Lupi 04 - Night Season

insulted the gnome. “So Bilbo explained things. That’s lovely. When we get to this city, will Bilbo and his buddies open a gate and send us home?”
    â€œThey can’t. Or won’t…Don’t look at me that way! I’m not swallowing everything they feed me whole, not after the way they tricked us. But Wen and Tash and all of them say it’s almost impossible to open a new gate in Night Season.”
    Cullen was very polite. “They FedEx-ed themselves to Earth, I take it.”
    â€œIs being two types of gate, sorcerer.” The gnome had decided to join the conversation. He stood behind Steve at the back of the other wagon, glaring at Cullen. “Is new gates and old gates. Magic for old gates shaped over long time, years or centuries of using. Magic of old gates holds our shaping even during Night Season. Old gates requiring much more power during Night Season, but can being used.”
    â€œWe used an established gate to cross to another realm first,” Wen explained. “Twelve masters went with us to open a temporary gate between that realm and Earth. To return—”
    â€œTo return, you needed me.” Anger and humiliation made a foul mix in Cullen’s mouth as the pieces fell in place. He knew why he’d been so drained, damn them. “Or some other poor SOB who’d burn himself up giving you your gate. That’s what you expected, wasn’t it? You were the spell’s final component,” he said to the gnome. “The one I didn’t know about. The gate was tied to you, but you couldn’t power it. That was my job. What you didn’t tell me was that your damned bloody spell needed my personal magic. Not just the raw magic. It ate my magic, too.”
    The gnome sniffed. “Such power. Such ignorance. No, sorcerer. Gate tied to me, yes. I expecting you to power spell, yes. Gate eats some of your magic, but mostly is using ley line. You not being harmed until you burning everythings in sight.”
    â€œâ€˜Everythings’ being the thirty or so creatures who wanted to eat us,” Cynna put in sharply. “Including you, Bilbo.”
    â€œEnough.” That was Tash, who spoke from her seat on the forward wagon without turning around. “The councilor, like most gnomes, is prideful and difficult. But he did not expect the gate to take your life, Cullen Seabourne. He expected it to consume his.”
    Cullen’s silence lasted a few beats this time. He remembered how damned glad the gnome had been that Cullen brought up the whole ley line. He remembered, too, the pattern he’d seen in those last, wild moments as the gate opened. He’d recognized it, having built something much like it with three Rhejes—like it, but not exactly the same. But both gates had been tied to an individual who controlled them
    His gate hadn’t killed anyone, but it had been powered by a node. If there hadn’t been enough energy…he didn’t know, dammit. “Why open a gate the hard way, away from a node?”
    The gnome sniffed again. “Such as you is not for questioning Harazeed. We is building gates where we wishes.”
    â€œWhat he means,” Cynna said, “is that he won’t tell you. I’ve asked. I think it’s because he was so bent on bringing Lily along. See, this thing they lost, it—”
    Bilbo hissed. Positively, that was a hiss. “Wait for wards.”
    â€œWards,” Cullen repeated. “Not shields?”
    Wen’s voice was cool. “Wards are all we have, too, sorcerer. True shields, if they are even possible, would require an adept.”
    Cullen was getting tired of being called sorcerer. “My name is Cullen. Call me that. Or Mr. Seabourne, or sir, or ‘hey, you.’ But not sorcerer.”
    â€œDon’t sidetrack.” Cynna leaned forward, speaking to the gnome. “We can’t be warded every time we talk about the problem. We’ll have to discuss it, ask questions, talk to people.”
    Bilbo erupted with a volley of words—some English, most not. Tash sighed, climbed down from her seat into the wagon bed and knelt beside him. When he paused for breath she spoke to him softly in a language Cullen didn’t know.
    â€œShe is explaining to him that our secret is not so secret,” Wen said quietly. “It is not widely known, til Presti, but any of those powerful enough to eavesdrop on us must already