Gatefather Read online

  “So you formed a clant, clothes and all, right here? Just now?”

  “You can marvel at my newfound talents later,” said Danny North. “This baby’s due, and we need to resolve who’s going to have the use of the mother’s body before it’s born.”

  10

  Anonoei listened to everything that was said, not because she really understood what Danny North was going on about, but because she had nothing else to do. Bexoi was asleep, or in some other kind of trance, and so her thoughts, when they rose to the level of consciousness, were something to pay attention to. Anonoei was desperately lonely. She could hear what Bexoi’s body heard, see what she saw; but her eyes were generally closed, and since Bexoi wasn’t doing anything, it was like being a passenger alone on a boat that was trapped in the winter ice.

  So Wad’s conversation with Prayard had passed the time, at least, and then when Danny North appeared, things got interesting. Anonoei heard things which, if she had a body to allow her to feel anything, would have made her hopeful. But there were no emotions without the body. She could understand things, but dispassionately. Oh, this might be possible. Oh, that might not.

  Do I even care whether I live or die? Am I really alive here in Bexoi’s body? Did the vital part of me perish in the flames of my original corpse, and now I’m just a shadow, less real than the clant of a gatemage?

  It was hard to hold on to Bexoi. Anonoei had to keep such a careful balance. Since she had thrown herself out of her own dying flesh and plunged into her enemy’s body, Anonoei had known that she could not stay here without Bexoi herself. For the body was Bexoi’s and if her inself broke free and returned to Duat, the corpse would be left behind to rot, no longer a single continuous organ, but just a heap of tissues, food for the scavengers that always waited, a heartbeat away, for the first sign of death.

  I am one of them, a scavenger, a fungus growing inside Bexoi, unable to sustain a life of my own, feeding instead on hers.

  And Anonoei couldn’t even be sure how much of this situation Bexoi understood. Maybe, having come so near to death, Bexoi really did believe herself to be dead, or something like it. Maybe she couldn’t fully reattach to her body. What was holding her back? The baby, perhaps?

  But it was just as possible and, knowing Bexoi, far more likely, that the Queen knew exactly what was happening, and kept herself hovering on the edge of consciousness, waiting for Anonoei to grow weary of the continuous tug of war.

  If Anonoei pressed too hard, Bexoi would leave the body and it would die. But if Anonoei relaxed her grip, Bexoi would take back full control and Anonoei would be left with nothing, no part of this life. Then Bexoi’s attempt to murder her would at last be complete.

  And maybe that would be best. Maybe it was not heroic but pitiable that Anonoei was so desperate to keep some part of her alive. If this miserable existence as a shadow lurking inside the body of the Queen counted as life.

  Anonoei was powerless to make Bexoi’s eyes open and look at Wad or at Danny. Oh, she could do it—but that was just the kind of thing that made Bexoi’s inself detach itself in some unfathomable way. Anonoei could sense it happening, but she had no idea what sense was sensing it. Not some message from Bexoi’s body, she had long since realized. Anonoei could sense Bexoi’s inself letting go of her own body at some level where only the inself and outself existed. At the same time, Anonoei knew somehow that wherever Bexoi was going, there would be no coming back. Anonoei would be left alone in a body that was not hers, that she couldn’t control. She could stop Bexoi from doing anything, saying anything. But she couldn’t do anything herself, not without taking so much control that Bexoi would leave.

  The message was clear: I may not be able to get rid of you, but I won’t be your puppet. If I can’t rule here, no one will.

  Which was, Anonoei understood, the fundamental principle that guided Bexoi’s life. She was going to rule everything within her reach. Anyone who blocked her from ruling had to be destroyed. Anyone who could help her rule had to be exploited. No partial success was enough to settle for, and if thwarted, she would refuse to stay in the game.

  So now, Danny North, with all your wisdom, will you see what’s going on?

  “Yes,” said Danny.

  But no, no, he did not say it, and Anonoei did not hear it, not through Bexoi’s ears. Nor was it even a word. Anonoei had framed a question in her mind—if it was her own mind—and Danny had answered without language, in a place so deeply inside Anonoei that no part of it touched Bexoi.

  “That’s the problem,” said Danny. “You have to reach deeper. This body might accept you, if it knows that you will never use it to kill innocents, as Bexoi did. Or it might not. But it can’t accept you if you don’t reach deep and offer yourself as an alternative to Bexoi.”

  Again, it was not a matter of words. In fact, the idea that Anonoei understood as “reach deep” was a concept that she could not have understood if Danny had not pushed something into Bexoi’s body. His outself? His own inself? Danny North was a gatemage, not a manmage. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be able to do … anything.

  Yet his urgency could not be evaded. Behold this, he was pressing her. Pay attention to what I do.

  But how could she pay attention? She had no bodily senses to pay attention with.

  Gently he drew her. Come look at this. Come see. Come feel this.

  If she were a poetic person, she thought, she might be able to find words for what Danny North was doing. It was as if his inself took my inself by the hand—no, by the very heart; no, he took the entire inself, enveloped it, guided it.

  Yet at no point was Anonoei being compelled. Enticed, perhaps. Come, try this. Feel this. Watch this.

  She began to understand what was happening when Danny North insinuated himself into Bexoi’s body. Not the whole of him, the way Anonoei was entirely present inside the confines of Bexoi’s body of flesh and bone. Something like a dagger, though, would lick out, darting like a snake’s tongue, and penetrate Bexoi’s body, probing into places that Anonoei had not understood before. When Bexoi had tried to die, she drew herself out of these places.

  This is how you own a body.

  Not quite, said Danny North in his silent, wordless way. You can’t take it. But you can ask it to give itself to you.

  That was never true, Anonoei knew it. In all her years as a manmage, she had always taken what she could, or at least what she needed. She hadn’t asked.

  Yet now she could sense how Danny insinuated himself into Bexoi’s body, even though it was a woman’s body and Danny was no manmage. He didn’t take control of anything. He offered himself to the bits out of which the body was made, like a man reaching over a cliff to offer a hand to someone who was clinging to a single vine. Take this! he was saying. Take hold of this and don’t let go. But at no point was Danny forcing the body to fragment itself, to choose between following Bexoi or himself. It was only an offer: See what’s possible. See if this would please you better. See what I am.

  And to Anonoei’s surprise, she could feel the body responding. At a level deeper and more primitive than mere physical sensation, she could sense how the body was becoming more and more responsive to Danny.

  But Danny doesn’t need this body. I need it. It’s all I’ve got, and I don’t have it.

  That is right, said Danny, without sound, without words. You haven’t “got” anything at all. The best you can hope for is that this bone house will invite you to be mistress here. But this is how you offer yourself.

  It wants you, thought Anonoei. Look how each part you touch leaps out to meet you. Like a magnet drawing iron filings to itself.

  You do it, said Danny. The body wants to be part of something better than Bexoi. It’s weary of leading a monster’s life.

  But how could he know that? And why was he so sure that Anonoei herself was not just as monstrous?

  That very doubt is proof that you are not like Bexoi. The very idea that something you want might not be right
says that you believe yourself to be part of a larger world. That you’re accountable. That something matters more than you do.

  My children, thought Anonoei.

  But no, that was not enough. Her sons were part of her. Their survival was her survival.

  What is it that tells me there are some things that I mustn’t do? Can’t do? Don’t want to do.

  What if I’m as bad as Bexoi? What if this body would be trading one evil for another? A strong mistress for a weak one who was no better?

  Even as she doubted herself, she reached out into the body as Danny had done. Into the deep places, the tiny places, the unfathomable depths of the body, where the tiny selves clung to her like dust.

  They don’t find me despicable.

  Her surprise, her gratitude seemed to draw more of them.

  But not the brightest of them.

  Let them see the woman who lets nothing stop her, said Danny.

  That would be Bexoi.

  The woman who endured imprisonment. Loss of her sons. And yet kept her sanity.

  If I did.

  Don’t you understand that it’s not your fear but your boldness that makes you fit to rule? Offer who you are, not what you are ashamed to be.

  How can I lie to them? They aren’t deceived.

  Exactly, said Danny. So let them see it all.

  See? There was no seeing, there was no telling.

  Even though she did not understand, there was some part of her that knew what to do. She thought of all the things she had done with her manmagery. The way she played on what other people wanted, persuaded them that she was the object of their deepest desires.

  I won’t lie to you, she said silently. No promises except this: I don’t kill babies. I don’t kill at all, if I can help it. This is a world full of life and I want to stay in it. I want to see my sons grow up.

  This baby growing in Queen Bexoi’s body—I will raise him up to be the best man he can find inside himself. I won’t punish him for being his mother’s child. He will never know that I am not Bexoi. He is made from this body, and from this body he will have a mother’s love. As best I can. That’s a promise I can make, if you let me be mistress here. I could never kill a child of my own body; I couldn’t harm a child born to my enemy. If you let me dwell here, truly rule here, then this baby will be both. Child of my enemy; child of my own body.

  And the true child of a man I love.

  Was that even true? Did she still love Prayard?

  Without a body to feel emotion, she didn’t know.

  But love was not an emotion. She and Wad had discussed this more than once. Love was a decision. Your happiness before my own. But not instead of my own. Alongside me.

  What I offer Prayard, I offer you. I will be part of your pleasure and your pain. I will decide where to guide you, but you will always be able to urge me and draw me toward your desires as well. You did not want to kill the baby that you made, did you? I will never grieve you like that.

  The body gathered to her. There was no physical movement; the limbs did not move, the eyes did not twitch. But she felt herself reaching deeply into it. Knowing it far more deeply than its muscles or bones, nerves or veins.

  More deeply than Bexoi knew it.

  And in that very moment, Bexoi must have realized what was happening, or at least that something was happening. That she was losing her power here.

  She could feel Bexoi try to make a sound, a scream, a shout. The meaning was also clear: No! But Bexoi’s possession of her own body was so shallow, so tenuous that it was already weak compared to the control that belonged to Anonoei.

  In her panic, Bexoi tried to force her body to obey her. But of course that did not work. It could not work. The body had once been hers, but now it belonged, mostly, to someone else. To Anonoei.

  Not completely, no. Because Danny had been there before her. Danny had shown himself to the bits that made up this body, and they had recognized his power, his enormous, dazzling strength. And also, perhaps, his goodness. Certainly his goodness, or at least his desire to be good to other people. To be good to whatever body belonged to him.

  Then he retreated, and all that was left to entice this body was Anonoei. Compared to Bexoi, that might well be enough—no, it was enough.

  But if Danny asked, if Danny offered, then it would all be his.

  Yet he would not ask. He would not offer. He had come here only to show her what she needed to do. How it could be done.

  All these years, ever since she first recognized her manmagery, she had imagined that she was tricking them, seducing them, and then, when she needed to, forcing them. But no, it was never that. They all gave themselves to her. Not as completely as this body was giving itself to her. But to some degree, they had been won over, they wished for what she offered. The weakest of them had accepted her complete domination. But the strongest of them also became her willing allies. Her followers.

  As Bexoi’s body now was.

  I am you now, she said to this body, all the parts of it, the whole of it. Let’s be alive together, she said, and the body came to her and clung to her and now she willed the legs to bend.

  They were stiff from lack of movement, and could not easily respond.

  In that instant, Danny North sensed what was happening and she felt a wave of healing, of strengthening, pass through her. Had he taken her through a gate? No, this was something else. This was him giving the body permission to heal itself. And now her legs moved easily. She swung them off the bed, leaned up on an elbow.

  “Who is she?” asked Wad.

  “You mean, which of your lovers?” asked Danny softly. “Which do you want her to be?”

  “I can see what body it is,” said Wad tersely. “Is it the mother or the monster?”

  “She is the woman the body wanted to be,” said Danny. “But the monster isn’t gone yet.”

  “Make her go,” whispered Wad.

  Danny only gave a low chuckle. “You saw how I did this,” he said. “How Anonoei did it. You know that neither of us can make Bexoi do anything.”

  “Then we’ll never be rid of her,” said Wad bitterly.

  “Perhaps not,” said Danny. “But it’s not about us or what we want.”

  Is it about me? thought Anonoei.

  And from Bexoi came a wave of rejection and hatred.

  Anonoei felt it as emotion because now she was directly connected to the body as if it were her own.

  No, she was connected to it because it was her own. It belonged to her now.

  She could feel the urgency of Bexoi’s demand: Where can I go? I don’t want to die.

  Anonoei had no answer. Nobody wanted to die, and Anonoei couldn’t think of a good reason why Bexoi should be willing to die when her body remained alive, in someone else’s possession.

  “It doesn’t want you now,” said Danny, and Anonoei realized that now he was using his voice. “It’s been offered a better life. A better self. What can you offer?”

  Again Bexoi reached for the body’s voice, but she was not connected to it anymore. Yet Anonoei knew, without words, what she was trying to convey: It’s mine.

  “It’s yours because you were such a powerful pret, back on Duat,” said Danny. “Such brilliance and strength. Of course it wanted to follow you. But look what you did with it. You might have felt no shame, but the beautiful beast you dwelt in was ashamed of how you made it live, what you made it do. Back then it had no choice. Now it has one. It’s hard to imagine a living soul that it would not rather be.”

  Bexoi raged—or would have raged, if the body had obeyed her. What do you know about me? I don’t know you, you’re nothing to me, a boy, a stranger!

  But Danny responded with perfect calm. “Bexoi,” he said, and the very act of naming her pulled her even farther out of the body which she was still desperately trying to control. “You know me. At this moment, you know me better than you have ever known anybody. I’m hiding nothing. You know me, Loki knows me, Anonoei can se
e me plainly. And you know that I have done nothing to you. Everything that grieves you, you did to yourself. You took life away from others without a moment’s regret. Did you think that meant that you would not also someday die?”

  Anonoei felt Bexoi’s fury turn to a mix of fire and fear. She was trying to burn up Danny North, and she was terrified because her body gave her no such power now. It would not harm Danny North.

  And then Anonoei realized why. All the power to burn things was part of the body still, but Bexoi could not consume young Danny with that fire, because Anonoei did not wish to harm him, and it was Anonoei’s will that the fire responded to now.

  Danny’s words had finally reached Bexoi’s deep understanding, and her inself echoed the wordless understanding beneath his spoken words. Everybody dies, and Bexoi realized for the first time that there would be no exemption for her.

  “This is that day,” said Danny—gently. Even kindly. “No one has harmed you. No one else is causing your death. You gave up any claim on life when you killed your little boy. You handed your life to Anonoei when you burned her own body out from under her. You know that I have done nothing but teach Anonoei how to love your body better and more deeply than you ever did. And in return it serves her, as faithfully as it served you, and more joyfully. Now go home to Duat, Bexoi. There is One there who remembers what you meant to be, when you left there and came to Westil. He knows your whole story, while you know only a part of it. Go home and find out who you were, and who you are, and who you might yet become.”

  Only then did Anonoei recognize another presence in that place. Not really in the room they occupied, not here in the palace of Prayard. But wherever he was, he had decided to let them sense his … attention. The watchful concern of Duat.

  Danny seemed unsurprised. Anonoei could feel his relief. Whoever this was, whatever powers the stranger had, Danny welcomed him, because to him this one was no stranger at all.