He gathered in his gates and then used these feeble resources to search Na.s.sa.s.sa for his son.

He found Trick's body smothered under the gown of the last nurse who had been on duty. When Wad had been distracted, watching her replacement stumble and go to the kitchen to get her injury attended to, the woman had suffocated the child and carried the body out beneath her clothing. Trick was already dead before Wad went to the nursery to see the Queen.

Wad had supposed that he and Trick were safe until the new baby was born. The Queen had counted on him to believe that, and so she acted in advance, carefully manipulating Wad's attention. Only her failure to kill Wad himself had prevented all from going as she planned. This was the day, the hour she had chosen for all her rivals to die. And she had hidden it from him.

Wad gated the dead toddler out from the nurse's gown and brought the body to his own arms. The gate had no power to heal the child now. He was already cold.

Wad did not kill the nurse. She had only obeyed her Queen. Let the woman be tormented by the memory of the struggling boy, and by the fear of what would happen when the Queen demanded she produce the corpse. When she could not do it, Bexoi would a.s.sume that the nurse had given it to someone else. Bexoi would a.s.sume the baby was alive, that she had not had the heart to kill it, just as Wad had not killed Anonoei and Eluik and Enopp.

If that had only been the truth, if Wad had found his son alive, he would have spared the nurse who refused to kill him. Even in his weakened state, he would have gated her away to safety. Now, with no corpse to prove her obedience, he would let her suffer the consequence of being thought innocent of murder by the one who ordered her to do it.

For a moment he thought of a terrible justice: putting the body of his son back into Bexoi's womb, to share the s.p.a.ce with his half-brother, only a month away from birth. If Bexoi lived through the insertion-and Wad had lost none of his deftness, so she might-the body would decay and rot inside her, and soon wreak vengeance on his monstrous mother and his usurping wombmate.

But Wad had no murder in him now. Grief and fear had overpowered his rage. A Gatefather in another world had proven he was stronger than Wad. Someday that mage would come here to this world, and Wad would have no power to resist him. Now was not the time for meaningless murders. Let Bexoi have her kingdom, if she could keep it, if Anonoei could not find a way to take it from her. Wad had other work to do. Other enemies to deal with.

He sat upon the hill, a Gatefather who was now but a shadow of himself, and wept. For all his crimes he wept, for all who had died before he could save them, for the mages he had stripped of power even more utterly than he had been stripped today. I held their outselves in my hearth.o.a.rd for a thousand years, some of them, or more. I made myself the thief of hearts, and now I am repaid.

And yet I must stand watch against some enemy whose name I do not know, some danger that I can't identify, some world-ending dread that now will find me nearly empty.

I was the G.o.d who was supposed to protect this world. Was it my nemesis who took away my heart today? Or merely some innocent gatemage who happened to be stronger than I ever was, and unknowingly laid the world bare to the real enemy, whatever that might be?

Wad gated himself away from Na.s.sa.s.sa to the mountains. He found Eko working in another field beside another house-a larger one. The family had become more prosperous. They had abandoned their old house in the high and meager fields.

Eko knew him when she saw him, and her face brightened. "Tree man," she said.

"Thank you," he said, "for what you did for me."

She knelt before him. "O Man of the Tree," she said, "how can I serve you now?"

"In your old house higher up the mountain, there is a woman and her sons. They are helpless and no one else knows where they are. If the King or Queen should find them, they'll be killed. But they have friends who soon will seek them. Keep them alive until I can find and bring their friends."

"I will," she said, and closed her eyes. Then she opened them, reached out and touched Wad, then drew back her hand as if she had burned herself.

"If there is any blessing in me," Wad replied, "then it is yours."

She arose and ran up the path that led to the abandoned hovel.

Wad gated himself to the tree in the Forest of Mages, where he had lived so long. He gathered in the last of all his gates and pressed himself against the tree. "Take me back," he murmured. "I have failed at everything."

But the tree did not obey. Perhaps without his power it did not know him. Perhaps his time for dwelling in a tree had pa.s.sed. But Wad remained there, clinging to the rough bark, because he had no other place to go.

"Trick," he whispered. "My son, my son, if only I had died and you had lived. O Trick my son."

23.

GATEFATHER.

He heard them calling to him, as if from far away. Leslie, weeping over him, saying over and over, Danny, come back, Danny, we need you, please come back. Marion, his voice stern: Daniel North, you have work to do. Get your ch.o.r.es done before you play. Do you think a farm runs itself? Stone, speaking softly, We have to know what happened, Danny. You have to report to us. This is all wasted if we don't understand. Danny, come back to me.

Veevee and Hermia didn't speak to him. Instead he felt them, felt a pinching and a caressing inside himself, probes that moved through him, not in his body, not even in his mind, but in that place where his gates all stayed.

Only gradually did he realize what they were doing. All the screaming outselves that had been drowning out his own thoughts, threatening to swallow him up in their agonized, frustrated wishes and demands, one by one they were closing, closing, closing, as Hermia worked to shut them all. Meanwhile Veevee was touching the ones that Hermia had not yet reached, as if to a.s.sure them that they were being heard, they did not have to scream, they would be heard if they only spoke one at a time, each in turn, not all at once like this, patience, patience.

Only one voice inside him was not touched or closed or changed. It was the outself of the Gate Thief, and he was not screaming. Not shouting, not doing anything.

Pulled out of his stupor and terror and solitude by the voices of his friends, freed from more and more of the burden of all the stolen gates by Hermia and Veevee, it was to the outself of the Gate Thief that Danny turned.

Who are you? Danny asked, not in words, but as a kind of exploration. Why did you try to steal my heart? What did you want? What did you fear?

Bel Bel Bel Bel, came the answer. Only it wasn't an answer. It was simply a kind of watchfulness, a continuous probe. Let Bel not come into the world again, he will eat us all this time, he will ride the drowthers, all of them, ride them through the gates to Westil, he will devour us all. Close the gates, all the gates, keep the worlds apart. Is that a gate? Is there a gate? Gate? Gate?

Gradually Danny came to understand that the Gate Thief's outself was simply continuing to do the task that had been set for it, waking and sleeping, for centuries. Watch for a Great Gate, for any gate, wake me when a gate appears, all gates must be stopped, must be eaten, must be owned. No gates anywhere, or the enemy will make it through.

It was still the war with Bel. Carthage was long since broken, plowed and salted, but still the Gate Thief watched out for the dangerous and implacable foe.

Gate Thief? Danny knew him now. It was Loki. It had always been Loki, the Last Loki, the one who closed the gates between the worlds. Somehow he was still alive, still watching, and until Danny ate his outself, he had still been laboring to keep the worlds apart.

Why? Danny asked, again and again. But Loki's outself did not hear him. Instead it continued its vigil, intensely watching, scanning.

Lying where he was, still hearing the other captive outselves, still feeling Hermia and Veevee inside him, still hearing the voices of Leslie, Marion, and Stone, Danny made a gate, a single gate, going only an inch or two.

Immediately Loki's outself outshouted everything. Gate gate gate gate gate! And Danny felt what Loki's outself made him feel: Must consume the gate, must eat all the gates this mage will ever make. Danny was hungry. hungry. And yet it was his own gate that he would have to eat, if he was to satisfy Loki's need. And yet it was his own gate that he would have to eat, if he was to satisfy Loki's need.

The Gate Thief had carried this hunger around inside himself for more than thirteen centuries.

"He made a gate," said Hermia aloud.

"A locked one," said Veevee. "Very small."

"Was it Danny who made it?" Hermia asked. "Or has the Gate Thief taken him over from the inside?"

Danny opened his mouth and tried to speak.

Leslie cried out, "He's trying to talk! Hush!"

"You're the only one being loud, my love," said Marion.

Danny searched for his own voice, the one the outside world could hear. "It's me."

He opened his eyes. "Still in the gym?" he asked.

"We didn't know if we could move you," said Veevee.

"And Ced didn't make it back through the gate," said Marion.

"He didn't want to come," said Leslie.

"But we came back," said Marion. "We touched the earth of Westil and then we came right back. While you fought, we made the pa.s.sage." The awe in his voice was almost palpable.

"So move us some mountains, tough guy," said Danny, his voice feebler than he expected. "What about Stone?"

"I didn't go," said Stone. "I stayed with Veevee. What would I do with more power? Grow giant tomatoes and get my picture in the paper?"

"Florist shop?" asked Danny. "How long?"

"Half an hour, maybe," said Veevee.

"Who's crying?" asked Danny.

"Leslie, of course," said Veevee.

"And Hermia," said Stone.

"Oh, really?" asked Veevee. "I thought she was still busy locking gates."

"I am," said Hermia. "I'm not crying. Shut up."

"We thought we lost you," said Veevee. "So many gates, so many outselves. We couldn't imagine how you could contain them. Keep them from taking you over. Especially with the Gate Thief's outself in you-so thick with power, so... but the dust of your outself overwhelmed him. You're really something, Danny."

"My gates?" asked Danny.

"All inside you," said Hermia.

"The Great Gate?"

"Especially that one."

"Make it again," said Danny.

"Not yet," said Veevee. "You don't know what would happen."

"What about Ced?"

"He chose chose to stay," said Marion. "He could have made it back. You can open another Great Gate in a day, a week. Let him do what he wants to do there. In a month you can go to him. Give him a chance to do what he can do as the most powerful windmage in Westil." to stay," said Marion. "He could have made it back. You can open another Great Gate in a day, a week. Let him do what he wants to do there. In a month you can go to him. Give him a chance to do what he can do as the most powerful windmage in Westil."

"If he is is the most powerful," said Stone. the most powerful," said Stone.

"If you try to make the Great Gate again," said Hermia, "you don't know what the Gate Thief will do. He's not dead. If you open up a way for him to come through, he might know a way to take it all back again-his own outself, the captives, and you as well. He's still dangerous."

Danny nodded. His head hurt. "My head hurts."

"You hit the floor kind of hard," said Veevee. "I'm thinking we need to pa.s.s you through a gate. You might have a concussion."

"He might have fractured his skull," said Leslie.

"Can you put yourself through a gate?" asked Hermia.

Danny took the little gate that he had made and pa.s.sed the mouth of it over his own head, then down his entire body.

He felt fine now. He sat up. Stood up.

"You beat him," said Hermia, grinning. Then she threw her arms around him. "You beat the Gate Thief."

"It's Loki," said Danny. "The Gate Thief is Loki. The very one."

"After thirteen hundred years?" asked Stone, incredulous.

Hermia let go of him, stepped back. "I guess he really wanted to keep the worlds apart," she said.

"Well, Ced is there now," said Stone. "And Marion and Leslie went through to Westil and back again."

"Powerful cows," said Danny to Leslie.

She strode to him and hugged him tightly.

"What now?" Danny asked them all.

"We get the rental car away from here," said Veevee. "Which means I have a drive ahead of me."

"You've put enough miles on the car for them to believe you actually used it," said Danny. "I'll gate you back. The rest of you-Yellow Springs?"

"They certainly don't want to stay in the miserable shack you're living in here," said Veevee.

"Let's get out of here," said Danny. And added, to Marion, "Now that we know how to do it, we can rig our own rope in the barn."

They came to the crash doors, pushed them open.

A huge bird dropped on top of Danny and knocked him to the ground, started pecking at him savagely. Danny instantly gated about ten feet away and, completely uninjured now, jumped to his feet.

Thor was there, about two rods off, and Baba and Mama were with him. Thor was yelling at the bird. "Stop it, Zog! Stop!" The bird was beating with its great wings, moving angrily toward Danny.

Then the bird was calm.

"I can't believe Uncle Zog would give up," said Danny.

"He didn't," said Leslie. "I took the bird away from him."

"You can do that?" asked Danny.

"n.o.body can do that," said Thor.

"I've been to Westil," said Leslie. "I still can't ride a beast that isn't bound to me, but I can break anyone's connection with their heartbound. Do you understand me?"