Free The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) by Orson Scott Card

long-lost outselves to make his gates.
    It would have been interesting to see the result of a Great Gate made out of so many different mages’ gates at once. But if they wouldn’t let him, the question was moot.
    It made sense. If Gatefathers could make use of stolen gates, then they’d have done it all the time. The Gate Thief wasn’t taking gates in order to use them, he was taking them in order to prevent their being used.
    And again he wondered why. Something about the Semitic gods. Something about Bel, the ancient Carthaginian deity.
    I won a battle when I beat the Gate Thief, but I didn’t even know what war I was fighting in. For all I know I just intervened in the American Revolution on the side of the British. I have no idea who the good guys are. There are so many enemies; but what if my enemies are right to want to destroy me? What if my defeating the Gate Thief was the worst thing that ever happened in history?
    “Stop brooding, Danny, it makes your mouth turn sour,” said Veevee.
    So she had taken the gate from Naples, Florida. She was almost quivering with excitement. This Great Gate was more for her than anyone. After all her years of not knowing whether she was a gatemage or not, her complete vindication upon finding Danny’s gates and realizing she could unlock them had been the greatest joy of her life. But then came the frustration of not being able to do anything but unlock gates—that and teach Danny all the gatelore she had learned in a lifetime of study.
    Now she had hope, however meager, that by passing through a Great Gate she might have her power augmented in some interesting way. It was all she had talked about, whenever there was nothing else to talk about, so that Danny knew that it was where her thoughts always turned in moments of idleness. She hadn’t nagged him, but he felt the pressure of her yearning all the same.
    He felt some of the same curiosity himself, and Hermia was, if anything, even more in need of some kind of boost to her abilities, since as a Lockfriend she could only close gates that Danny wasn’t leaving open anyway. But Hermia’s presence here would be dangerous, since she would bring her Family soon after. So she and Danny, left to themselves, might have waited.
    Danny, for his part, was afraid. Yes, he had beaten the Gate Thief before, but that might have been a fluke. What if the Gate Thief was waiting for him again, this time prepared for him, this time armed in some terrible way. It could be something as simple as a sword. Danny appears, the Gate Thief swings a mighty sword, plop goes Danny’s head, and even if somebody dragged him through a gate, even a Great Gate, and even if they set his head on his neck and held it there through the passage, Danny didn’t think the healing properties of gate travel would do the trick.
    It wouldn’t happen. There was no way the Gate Thief could know where Danny’s new Great Gate would appear on Westil. Danny didn’t even know.
    “It does look so unfortunately like a gallows,” said Veevee, looking up at the rope and then down to the dangling end. “Did Marion have to put a noose in it?”
    “It’s not a noose, it’s a loop,” said Danny. “It’s so I don’t have to hold on so tightly while I spin. I want to have my mind clear.”
    “You could just spin around on the ground, like a dervish,” said Veevee.
    “I made the gate on the end of a rope last time,” said Danny, “so until I know more I’m doing it the same way this time. For all we know, the strength or endurance or power of the gate depends on the speed of my spin.”
    “Or it has no effect at all.”
    “Time to experiment with that is after we gatemages have passed through the gate ourselves.”
    “And back again,” said Veevee.
    Danny knew what she was thinking of. “We don’t know for sure if Ced decided to stay there or not. All it would have taken was a moment’s hesitation. The Gate Thief was on me almost instantly. It could easily