She tried to get herself moving again by reminding herself that Julen had come this way already. And Wenda going the other direction. Could a Remillus do less?

Still, she hesitated—until something furry rubbed against her hand.

She almost screamed before she saw the refetti. He’d followed her. Tears pricked her eyes at his loyalty. She felt a rush of shame that she’d forgotten all about him—Felicia usually saw to the creature whenever they stopped.

“Good boy.” She stroked his furry little head, and somehow he gave her the courage to do what had to be done. She didn’t want to risk stepping on him so she put him in the pocket of her cloak, where he curled up happily. But she worried that he would get banged against the stone wall, so she tossed her bags ahead of her, and used both hands to protect the refetti.

She moved at a slow shuffle, stooped over to keep from banging her head, and forced to push the cursed bags of clothes ahead of her before each step. She scraped her knee, and blood trickled down her leg.

She stopped being surprised that Lance hadn’t caught up with her yet and started being surprised he’d dared enter at all.

She grimly kept on, cursing under her breath—and bumped her head again. She was going give herself a goose egg soon.

And then, finally, she saw a shaft of sunlight up ahead.

Unfortunately, the last turn looked too narrow to squeeze through. Comforting herself once again with the thought of Lance’s broad shoulders, Sara kicked the loathsome bags ahead of her and squirmed sideways into the crack.

She shuffled forward, only to almost trip on the first bag of clothes. She kicked at it, but it wouldn’t move forward, and when she tried to bend down to reach it her breasts scraped against the stone. There wasn’t enough space.

Fine. Gritting her teeth, Sara backed up out of the crack to the wider spot before. Perhaps if she crawled? It wasn’t like her dress could get any dirtier.

She draped her cloak with the refetti up around her neck, then got down on her hands and knees, hiked up her dress and started forward again. And got stuck.

* * *

Lance came around the corner and stopped short. For a second he stared in disbelief at the feminine rump blocking the passageway ahead.

A moment ago he’d been mad at Sara. Hadn’t he? Yes, he had. But now, looking at her ass, Lance felt quite mellow.

It was a very shapely ass, molded by the pink silk of her skirt…her very short skirt. The material had bunched up so that he could see almost to the tops of her thighs.

As he watched, dry-mouthed, the ass in question wiggled, the hips tilted up as if in invitation, and Lance suddenly had trouble thinking as all his blood rushed to his loins.

His hand clenched into a fist against the urge to pull up that last bit of pink silk and caress—

“Vez’s Malice,” Sara swore.

The sound of her voice pulled him back from the brink.

Lance wanted to swear too. Why him? He cleared his throat to announce his presence, and a thick silence descended.

Lance swallowed and tried to sound like he still possessed his mind. “Sara? Do you need some help?”
Please say no.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

* * *

How humiliating. Sara’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. At least Lance couldn’t see them, but considering what he could see…

“Should I, ah, push or pull?” he asked.

He sounded half-choked. Was he laughing at her? “Try pushing,” Sara said through gritted teeth. She took refuge in a quick spurt of anger. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself. This is your fault.”

A pause. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re the King’s son. This is not a proper gate! It ought to have been widened years ago. What kind of crazed—”

Her tirade crashed to a halt the moment his palms touched her rump. She squeaked; she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t realized how sensitive her bottom was.

Lance kept his hands in place, but didn’t immediately start to push. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I wanted to give you a spanking earlier.”

She tensed. He wouldn’t, would he? “What?”

“I was mad at you for naming Julen your companion when we both know you can hardly stand him.” He cupped each ass cheek, the kneading motion eliciting a wave of heat. A moan escaped her. Her cheeks flamed. Had he heard her?

“If you’d just chosen Felicia like you were supposed to she wouldn’t have had to risk her life—and you wouldn’t have had any excuse to step in front of that idiot’s crossbow.” His voice dropped into a dangerous growl. “You definitely deserve to be spanked for that stunt.”

But instead of a stinging slap, one thumb traced the cleft between her buttocks, going so low her breath clogged in her lungs, and she felt an embarrassing rush of liquid desire. She waited in agony for him to touch her there, in the place where she was wet, but he stopped short.

“Well, what do you say in your defense?”

Indignation filled Sara. “Oh! At least I knew Lord Giles wouldn’t dare shoot me. You charged a legionnaire, who’s been trained to respond to threats with killing force. Maybe
you
should be punished for risking
your
life.”

Silence behind her, then Lance gave a short laugh. “You never do or say what I expect.” He gave her a strong push.

Sara heard a tearing sound as her dress ripped, but she could suddenly move again. And did, all but scurrying away from the touch of Lance’s hands. From temptation.

She lacked the room to stand up so she kept crawling forward. She reached the spot where she’d dropped the bags of clothes and laboriously shoved them forward, into the pool of sunshine she’d seen earlier, then she followed. A protruding bit of rock scraped down her back, but she finally squirmed free.

She emerged into a bowl-shaped cul de sac with high, yellow stone walls. Another trap for an invading army. Sara registered that fact only dimly.

She inspected the rip in her dress; thankfully it had split along a seam and could probably be repaired. Still, her gown and hair were covered with dirt, her face was flushed and she was trembling from both the ordeal of the passage and the aftershocks of Lance’s intimate touch.

Looking up, she saw Julen very carefully not smile. She felt decidedly testy and in no mood to listen to the young voice which quavered, “Stop.”

Sara shook out her skirts. Seeing Lance struggling to squeeze forward the final few steps, she moved out of the way. “I still say your precious Kandrith needs a better Gate—” she started.

“Stop!” Lance yelled. “Sara, don’t cross the line or you’ll be killed!”

Sara stopped dead. In front of her lay a row of embedded white stones running from one side of the cul de sac to the other. She looked around nervously for archers stationed at the top of the yellow stone walls, but saw none. Apart from Lance and Julen, the only person in sight was a small boy. As Sara watched, he sniffled, wiped his nose with his hand and then wiped his hand on his blue-trimmed vest.

“Is this how you welcome everyone to your country?” Sara demanded.

“No one may pass through the Gate without the Watcher’s permission.” Lance stayed one step within the gorge and called out anxiously, “Watcher, is it blue?”

The tow-headed boy shook his head. A white film covered his eyes. Loma’s Mercy, he was stone blind. Was the name some kind of cruel joke?

“Then what is the matter?” Lance asked.

Tears leaked from those eerie white eyes. “There are two of them. One’s red and one’s purple.”

Sara’s impatience returned. She was bleeding, her dress was dirty and torn, her head was pounding, and Lance was talking about colors? “I need a Temple of Jut and a bath. Now.” She lifted her foot.

“Don’t move!” Lance barked.

Off-balance, Sara stumbled slightly. Her toe came down on the wrong side of the line of stones.

Instantly, shadow fell over Sara like a blight. But when she looked up, the sky was pure blue and cloudless. The boy and Julen were still bathed in hot sunlight. Her skin prickled. Something was happening…

“The Guardian is here.” Lance’s voice held strain. “Watcher, you must decide.”

The boy’s white eyes turned toward Sara. He looked doubtful. “I never saw a purple one before.”

A purple what? Sara’s gown was peach-colored—and the boy was blind anyhow.

Sara started to ask what he meant, but couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. She felt as if a smothering blanket were being held over her face, allowing her only sips of air. Panic hit her fast and hard. She groped at the space in front of her mouth, but encountered nothing.

Pressure built around her as if the air suddenly weighed as much as iron. She couldn’t breathe. Her body felt squeezed tight, her lungs cramped. She wheeled in a circle, staggering, but couldn’t see any threat. Nothing touched her.

There was only the shadow hanging over her, a shadow with no source.

The Guardian of Kandrith.

I’ll go away
, Sara promised silently.
I’ll go back through the Gate. There’s no need to kill me. I don’t even want to be here.

But the pressure only grew. Sara thought her skin would split, her bones crack and shatter…

Was she going to die here like this? Her gaze connected with Lance’s, pleading.

“Lady Sarathena?” Julen tilted his head quizzically. “Prince Lance, I think something might be wrong.”

Lance ignored him. “May she pass?” he asked the Watcher. His voice sounded tight, as if he wanted to shout.

Sara’s vision dimmed from the lack of air. She only hoped she passed out before she died—

“I don’t know. One’s red and one’s purple. I’m only supposed to stop the blue ones.” The boy sounded confused and sulky. “I suppose she can pass.”

The Guardian released Sara so abruptly she collapsed in a heap. She gasped in air. Sunlight fell on her face like a blessing.

Julen hurried over to her. Lance squeezed through the Gate, but did not cross the line of white stones until the Watcher said, “You may enter.” Then he dropped to his knees in the dust and took her hand. Concern shone in his warm brown eyes. “Are you injured?”

Was she? Sara took a moment to consider, then shook her head. “Just bruised.” She felt stupid lying there on the ground. “Help me up.”

Lance set her back on her feet with one strong pull.

“You fainted,” Julen said. “I’ll fetch a carriage—”

“I did not faint!” Sara snapped. “I almost died, you clodpate.”

Julen looked skeptical. Apparently, he hadn’t noticed the strange shadow.

The Watcher had already wandered off so Sara turned on Lance. “Tell him! And then tell me why your country broke its promise of safekeeping.”

Lance’s face closed. “You would have been fine if you’d stopped when the Watcher told you to.”

She was too scared and angry to circle her way around to the subject. “What attacked me and why?”

For a moment, she thought Lance wouldn’t answer, then he gave a small nod. “The Gate and its Guardian were created by the lifegift of Revan Kandrith thirty-one years ago to keep out invaders.”

Lifegift? Did he mean magic?

“The Guardian crushes anyone who does not have the Watcher’s permission to enter Kandrith.”

“What Guardian? I saw nothing,” Julen scoffed.

Sara stepped on his toes, hard. She kept her gaze on Lance. “Why didn’t the Watcher want me to enter your country? If I’d been killed, my father would have every right to invade.” It took effort to keep her voice reasonable. Her limbs were still trembling with reaction. She wanted to scream at somebody.

“The Watcher doesn’t care who you are, only
what
you are.” Lance spoke carefully, obviously choosing what he would and would not tell her. “He is able to see the color of one’s soul.”

Magic again. Sara filed the information away. “I’m a hostage. What danger could I possibly pose?”

But Lance merely shook his head. He looked deeply troubled—and she didn’t think it was by her near brush with death.

Sara drew in a hissing breath. “You’re worried that there
is
something wrong. Do you think me an assassin? Do you want to search me for weapons?” Incensed, she turned out her pockets and found two hairpins and the refetti. “Here.” She held it out to Lance. “This must be my deadly attack refetti.”

Lance didn’t take the squirming animal. “Has that been in your pocket all this time? Was it there when you went through the Gate?” he asked sharply.

“I put him in my pocket in the gorge,” Sara answered cautiously.

Lance looked greatly relieved. “That explains why the Watcher saw two colors! Animals must have purple souls, and the boy didn’t realize. He’s new to the Gate since the last time I passed through.”

It seemed she’d been cleared of suspicion. Sara put the refetti on her shoulder where he could look around. Tiny claws dug into her dress, but didn’t prick her skin.

“Let’s find a place to stay. I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty.” And Lance strode off, leaving Sara glaring after him.

“Shall we?” Julen politely offered her his arm.

Sara shoved her bags at him instead. “Here.” She was determined not to carry the cursed things another step.

“What’s in the bags?” Julen shouldered them after a quick look around failed to turn up any footmen.

“Clothes.”

Julen halted, his expression chagrined. “Nobody’s going to be bringing our trunks around, are they?”

“No.” Sara couldn’t find it inside herself to gloat. She was too afraid of what new surprises Kandrith still had in store.

Now that she’d actually seen slave magic in action Sara realized she’d underestimated it. For the first time, she truly believed that slave magic was strong enough to have killed the two hundred people on Lord Favonius’s estate.

All too easily she could envision Nir attempting a night assault on the Gate and failing. First, he would kill the gatekeeper, then send his men through the narrow gorge. They would cross the line of stones and die—and he would never know why. In fact, if just such an attack hadn’t already been tried in the past Sara would eat her sandals.

But Sara knew now. Goosebumps chilled her flesh at the realization that with the information she possessed, the Republic could successfully invade Kandrith.

The Watcher had passed Julen, so he obviously couldn’t tell Republicans from Kandrithans. All Nir would have to do was send through a few legionnaires posing as escaped slaves to hold a sword at the Watcher’s throat to ensure he passed the following army.

Sara felt dizzy and a little sick. She knew Nir well enough to be certain that if he knew how to pass through the Gate he would attack. The Republic would be safe from further massacres—and Kandrith’s population would be enslaved again.

Sara argued with herself as they walked. Her duty to her father and her country was plain, but the image of Lance in chains made her stomach twist into knots. She wanted to prevent a war, not start one.

But hadn’t the war already started when Kandrith massacred two hundred people on Lord Favonius’s estate? They’d attacked first—and would no doubt attack again.

If
it had been them, and not the Qiph acting alone.

Sara glanced at Julen to see if he was following the same channels of thought that she was. He looked alert, all his attention on their surroundings. He hadn’t understood about the Guardian. If she convinced him, he would want to turn around immediately and return to Temborium.

Sara felt like a noose was tightening around her neck. She didn’t want to have to choose between Lance’s freedom and Sylvanus’s life.

But that wasn’t right, was it? She knew how to defeat the Guardian, but not how to stop massacres. Lance had said the Guardian was a Lifegift, but she didn’t know what that meant or how slave magic worked. Yes, her information could get an army into Kandrith, but what was to stop the Kandrithans from then massacring all those troops?

Nothing.

Julen was her only way of sending messages to her father. Should she wait and hope they could discover the full secret? Partial information was still better than no information. Sara chewed her lip, remembering the timetable her father had given her. A month before they were ensnared in a war with the Qiph, of which a week was already gone.

Ten more days, Sara decided. She could afford to wait that long, but no longer.

* * *

Lance deliberately walked several steps ahead of Sara and Julen as he led them through the backstreets of Gatetown. He still felt a little shaky from Sara’s near-demise at the hands of the Guardian—and he shouldn’t be.

As the Child of Peace, Sara’s death would have been a political nightmare. That’s what he should be concerned about, not Sara herself.

But somehow, possibly because of the circumstances under which they’d met, his protective instincts had become engaged. It had been all he could do not to take her in his arms afterward. Which, given their mutual level of attraction, would have been a mistake.

He needed to stay away from Sara, but they were going to be traveling together for at least another week until they reached the Hall.

“Why is everyone dressed so plainly?” Sara asked, suddenly appearing at his elbow.

Lance looked at her in surprise and irritation. “Nobody here has money to waste on silk when sheep’s wool is plentiful.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Sara said. “I mean, look at him.” She indicated a dark-haired, stocky man wearing a beige tunic and mended trousers. “He’s obviously from Elysinia originally. He’s wearing a sash like they do, but it ought to be red or blue or green depending on his tribe, instead of the same color as his tunic. And he has no vest.”

Lance tensed. Would she ask about the vest he, a Gotian by birth, was wearing?

But Sara pointed to another woman. “And she’s a Grasslander. Her clothes are right, but her hair’s plaited instead of gathered in a horsetail, and where are her bone earrings, honoring Mek?”

“I didn’t know Grasslanders worshipped the God of Death,” Lance said, avoiding the question. He studied the tall woman as she passed. She did have the high cheekbones and slanted eyes of a Grasslander.

Sara frowned. “I expected Kandrith to look like the market in Temborium, everyone in different exotic costumes, but here everyone looks both the same and different.”

“The same and different?” Lance raised an eyebrow.

Sara kept watching the people walking by. “All the women have split skirts, like Grasslanders, but most of them are made from wool instead of deerskin, and the pattern of cloth varies.”

Lance could remember his mother wrapping a long cloth of plaid into a dress back in Gotia. Their plaids had been taken away from them when they’d become enslaved. When they arrived in Kandrith, his mother had proudly woven new ones—but she’d sewn the material into a blouse and split skirt instead of one long cloth. He’d never asked why.

Sara continued. “The women mostly have their hair braided back. That’s a Gotian style, isn’t it? And the men are dressed Elysinian style, except for the sash and vest. It’s as if you’ve taken one thing from each culture. Except the Qiph. I haven’t seen even one Qiph.” She glanced at him sidelong.

Lance frowned slightly. “Are you worried about assassins? We have very few Qiph here in Kandrith.” The only one he knew was a woman. Most Qiph slaves were male and had sold themselves under a strict contract. Lance didn’t pretend to understand it, but they seldom even tried to escape, instead they served their two-year term with a humility at direct odds with most arrogant Qiph warriors.

“Don’t you trade with Qi?” Sara asked.

“Not much. Their desert is many miles from Kandrith.”

His answer didn’t seem to please her.

Just then they passed a trio of gray-haired women—two olive-skinned Elysinians, and one pale Gotian—wearing leather vests dyed a bright red. Like Hiram, they were declaring their willingness to sacrifice.

To head off any questions, Lance quickly said, “There’s our inn.” Most of the buildings in Gatetown were humble cottages built from the two most readily available materials, timber and thatch, but the inn was constructed from blocks of yellow stone and rose two stories to a tiled roof. In size, it equalled some of the places they’d stayed in the Republic.

Instead of being impressed, Sara looked blank. “What’s an inn?”

When he explained that one paid money to rent a room for the night, her eyes rounded in horror. “But how can such a thing honor Jut?”

“Who’s Jut?” Lance asked, more to get another reaction than from true ignorance.

“Jut is the God of Travellers,” Sara told him sternly. “We stayed at several of his temples in the Republic.”

“You’re in Kandrith now.” Lance walked between two Grandfather olive trees and opened the inn’s side door.