The Door Into Shadow Read online

  “What about the cliff?” Freelorn said to Herewiss.

  Herewiss closed his eyes and sagged back on his heels, looking tired. “It was snowing—”

  “A month and a half before Midsummer’s? You call that dreaming true?”

  With a great effort Segnbora held her face still as Herewiss saw again that image of Freelorn turning away from him, away from love and life toward death. “Lorn,” Herewiss said. “I was shown a lot of things. I don’t know what they all meant. I don’t think most of them have happened yet. But some of them will, unless they’re prevented.” He swallowed hard. “I have to assist in the process. I was given all this Power. Now it has to be used, fully, and I won’t be able to take my time about its mastery, either.”

  Freelorn looked askance at his loved, getting an idea and not liking it. “But what other way is there, but to work into your Power slowly?”

  “The Morrowfane, Lorn.”

  Freelorn looked grim. “I’ve read a little about that,” he said, and this was likely a great understatement, for among the responsibilities of a throne prince of Arlen was the curatorship of rr’Virendir, the Arlene royal library, which dwelt at length on such subjects. “Everything I’ve seen suggests you can’t go up there without coming down changed—”

  (What’s the problem with that?) Sunspark said from the firepit. The reaction was understandable; change was a fire elemental’s chief delight. (Just yesterday Herewiss changed—quite a bit—and you didn’t mind.)

  Lorn glanced with annoyance at Sunspark as the elemental radiated smugness at him. Freelorn’s discovery that Sunspark had also come to be a loved of Herewiss’s during the time spent forging Khávrinen had left him with reactions that were complex, and far from settled.

  “I don’t mean shapechanges,” Lorn said with exaggerated patience. “Soul-changes. Great alterations in personality. Madness, or types of sanity that human beings don’t usually survive.”

  “The change needn’t be harmful,” Herewiss put in. “Remember, the place is a great repository of Flame. All the legends agree on that. Those who climb the Fane are given what’s needed to do what they must do in a life.”

  “Then why do so few people go up it?”

  “For one thing, you need focused Fire, and enough of it to keep the Power of the place from blasting you,” Herewiss explained. “For another, so few people want what they need. . . . Lorn, listen. This is necessary. It’s part of getting you back on your throne. If we don’t get to Bluepeak by Midyear’s Eve, so that you can aid in restoring the bindings, there won’t be a country left for you to rule.”

  “But I was never Initiated into the Mysteries. If I had been, we wouldn’t have these problems—I’d be King, and that slimy bastard Cillmod would be out looking for other employment.”

  “True, but you know the royal rites, don’t you? You have to do it.”

  “Who says?”

  “Who do you think?” Herewiss said, very gently. “When you dream true, Who do you think sends the dream?”

  Lorn held very still, and most of the fierceness faded out of his eyes. “There’s another problem. You know the money I removed from the Arlene treasury in Osta? Well, Bluepeak’s in Arlen too. Cillmod’s probably annoyed about that missing money, and if we go back to Arlen so soon, and he finds out about it… ”

  Herewiss said nothing.

  After a moment or two, Freelorn shrugged. “Oh, what the Dark! If the Reavers and the Shadow are going to come down on Arlen, Cillmod hardly matters. I suppose I have no choice anyway. I swore that damn Oath when I was little. ‘Darthen’s House and Arlen’s Hall—’”

  “‘—share their feast and share their fall,’” Herewiss finished. “If Arlen goes, so does Darthen. And after them Steldin, North Arlen, the Brightwood…”

  Freelorn laughed, but without merriment. “Why am I even worried about Cillmod? The Shadow’s a far greater danger. It can’t afford to leave you alive now. You’re the embodiment of the old days before the Catastrophe, when males had the Power. The time of Its decline…”

  Herewiss shook his head and smiled, an expression more of grim agreement than of reassurance. “We’ll both be careful,” he said. “That is, if you’re coming with me?”

  Reaching down, Freelorn gently freed one of Herewiss’s hands from Khávrinen’s hilt, and held the hand between his own. “No more dividing our forces,” he said. “From now until it’s done, we go together.”

  Herewiss held his peace and didn’t change expression. Segnbora had to drop her eyes, seeing again that image of one hand that let go of another’s, the face that turned away.

  All at once Freelorn was thumping on the floor for attention. “Listen, people—”

  Segnbora nudged Lang. He rolled over under his covers. “Whatever you say, Lorn, I’ll do it,” he said, and pulled the blanket back over his head.

  “There’s a man who takes his oaths a little too seriously,” Freelorn said with a grimace of affectionate disgust. “On his own head be it. But for the rest of you—I can’t in good conscience ask you to go on this trip. The Shadow—”

  “The Shadow can go swive with sheep for all I care,” Moris said with one of his slow grins. “I haven’t come this far with you to stop now.”

  “Me either,” Harald said, stubbornly folding his huge bear’s arms.

  “You’re not listening,” Freelorn said, in great earnest. “Your oaths are a matter of friendship and I love you for them. But it’s not just Cillmod we’re playing with now. It’s the Shadow. Your souls are at stake—”

  “The things that were in here last night ate souls too,” Dritt said calmly, putting his chin down on his arms. “Herewiss did for them all right.”

  (I helped,) said the voiceless voice from the firepit. Eyes looked out of the flames at the company, then came to rest with calm interest on Freelorn. (I’m coming too.)

  The building rumble of irritation in the room, combined with so much unspoken affection, was making Segnbora’s head ache; the walls of this place, opaque to thought, bounced the emotions back and forth until the undersenses were deafened by echoes.

  “Look,” she said, shaking free of her own blankets. “If we’ve got to get an early start in the morning—” She glanced at Herewiss. “—it can wait until morning?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  “Good. Then I want some sleep.” She went over to Freelorn in her shift, drawing Charriselm again as she came, and offered him the blade’s hilt about an inch from his nose, while giving Lorn a look suggesting that perhaps that was where she meant to insert it. “You swore on this, on all our blades, that your lordship would be between us and the Shadow while we wielded them in your service. You want to take that oath back?”

  Lorn glared up at her, fierce eyes going fiercer, “No! Are you crazy? What makes you think I’d—”

  “What makes you think we would?”

  Freelorn held absolutely still. His anger churned wildly for a moment, then fell off, leaving reluctant acceptance in its place.

  Segnbora shoved Charriselm back into its sheath. “Good night, Lorn,” she said, and padded back to her bedroll, taking care not to smile until her back was turned.

  Sunspark pulled itself back down into the firepit as people settled themselves again. Soon the darkness of the hall held no sound but Harald’s cloak-muffled snoring.

  It took Segnbora a little while to get enough of the blankets unwrapped from around Lang to cover herself. That done, she lay on her back for a long while, gazing up at the smoke-shaft in the ceiling, through which a few unfamiliar stars shone. Her underhearing, sharpened by all the excitement, brought her the faint dream-touched emotions of those falling asleep, and the physical sensations of those asleep already: breathing, the slide of muscles, muted pulse-thunder.

  It’s a gift, she told herself for the thousandth time. Appreciate it. Truth, however, reared its head. The talent was a nuisance. If her Fire was focused, as Herewiss’s was, she wouldn’t be having this p
roblem. …If. Segnbora exhaled sharply at her useless obsession with what she couldn’t have. Her Flame wasn’t focused. It never would be, and she had given up. Other things had become more important now. Oaths, for example.

  It seemed like a long time ago. All of a month, she thought—a busy month full of desperate rides, escapes, sorcery, terror, wonder. All started by a chance meeting in a smelly alley, when she had stumbled on a dark fierce little man losing a swordfight to the crude but powerful axework of a Royal Steldene guard. The small man looked as if he was about to be split like kindling. She had intervened. The guardsman never saw the shadow who stepped in from behind.

  Over the course of the evening, she found she had rescued family; though the tai-Enraesi were only a small poor cadet branch of the Darthene royal line, and strangers to court, the Oath of Lion and Eagle was binding on them too, and a king’s son of Arlen was therefore a brother.

  The relationship got more complex with time, however. On the road Segnbora had shared herself with Freelorn, as she sometimes did with the others, for delight or consolation. But before that, more importantly, came friendship, and the oaths. Before Maiden and Bride and Mother I swear it, before the Lovers in Their power, and in the Dark One’s despite: My sword will be between you and the Shadow until you pass the Door into Starlight.

  She exhaled quietly. Her determination was set.

  There has to be a way.

  There has to.

  You’re not going to get him…

  ***

  After a while, as she lay at last near the brink of sleep, Segnbora sensed something shining. She opened one eye. Across the room sat a form sculpted of darkness and deep blue radiance—Herewiss, cross-legged, shoulders hunched wearily as he gazed down at the sleeping Freelorn. Across his lap lay his sword, wrapped about with curling flames the color of a twilight burning low.

  She lay unmoving, regarding him. Eventually the thought came, tasting as if it had been soaked in tears and wrung out. (You know, don’t you.)

  (Yes.) She felt sorrow still, and now a touch of embarrassment. (Sorry. You know how it is with dreams.)

  (No matter. I’ve been in a few others’ dreams myself.)

  (The scales are even, then.)

  He nodded. Herewiss didn’t look up, but his attention was fixed so intensely upon her that no stare could have been more discomfiting.

  (You understand what you’re getting into?) he said. (It may not be just Lorn heading for that Door. Probably me too. Maybe all of us will have to die so the Kingdoms can go on living.)

  (Those who defeat the Shadow,) Segnbora said silently, (usually die of it. It’s in all the stories.)

  (Defeat!) Now he raised his head. His look was pained at first, then incredulous.

  (I love him too,) she said.

  (You’re as crazy as the rest of us,) Herewiss said. The thought was sour, but there was a thread of amusement on it like the bright edge of a knife. He threw her a quick image of herself as she had been the night before, when the air in the hall had been full of the stink of hralcins. As the monsters had come shambling across the floor toward them she had stood frozen on the brink of panic, unable to do even the smallest sorcery. All she’d been able to do was stand shaking before the advance of the screaming horrors, and make blinding light—a byproduct of her blocked Fire—until even that guttered out, exhausted.

  Segnbora bit the inside of her cheek, pained by the image regardless of the compassion of Herewiss’s viewpoint. (What we’re facing,) he said, (is the father of those things, and worse—the Maker of Enmities, the engenderer of the shadows at the bottoms of our hearts, Who can overturn the world in fire and storm.You have some new defense that you’ve come up with since last night? A strategy sufficient to stop a being so powerful that to be rid of it the Goddess Herself can only let the Universe run down and die?) The irony was gentle, but it was there.

  (I plan to win,) Segnbora said at last. (What are you going to do?)

  He looked across the room at her for a while, still not moving. (I’m glad you’re here,) he said finally. (I can’t tell him about this—) A quick thought, a flicker of the shape of an arrowhead, passed between them. (I hope you won’t either.)

  Segnbora shook her head.

  Herewiss straightened, laid Khávrinen aside. Away from its source, the Fire in the blade died down to the merest glow. Only in his hands did a little Flame remain burning. Looking down at Freelorn, Herewiss absently began to pour it from hand to hand. Like burning water it flowed, the essence of life, the stuff of shapechanges and mastery of elements and magics of the heart, the Goddess’s gift to the Lovers and to humankind: the Power that founded the world, that the Shadow had lost and caused men to lose.

  And there’s nothing It hates more, Segnbora thought to herself. Though love probably comes close.

  She closed her eyes to the light of Herewiss’s hands, shuddered, and went to sleep.

  ***

  TWO

  …ere the Dark could spredde so far as to kyll all Powre and thought… there fled to Lake Rilthor that was holie, the men and womyn gretest of Fire aft that time. And of theyre greate might and Powyre, that those whoo came after the Darke should learn agayn the wrekings of those auncient daies, those Wommen and Men did drive their Flame down intoo the mount at the Lak’s heart; and all dyed there, that Fyre might bee spared from the Darrk for those to comm after. Therefore it ys called Morrow-fane.

  (Of the Dayes of Travaile, ms. xix, in rr’Virendir, Prydon)

  …they say that after the Error, there the Maiden lay down in love with Her other Selves, celebrating the Great Marriage. In the joy of that sharing, the Fire with which She creates flowed forth and sank deep in earth and stone, so that to this day the Fane burns with it. And those who dare to climb the Fane share in that first Sharing themselves, becoming Her Lovers as well: and as in that first sharing, their need is filled, and new life is given them…

  Book of Places of Power, ch. 3

  It is the Heart of the World: there is no other.

  (d’Elthed, Reflections in the Silent Precincts, 6)

  In the long west-reaching shadow of the glittering gray walls that rose a hundred fathoms high, fourteen figures stood: seven riders, and six horses, and a creature that looked like a blood-bay stallion, but wasn’t. Dawn was barely over, and the morning was still cool. The vast expanse of the Waste all around—sand and rubble and salt pans—was sharp and bright in the crisp air. But behind them the Hold from which they had departed wavered and shimmered uncannily, as if in the heat of noon.

  “Be glad to be out of here,” Lang muttered from beside Segnbora.

  She nodded, yanking absently at her mare Steelsheen’s reins to keep her from biting Lang’s dapple-gray, Gyrfalcon. The Hold unnerved Segnbora too. The Old People from whom the humans of the Middle Kingdoms were said to be descended had wrought with their Fire on an awesome scale. Within those slick and jointless towering walls, odd buildings reared up—skewed towers, blind of windows; stairs that started in midair and went nowhere; steps staggered in such a way as to suggest that the builders, or those who used the building, had more legs than humans; more rooms inside the inner buildings than their outer walls could possibly contain.

  And worst of all, or best, the place was full of doors—entrances into other worlds. There were also gateways to other places in this world, and doors into areas not even classifiable as worlds or places. People could go out those doors and return. People, or things, could come in them, as the hralcins had. Segnbora shivered.

  “You sure you can pull this off?” Freelorn was saying nervously to Herewiss.

  “Mmmph,” Herewiss said. He was standing with Khávrinen unsheathed, and seemed to be minutely examining a patch of empty air three feet in front of him. The Fire that ran down from his hand flooded the length of Khávrinen, leaping out from it in quick tongues that stretched out and snapped back, reflecting his concentration.

  Behind Herewiss, Sunspark extended its magnificent head to
nibble teasingly at the sleeve of Freelorn’s surcoat, leaving singed places where it bit. (You have to be careful, doing worldgating inside a world,) it said, sounding smug. (Don’t distract him.)

  Freelorn smacked the elemental’s nose away and got a scorched hand for his pains. “He could have used one of the doors in the Hold. Now he’s got to use his Flame—”

  (It’s simpler doing it yourself,) Sunspark said. It knew about such things, having been a traveler among worlds before love had bound it to Herewiss’s service. (And more reliable. Those doors are complex…it would have taken quite a while to figure them out. Don’t complain.)

  “I’m not.”

  Segnbora restrained an urge toward amusement. Sunspark had done perhaps more than any of them to save all their lives two nights before, holding the hralcins off until Herewiss could break through into his Flame. It had done so specifically because it knew Herewiss loved Freelorn, and would have been in anguish if he died. But Sunspark seemed determined not to admit its motives to Lorn—from caution, or for the sake of sheer devilry, it was impossible to tell.

  Herewiss stood scowling at the air he had been examining, or whatever lay beyond it. It was dangerous, this business of opening doors to go from one place to another. Gates, when opened, tended to tear as wide as they could. A person doing a wreaking had to maintain complete control, or risk ending up in a world that looked exactly like the one he wanted to journey in, but with minor differences—a differing past or future, say, or familiar people missing.

  Segnbora was not happy that one man was trying to pull off a gating by himself, and in such an unprotected place. All her previous experiences with worldgates had been in the Silent Precincts, where safe-wreakings bound every leaf or blade of grass about the Forest Altars. Always there had been ten or twenty senior Rodmistresses on call to assist if there was trouble, and never had a gate been held open long enough for so many to pass through. She hoped Herewiss knew what he was doing.