Free The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) by Martha Wells Page A

waking Ilias with an elbow. “Is it done?” she demanded.
    “Yes.” Gerard massaged his lower back with a grimace. He glanced up, saw everyone watching him expectantly and sighed. “I can tell it’s meant to take us to the Syprians’ world, but I have no idea where. It’s not like the circles we’ve used before, that can only take us to our current location in the next world over. It has many of the same characteristics of the original spell circle, though many of the key figures and glyphs are different.” He bent down again to collect his scattered notes.
    “But we know Arisilde wanted us to go there,” Tremaine pointed out, getting to her feet. She went to the edge of the circle, standing next to Florian. It didn’t look much different from the other circle to her, but then she didn’t know the symbols well enough to recognize most of them, or even to know if they were in the right order. Ilias had followed her, pacing along the edge of the circle thoughtfully. Giliead came over to sit on his heels near the edge, examining the symbols. Tremaine noted nobody touched it, or stepped inside, though it would take the sphere to make it work.
    “But we don’t know why,” Florian put in around a yawn. “It might be because there’s something incredibly dangerous there that he wants us to know about.”
    Nicholas stepped up behind Giliead, his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think the danger or lack of it is worth debating; it’s obviously something he felt it was vital for us to know.”
    Tremaine bit her lip, considering it. She glanced at Giliead. “What does it feel like to you? I mean, does it seem any different from the other spell circles?”
    She thought an instant later that that might not be the most politic question in the world, especially coming from her. She was the one who had talked Giliead into using his ability to speak to their captured Gardier crystal, leading to his working an actual spell with its help. But he just frowned in a preoccupied way, holding out a hand above the carefully written symbols. “I can tell it has power, that it’s …waiting for something. But that’s how the others feel.” He shook his head. “It’s a little different, but every one I’ve seen has been a little different; they never feel identical.”
    Florian was nodding, looking a little more alert. “That makes sense. I bet the circle on the Ravenna changes as the ship moves. That it would feel different to you here in Capistown harbor than it did when we looked at it on the voyage here, in your world.”
    “Right.” Tremaine folded her arms. “So we need to test it.” They all knew testing it meant using it, sending someone through. The Viller Institute had tried the first circle a few times before successfully making it work. Of course, it had been the badly constructed spheres that had killed the sorcerers involved, not the circle itself. Though somehow she didn’t find that very comforting at the moment.
    “Those experiments were a little expensive, if you recall,” Ander pointed out, his expression dry.
    “Yes, Ander, oddly enough I do recall Riardin’s dying before my eyes as his sphere destroyed itself in an etheric explosion,” Gerard said, still looking distractedly around for his scattered notes. “Nevertheless, I’ll be making the experiment myself.”
    “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Nicholas said, watching him with a trace of concern. “If Arisilde was trying to show us how he became trapped in the sphere, and this circle has something to do with that—”
    “Oh, hell.” Tremaine stared at Gerard, horrified. She hadn’t thought of that. “You shouldn’t go, Gerard.”
    Florian pushed to her feet, alarmed. “She’s right, Gerard. There’s dangerous and there’s… dangerous .”
    “I’ll go,” Ilias said suddenly.
    “No, you won’t,” Tremaine said, startled, at the same time as Giliead, sounding aghast, said, “What?”
    Ander stepped forward, as if no one