Exile's Gate Read Online Free PDF Page A

planes of her face, winked
redly from the eyes of the dragon sword. It had not left her side. It
would not, this night.

    "No," he said. "That I do know."

    He felt cold, and bereft,
and victim of a cruel choice which was Morgaine's doing—that she asked
everything of him, every possession, every kinship, every scruple, the
sum of which choices brought him here, where men fed each other to
wolves. I had every thing I thought that I had dreamed of. Everything was in my hands — honor, kinship, a home that was mine — within the arrhend. There was peace —

    But Morgaine would have
gone on without him. And with her, the warmth in the sun would have
gone. And no one could ever have warmed him again, man or woman,
kinsman or friend. The essential thing would have left his life, and
beyond that, beyond that—

    He had ridden into that
dark gulf of the gates—it had been this morning, a bright meadow, a
parting with his cousin, last save Morgaine herself who could speak the
language of his homeland, last save Morgaine who knew his customs, knew
the things he believed, remembered the sights of home. And it was
already too late. Was dust, between two strides of the horses that bore
them.

    He shivered, a convulsive
twitch as if a cold wind had blown over his back; and he bowed his head
and rubbed the back of his neck, which the warrior's braid made bare.
Honor demanded. Honor, he had back again. But he did not put off the
white scarf, which made him ilin, a Claimed
warrior, soul-bound to the liege he served; and when he asked himself
why this was, his thoughts slid away from that question as it did from
the things Morgaine tried to explain to him, how worlds circled suns
and what made the constellations change their shapes.

    So he thought, listening to
the wolves, thinking that they were not alone, that this world had
touched them already. They had in their care a man who depended on them
for life, and who in someone's estimation had deserved to die by a
terrible means.

    He wished that he knew less than he did, or had seen less in their journeying.

    "We cannot leave him; Heaven knows we cannot make speed carrying double. And Heaven knows—fever may take him by morning."

    Morgaine stared at him, a
flash of her eyes across the fire, out of a brooding silence. So he
knew he had gotten to the heart of her thoughts, that she dismissed his
worry for their guest as shortsighted, the matter of one life. She
weighed it against other things.

    "We will do what we have to," she said, and beneath that was: I will do, and you will, or our ways part.

    There was always that choice. It was knowing that, perhaps, that made him choose to stay within ilin -oath
and keep himself from other, more damning choices. He could not take
another direction, in a strange land and outside the law he knew. And
where was honor—when a man chose a woman, and refused to leave her even
for his honor's sake; and a liege, and must not desert her, else he had
no honor at all; and that woman and that liege lord, being one and the
same, would never turn left or right for his sake, being bound by an
oath still more dreadful than his.

    He had no wish to serve
what she served. Serving her, he served that terrible thing, as much as
a man could and hold out any vestige of hope for his soul. Being
Kurshin, and Nhi, and honorable, he sought after absolutes of law, and
right; and that truth of hers, which killed the innocent and shattered
law and right, shimmered beyond all his horizons, stark as the sword
she bore— here is absolute truth, man, here is truth beyond truths, which makes all justice void.

    Morgaine understood it.
Morgaine did all that she did for that thing she served, did all that
flesh and blood could do, woman or man; and took so little care for
herself that she would not eat or drink, at times, would forget these
things if he were not there to put food into her hand and to protest
that he, he, being a natural man, needed rest even if she did not.