The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) Read Free Page A

Arites, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a lounge she didn’t recognize, his parchment sheets in his lap and his wooden pen in his hand, gazing earnestly up at someone standing over him. His braids were loose and his hair was falling into his eyes, making him look much younger than he was. Had been.
    Giaren must have read her expression. He said quietly, “That’s the young man who was killed, isn’t it?”
    Tremaine let out her breath, ignoring the tightness in her chest. “Yes. One of them.”
    Giaren cleared his throat and sorted through the folder of photos again, changing the subject. “I thought I had one of your father, but it didn’t develop.”
    Tremaine nodded ruefully. “It’s the silver nitrate in the film stock. He doesn’t show up on it.”
    Giaren stared at her blankly.
    “That was a joke,” she added belatedly.
    “Oh.” He sounded relieved.
     
     
     
    I lias was waiting for Tremaine out in the drafty hall, sitting on a wooden bench. He wore a borrowed dark blue naval officer’s greatcoat that mostly concealed his Syprian clothes: a sleeveless shirt, dark-colored pants and boots of dyed and stamped leather. He also wore a white gold ring on a thong around his neck, a wedding gift from Tremaine. The copper and leather armbands were hidden by the coat and the copper disk earrings were buried in his hair.
    Seeing him under the brighter electrics of the hallway gave Tremaine a slight shock. He was pale and there were bruised hollows beneath his eyes, and he looked ill. Or more correctly, he looked like someone accustomed to living his life outdoors in hard physical activity who now had little to do, was trapped inside most of the time, couldn’t sleep for the noise, hadn’t seen the sun in days and could hardly breathe the bad air.
    The Syprians hated Capidara. Capistown was crowded onto a hilly narrow peninsula that sheltered the large harbor, so land was at a premium. Buildings of brown brick or weathered stone, crammed with businesses or flats, stood several stories tall, blocking out the winter daylight from the narrow streets. And, unlike Vienne, there had been no room to expand and no great building projects in the recent past to widen the main avenues and turn old byways that had been little more than footpaths into real roads. The streets here were perpetually crowded with wagon and automobile traffic and a constant din of shouting and engines and horns.
    The Ravenna wasn’t the most aromatic of transports but the cool clean wind of the Syprians’ world had swept the steamship odors away through most of the trip. Even Tremaine, used to cities and automobiles, could smell the stink of smoke here; it was making all the Syprians ill and the cold and damp didn’t help either. Gyan, oldest of the Syprians who had followed them from Cineth, had been unable to stand it and was staying on the Ravenna, where the air was fresher and the ship’s heating system kept the cold at bay. Danias, the youngest Syprian, had been sent with Gyan, partly to get him out of the city and partly because Syprians couldn’t contemplate going anywhere alone. Pasima and the rest of her contingent—Cletia, Cimarus and Sanior— had separate quarters in the Port Authority, which kept the interfamily fighting to a minimum.
    The Ravenna was anchored near the mouth of the harbor, as Capistown’s deep-water docks were crowded with their own big ships, unable to leave port because of the Gardier’s attacks on their regular routes.
    Another Rienish Vernaire Solar liner, the Queen Falaise, was docked there also, having been trapped here by the war. She was now being loaded with supplies and weapons for the embattled troops in Parscia, and had had one of her grand ballrooms turned into a circle chamber for the etheric world-gate spell.
    Tremaine dropped down onto the bench next to Ilias, saying, “Don’t laugh at the hat.”
    She didn’t manage to provoke a smile, though Ilias leaned against her, close enough to