The Lost Gate (27 page)

Leslie raised her eyebrows. “Don't you think that if any of them were, they'd all be?”

In a moment, Danny realized how it had sounded to her. “I meant, are they mages … like you.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” said Leslie, looking truly puzzled.

“Have we taken in the wrong stray?” asked Marion from the kitchen, where he was making pies.

“He thinks one of us is dead,” said Leslie. “Or both of us.”

“No,” said Danny. “I just thought … Stone told me…”

“Now he thinks that he can talk to rocks,” she called out to her husband. “What do you think, Marion, is he a keeper? Or a discard?”

Danny was completely baffled. They had brought him into the house the moment Leslie found him in the barn—before dawn, because apparently the cows got testy if they weren't milked every day at the same time, and it was a very early time. He had assumed they knew exactly what and who he was. But no, apparently they took
all
strays into the house.

“Look, call Stone,” said Danny. “He sent me here.”

“Now I'm supposed to talk to rocks,” said Leslie. “Marion, what did you put in those omelets? Am I going to start hallucinating, too?”

“Only if you forgot to take your meds, darlin'!” Marion called back. “Now hush, please, I can't have any emotion going on when I make the crusts or they won't be flaky and delicious.”

“I'm yelling to be heard, not because I'm angry.”

“Yelling's yelling,” called Marion. “We're scaring the dough.”

“So he makes the pies, and you milk the cows?” asked Danny, changing the subject since it was apparent they were bent on pretending not to know anything about magery or why Danny had come here. Unless they weren't pretending, in which case this was some elaborate hoax Stone had pulled. At least Danny could give Stone credit for sending him to such a hospitable couple.

“We each do what we like most,” said Leslie, “or if it's a job that has to be done and we both hate it, then whoever hates it least. Or we trade off. I'm milking because I'm an early riser, and he's pies because pies don't like me so the crust never behaves.”

“I thought maybe because you both have names that could be either male or female, you got all mixed up on men's work and women's work,” said Danny. He smiled and started to laugh, thinking he was being kind of funny and clever.

Apparently not.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don't know what for,” said Leslie.

“Should I leave now?” asked Danny.

“Heavens no,” said Leslie. “We've hardly started to get to know you.”

“I just seem to be saying everything wrong,” said Danny.

“Not at all,” said Leslie. “Where did you get such an idea?”

“I didn't just happen to come here, I had your address. Your names. I didn't just make it up. I'm not a vagrant.”

“I'm so relieved,” said Leslie. “To know you came here on purpose—well, that eases my mind no end.”

Was there irony in what she said? Danny couldn't be sure. He couldn't read these people the way he could read the Aunts. It was more like trying to understand what Mama and Baba were getting at when they talked over his head. He understood all the words, he just had no clue what was going on. The Aunts said what they meant. Or at least they meant what they said.

No, they didn't, Danny realized. He simply had known them longer and had practice figuring out what they meant.

So he sat and thought for a moment. “You're just careful, aren't you?” said Danny. “Because you don't know if I'm a trap.”

“I know what a trap looks like, darlin',” said Leslie. “At least, the kind we use for mice that get confused and think they're welcome inside the house. If you're a trap, I wonder what we'd use for bait, and where we'd put it.”

“How about I put myself in a trap so you know I'm not one?” said Danny.

He gated from the chair he was sitting in to one across the room.

Leslie turned and looked at him in his new location, shaking her head. “Well, you've certainly proven that you trust
me.
”

“If I were a spy from any of the Families, would I do that?”

“If you had a brain in your head, would you do that?” she retorted.

“Well, I certainly proved that you know what mages are, because you didn't start screaming and carrying on when I gated across the room.”

“I can't scream and carry on,” said Leslie. “Marion is making pies.”

“Didn't you get a message from Stone about me?” asked Danny.

There was no more pretense she didn't know who Stone was. “Apparently you got here faster than the internet can send mail.”

“I don't think Stone knew I was going right that moment. I left in kind of a hurry, on account of I was involved in something stupid and illegal, and I didn't check in with Stone.”

“Stupid and illegal,” said Leslie. “So you act as your own character reference, apparently.”

“I'm an excellent burglar,” said Danny, “but not a very good negotiator with insane criminal persons who just broke my stupid greedy friend's ribs with a baseball bat.”

“Am I going to have to warn my neighbors to lock their windows and doors at night while you're here?”

“Are you serious?” asked Danny. “They can't keep me out if I want to get in. I'm not here as a burglar. I'm here as a student.”

“I'd suggest you learn farming at an agricultural college somewhere, darlin', on account of we're not really serious farmers. It's kind of a hobby.”

Danny sighed. “Have you got a television?” At least he could amuse himself, if they did.

“No, I'm sorry, we got rid of the old black-and-white years ago.”

“They've got color now,” said Danny. “And flat screens. And cable.”

“Aren't you sweet to point that out,” said Leslie. “We had cable for a while, but it came down to this: I thought there was nothing worth watching unless we had cable, but Marion said he wasn't paying for television since God meant it to come free out of the air and not out of a hose and paid for at fifty bucks a month.”

Danny couldn't help laughing at that, and his laughter made Leslie smile.

“Sure we have television,” said Leslie. “But is that really the best thing you can think of to do with your free time?”

“We didn't get to watch a lot of it back on the Family compound.”

“Which reminds me,” said Leslie. “You learn any useful farming skills?”

“Why would I?” asked Danny. “I had no affinity for plants or animals. All I had were my two hands, and the Aunts thought it was dangerous to let me loose near living plants. I think they thought I'd kill whatever I touched.”

“How are you doing on that?” asked Leslie.

“On what?”

“On
not
killing whatever you touch,” she said. There was a bit of an edge to the question. She was not asking about plants.

Danny regarded her steadily. Why would she ask such a question about killing, if she
hadn't
been in contact with Stone? He could only assume that Stone knew something about what happened in Rico's office, because Eric would have told him. And Stone would have passed the story on to the Silvermans.

“I didn't kill anybody,” said Danny. “Even though he tried to kill me and my friend. I figured I could always get away, so why bother? But there was a man worked for the guy who was trying to kill us, and
he
was in serious danger. So I made a gun available to him, but I also got him plenty of money to get out of the country, if that's what he wanted. The choice was his.”

“What about cannibalism?” asked Leslie. “You much for human meat? Like it
en soufflé
or on kabob? Or is it just the little parts you hanker for now and then? Served body temperature, tartare?”

“
Eric
bit off Rico's thumb. I didn't know he was going to do it, and he was just spitting it out when I got back to him. For what it's worth, he was aiming to take the other one, but I didn't let him.”

“Taking candy from a baby, eh?” asked Marion. He was standing in the kitchen door. “Sounds like you got in
way
over your head. But Stone says Eric backs up your story.” He had a cellphone to his ear.

“You were letting Stone listen to what I was saying?”

“You left a bloody path behind you in DC. We had to decide whether we thought you were worth teaching,” said Leslie. “I'm still not sure. Though at least I'm pretty sure we aren't going to kill you.”

“Kill me?” asked Danny. He jumped to his feet. “
That's
what you were deciding? While you fed me and treated me so nice?”

“Somebody who can jump through a gate at the first sign of danger,” said Marion, “you think we're going to let you
know
we're thinking along those lines? Look, gatemages have always been a problem. You can't discipline them, you can't—well, if they become civilized it's cause they plumb felt like it. Even the ones that don't do any serious damage to fellow Westilians are pretty much a living horror to the mortals they decide to play pranks on. Kidnapping people by dragging them through gates. Pretending to be one person by voice and manner, while really you're another. You Lokis and Hermeses and Mercuries, you cut such a caper.”

“The only people I played pranks on were my cousins.”

“But they were the only people you knew who weren't bigger than you, and that was before you even knew you
were
a gatemage, am I right?” said Marion. “Let's get something straight here. We may be Westilian by blood and training, but we're not part of any of these Families and we live amongst drowthers all the time, and we like them. In fact, we think we're mostly drowther blood ourselves, and we won't have you here if it's going to cause grief for our friends.”

Danny sat back down. “What can I say? If I
were
that kind of nasty trickster, I would assure you that I would never
ever
do any such thing to the local drowthers. I'm
not
that kind of nasty trickster, but what can I tell you except the exact same thing?”

“Well, at least he's logical,” said Marion.

“You say that like it's a good thing,” said Leslie.

“Tell you what,” said Marion. “What if
I
teach him, but if we decide to get rid of him,
you
make a pie and we get him to eat it?”

“Too dangerous,” said Leslie. “The dogs might get into it and die first.”

Danny kind of wanted to laugh at the way they were talking, but it was too life-and-death for him to really think they were funny. “I ran away from home because they were fixing to put me in Hammernip Hill. I'm not going to stay here if you're also deciding every day whether I'm to be allowed to live.”

“Hammernip?” asked Marion.

“Hamar-gnipe,”
said Leslie. “ ‘The peak of a crag.' Throwing people off
hamar-gnipen
used to be a prime way of sacrificing them to the gods.” She turned to Danny. “I went to college, Marion didn't. So I educate him when I can.”

“And I spit in her soup,” said Marion brightly.

“Our Hammernip isn't much of a crag,” said Danny. “More like a hillock. A down. A barrow.” He looked at Marion. “I haven't gone to college yet. I just read.”

“Darlin',” said Leslie, “everybody on Earth stays alive day to day solely because everyone they meet decides, every single day, not to kill them. For instance, you could gate your way into my chest and pull my heart out right now. Or squeeze it hard and make it stop.”

The thought made Danny almost gag. “That's just sick,” he said. Yet at the same time, he couldn't stop himself from thinking: Cool. Why didn't
I
think of that?

“Gatemages have done it before,” said Leslie.

“We're taking you on as a student,” said Marion. “Let that be enough for now.”

“Not so fast,” said Danny. “You act like you're doing me this big favor and it's okay for you to test me before you'll ‘take me on'—but you're not gatemages. You've never known a gatemage in your life. There's no manual on how to do gatemagery or how to train a gatemage. What in the world are you going to teach me?”

“There are certain basics that you don't know,” said Marion.

“So tell me.”

“Not till the pies are done.” Marion went back to the kitchen.

“Isn't he simply maddening?” asked Leslie. “But he's a Cobblefriend, and he's been able to sense the presence of large deposits of both oil and coal in various places, using his credentials as a geologist—he actually did go to college, all the way to a Ph.D.—and the royalties from the wells and mines allow me to maintain my farming habit. I dropped out of college to marry him and put him through school. And in case you're wondering, I'm a beastmage, most specifically a Clawsister, though it hardly seems the right term to use when my heartbeasts are all cows. Still, it's better than ‘Udderbuddy.' ”

“You're a Cowsister?” asked Danny. “No wonder you have to do the milking.”

“They never kick me, if that's what you mean. We get along very well. Sometimes I wish I had an affinity with a different kind of beast. I'd love to experience leaping like a gazelle, or pouncing like a lion, or soaring like a hawk.”

“My Uncle Zog is a hawk sometimes. When he isn't a vulture.”

“How metaphorically apt,” said Leslie. “I once knew Zog, if he's the same one. The way you Families recycle names, it's hard to be sure we're talking about the same man.”

“There's only one Zog,” said Danny, “and he's an angry, vicious piece of work.”