“Except that there is an alternate solution,” Bin Maymum said. He shrugged again. “Perhaps the gates do not open for three years. Or one hundred and nineteen.”

Gabriel felt as if he’d taken a heavy blow to the head. His knees were weak, and there was a ringing in his ears.

“Sweet saviour,” he said. “Jesu Christe.”

Blanche looked at him.

He was biting his lip.

“What if the gates don’t open?” Michael said.

“Gavin is left to fight Ash alone,” Gabriel said.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

The Adnacrags—Aneas Muriens

Aneas was fussing with the stump of his ear. He was vain; and it hurt more than any wound he’d ever taken, including the three broken ribs that ached like the cold grasp of death every time he took a deep breath or laughed or coughed, and the hole in his head that he couldn’t describe even to himself. He was standing in a tiny cabin in the stern that had been cleared for him; perhaps the first mate’s cabin. It was dark, lit by a scuttle to the brilliant sun outside, and he had borrowed a small mirror of Venikan silver from the captain, who seemed to be a very wealthy man.

There was a knock at the flimsy partition, and Aneas turned, ducking his head, and tapped his wounded ear hole against the overhead deck beam, and cursed.

The knock came again, more insistent.

Aneas opened the door. Gas-a-ho nodded. “May I come in?” he asked and pushed past.

Aneas frowned, at least in part because he was naked. But he wasn’t thinking well.

Gas-a-ho pushed him down on the bed and tilted his head to the light of the scuttle. He cast; there was a fringe of green light at the edge of Aneas’s consciousness.

“The wound will not heal faster if you mess with it,” the shaman said. “I need you to let me in.”

“In?” Aneas asked.

Let me in, the Outwaller shaman said as his fingers touched the wound again.

Aneas’s eyes snapped open. He retreated into his memory forest, and stood a moment under a tall maple he had known all his life, on which hung a myriad of artifacts. In the aethereal, he was not naked; he wore deerskin hose and quillwork garters and a long shirt of embroidered linen. Then he extended a hand; the other hand held a small flint knife.

Gas-a-ho was smaller in the aethereal, and had the head of an owl, which was deeply disconcerting to Aneas.

He looked around, and made a soft sound of approval.

Aneas nodded. “I do not allow many in here,” he admitted. He let the flint knife dissipate. “Something is wrong here.”

Gas-a-ho opened his beak and made a raucous noise. “Brother,” he said. “You took more than a bump on the head. You were dead. Among my people, you would take a new name and perhaps a new wife. You have been to a far country, and we need to know that the man who returned is the same.”