Stargate by Pauline Gedge Page B

meandered back and up toward the mountains, gleaming clean and drenched. Far away, misted in the humid air, a winged one wheeled high above the arms of the valley where they narrowed to a point and vanished into rock and shadow, but here in the shelter of gentle hills and Tagar’s gray stone wall the sun warmed them, and there was no wind. Tagar smiled, and his red-clad arm came out to touch Ghakazian.
    â€œSun-lord,” he said. “Welcome home.”
    Ghakazian smiled a greeting and sat on the wall, sun beating into his face, his wings draped behind him to droop over the grass. “Is all well with you, Tagar, and with my wingless ones?” he enquired politely. The man inclined his head slowly with a natural dignity. The hands that laid the cup aside were large, big-knuckled, and thickly lined. The face was lined also, creased around eyes that had spent uncounted years squinting into bright sunlight and far distances, taking the measure of time and seasons, meditating upon the intrinsic mysteries of night and day, rain and shine, cold and heat. He was a large man, slow with the slowness of the clouds that drifted shadow over the valley, with the pace of quiet contentment of his flocks as they ambled over the fields. Before long his time on Ghaka would be over and a Messenger would come for him, but until then he cared for himself and those who acknowledged him as their elder with a quiet pride. The sky was not his concern. It was the earth that had formed him, and it called him still with its deep, sane voice. Now he answered with calm deliberation.
    â€œAll is well. Nothing has changed, and nothing ever will. Why should it, Ghakazian? I walk the hills with my sheep and wait to feel within me the signs that will bring me to the Gate for the last time, but I do not think that my time is coming for a little while yet.” He smiled at the tumble of wind-strewn brown hair and fluttering feathers. “Have you been far afield in the All?”
    â€œYes, I have been far,” Ghakazian replied shortly. “I have been to Danar and then to Ixel.”
    Tagar drank reflectively and then set his cup on the stone path that ran from the gate in his wall to the open door of his house, just beside him. “Is the lord of Ixel content?” He folded his arms and leaned his red-clad shoulders against the warm stone of his house. “I saw him once when he came to visit you.”
    You are a strange mortal, Ghakazian thought, his eyes leaving Tagar’s weathered face and fixing themselves on the dot that still circled lazily far above, black against the deep blue sky. I feel that if I told you what has happened to Ixelion and all the others, you would simply nod and understand perfectly. But though I would wish sometimes to share it with you here, in the freshness and quiet of your valley, it is forbidden. Wise you may be, but innocent also, and innocent you must remain, your simplicity the only thing in your life that does not change but
grows
deeper and sweeter.
    â€œI do not know whether he is content or not,” Ghakazian answered frankly, for contentment meant many things. Then he suddenly left the wall and stood over Tagar. “Tell me,” he said abruptly. “Has any mortal gone through the Gate to other worlds, not just to Linla or Roita, but out through the deeps of space, at any time since the ancestors were made?”
    Tagar looked up at him, surprised. “Surely you ask me something you must know yourself, seeing that you were here when the mountains themselves burst through the soil. Not in my memory, nor in the memories of any of my line before me, has such a thing been possible. The Worldmaker forbade the realms of deep space to all mortals. Why do you ask?”
    Ghakazian shook his head. “Idiocy,” he muttered. “The fantasy of a crippled mind.”
    A cry made them both look up to see Mirak swooping low over their heads. They called back a greeting,