Now he even knew the direction they had passed. It was a group of four people, and they came from Westil to Earth.
Whoever it was had arrived in Silvermans’ barn. It was milking time. Leslie would be there.
Danny even knew who it was. Because lingering after the sensation of the Great Gate being used there was another feeling-a quickening in the gates that Danny held captive inside him. The strange gates were saying-not in words, but deeper than words-“He is coming, he is coming.” And the gates that belonged to Loki himself were brightening because their true owner was now in the same world with them. “Let us go home,” they were saying, straining ever so slightly against the restraint of Danny’s hearthoard.
The Gate Thief had brought three people with him through the Wild Gate.
Danny pulled off the shorts and put on pants and a shirt, socks and shoes and a jacket. He would not be running this morning after all.
Once he was dressed, he stepped through the gate in his house that led to the Silvermans’ upstairs hall, then walked from house to barn through the biting cold of this autumn morning. The trees were dazzling with color. There was a trace of frost on the grass.
Inside the barn, Leslie and Marion were standing side by side, looking up at the loft where Loki stood with a woman and two young boys.
“Took you long enough,” said Marion.
“I was mostly naked,” said Danny. “I stopped to dress.”
“Thank you for that,” said Leslie.
“Danny North,” said Loki.
“I don’t want you here,” said Danny in Westilian.
“I need your help,” said Loki. “But it will be hard to converse with your friend prepared to make the ground swallow us up.”
“Only swallow,” said Marion, in his heavily accented version of Westilian. “Not chew.”
“His mercy is noted,” said Loki. “That’s why I didn’t gate him to the bottom of a convenient river. Or into a tree.”
“You didn’t harm him,” said Danny, “because you are afraid of me.”
“I didn’t harm him,” said Loki, “because I am an intruder, and he is protecting his home and his friend.”
“And you didn’t leave, because you wanted to be here when I arrived.”
“I promise not to do anything to anyone here,” said Loki. “I will not try to take back my own gates, or swallow any others’. In return I hope you will not try to take the few that remain to me.”
Danny turned to Marion and Leslie. “May I invite them into the house?”
“Guest law will apply then,” said Marion.
“I know,” said Danny.
“It will bind you as well as us,” Leslie reminded him.
“It will bind us all,” said Danny. “Aren’t you curious to know about the woman and the children?”
“Anonoei, onetime mistress of King Prayard of Iceway,” said Loki. “And the unofficial but potentially useful sons of the King, Eluik and Enopp.”
Danny nodded to them formally. It was a ritual greeting that all the children learned very young, to be used on important and solemn occasions. Only as a child, Danny’s bow had been deep, and from the waist; the nod he gave now was that of a ruler toward subordinates-the nod that Baba bestowed on those saluting him as Odin. No one could mistake what he was asserting, and indeed they did not. The return bow of the woman and her sons was deep, though not so deep as to imply worthlessness. And Loki also bowed slightly from the waist rather than merely nodding in return. The hierarchy had been asserted and agreed to.
“May we enter your home?” Danny asked the Silvermans again.
Leslie sighed. “Gate me to the kitchen, please, Danny.”
He did.
“I’d like to walk with our guests,” said Marion.
Loki understood, and instead of gating down from the loft, he descended the ladder, Anonoei and the boys after him. Then Marion drew Loki with him, and walked beside the ancient yet youthful gatemage toward the house.
Danny knew that Marion would make dire warnings about what would happen if Loki broke his word. Danny also knew that Loki would agree cheerfully, knowing that in a pinch, he could always gate away, so Marion’s threats were more symbolic than practicable.
Meanwhile, Danny looked at the woman and smiled. “You’re a mother. I had one once.”
“I hope a mother that you loved.”
“Devotedly,” said Danny. “Why don’t you and your older son walk ahead, and let me talk to the young one. Enopp, is it?”
Anonoei took Eluik by the hand and walked from the barn, whose smaller door was still standing open after Marion’s and Loki’s departure.
“These are cows, aren’t they,” said the boy Enopp.
“They are,” said Danny.
“They’re huge,” said Enopp.
“Cows may be bigger here than in the place you came from,” said Danny. “But these are particularly well-fed and healthy cows. Leslie takes good care of them. Though at this moment I believe they still want milking. Would you like to help me?”
The boy nodded. “I’m only little,” he said. “And I’m not very strong. I’ve been in prison, you know.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Danny. “Did you do something very bad?”
“No, but I’m dangerous, because there are people who think my brother or I should be king after my father, and not the child of Queen Bexoi. She’s from Gray, and her brother is our enemy.”
“I’m glad you’re out of prison, since you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Enopp shrugged. “I’m glad to be out, too, but it’s dangerous for me even to exist. I don’t have to actually do anything.”
“I know the feeling,” said Danny. “I was older than you, though, when people made the same judgment about me.”
“Did they put you in jail?”
“I’m a gatemage,” said Danny. “They couldn’t if they tried. All they can do is kill me or leave me alone.”
“Or kill someone you love,” said Enopp.
“Ah,” said Danny. “I see you understand how power works.”
“I’m son of a king,” said Enopp. “I think I’m going to be a gatemage, too.”
Meanwhile, Danny had attached the milker to a cow. “Do you see how I did that?”
“Does it hurt the cow?”
“It’s designed to fit her teat exactly right,” said Danny. “She likes it.”
“What does it do?”
Danny spent the next fifteen minutes explaining the milking machines and letting Enopp help in whatever way he was large enough and strong enough.
“What do you think of Loki?” asked Danny.
“Who?” asked Enopp.
“The gatemage who brought you.”
“Wad,” said Enopp.
The word made no sense to Danny in this context. “You want bread?”
“His name,” said Enopp. “That’s what Mother calls him.”
“Wad,” said Danny. “Not a noble name.”
“He used to be the castle spy. He would climb everywhere, watch everything. Hull named him. The chief baker. She’s dead, somebody murdered her because she refused to murder the Queen. It would have been better if she had done it. The Queen is an evil bitch.”
Danny was amused at the way Enopp echoed what he must have heard. “What about Wad? Is he evil or good?”
“He kept us in prison,” said Enopp. “But when Queen Bexoi said to kill us, he didn’t. After a while he gave us better food. And he got us out just when soldiers were trying to kill us in our caves.”
“That sounds frightening.”
“It was,” said Enopp. “They were my father’s soldiers.”
“Did they know who you were?”
Enopp thought a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “But they knew I was little.”
“You have a point,” said Danny. “Enopp, why did your mother and Wad bring you here?”
Enopp shrugged. “It isn’t safe for us in Iceway. I think they want us to be safe here.”
“This world isn’t safer. People die on both worlds, just as easily.”
“When I’m a gatemage, I’ll hide where they can’t find me.”
“Are you sure that’s what you’ll be?”
“I’m already good with languages,” said Enopp. “That’s a sign.”
“It is,” said Danny. “Are you also a devilish little brat?”