The Door Into Fire - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 1
Tale of The Five Vol 1 – The Door Into Fire by Diane Duane Version 1.0 A #BW Release
Aye, night commes and Hee risith from the Flame; Lyoun and Eagle loudlie cry His name: The Phoenix that schall spurn the shatter'd Spere. Hys Fire shall fede upoun his darkest Fear: But nott yntil the Starres fall owt the Skye, Dawn corns up Blue, and our Daye be past by
—rede fragment, Healhregebocan, IV, 6-12 1
Smiths and sorcerers come both from the same nest. Chronicle of the White Eagle, XII, 54
Herewiss sat cross-legged on the parquet floor, his back braced against the wall, his eyes closed, and concentrated.
Part of the problem was that he couldn't stop thinking of the thing resting across his upturned hands as a sword; a noisy feeling of weaponness trickled through him from it. It knew that it was a sword – that was the problem. It was good Darthene steel, folded on itself in its forging the required sixty times, and sealed with the Mastersmith's hallmark down on the rough tang of the metal. It knew that it was destined to be a killing weapon, an elegant, finely polished thing, soft of back, hard of edge, with the Mastersmith's distinctive forging-pattern embedded like waves in water within its silver blade. It knew what it was for — woundings and death, the abrupt soft parting of flesh beneath its stroke, the sudden crunch into cloven bone. The taste of pain, like wine. It lay there across his hands, and waited to be presented with slayings as a banqueter waits eagerly for the first course.
No, dammit, Herewiss said to himself, and pulled away from the perception. Sometimes I wish I weren't so sensitive. How the Dark
can something dead know so well what it's for?— This is ridiculous. I should be able to impose my will on a piece of steel, for Goddess's sake. Maybe this way . . .
He took a moment to clear his mind out, and then concentrated on seeing the thing in his hands, not as a sword, but as a great number of particles of metal that just
toward the dancing sparks of steel, into them, through them, and out again, and back in – winding the soul-stuff through the structure, beckoning it in and around, luring in onward with promises of Power about to be achieved. The Flame followed after, hopeful. Herewiss tangled the bit of himself like a bright cord, weaving it through itself again and again, drawing it finer and finer, silver wire thinning out to silver web, and always followed by that faint blue flow of Fire. Finally the steeldust glitter could hardly be seen at all for the sorcerer's weave stranded through it.
Herewiss stood back a little, then cut the web's attachment to him with one sharp word.
It hurt. He had expected it to, but he had no time now to deal with the ache. The entangled soul would start undoing itself almost immediately if he didn't bind it. He spoke in his mind the word that would activate the binding sorcery, and it heard him and responded on the instant, the hard dark links of restrainment drawing in close around the shining bar, snicking in cold and tight like a sudden scabbard, prisoning the soul-stuff within.
He stepped back to make sure that the sorcery would hold without his immediate supervision. It did. He poked at it once, experimentally; it resisted him.
Satisfied, he broke trance and opened his eyes.He had to blink for a few moments; his eyes watered with the seeming brightness of the tower room. It was full of smith's furnishings: the middle of the room was taken up by the forge, a wide brick pit with a downhanging bellows, and there was a pedal– powered grindstone in one corner. Anvils, ingots, and scraps of metal were everywhere. A number of blanks of the Darthene steel were leaned up in a row against one wall, like so many barrel– staves.The fire in the forge was out, and the tools were racked up on the walls. Halwerd, his son, was also sitting on the floor, over against the other paneled wall beside the window; he had taken off his apron, and was doing an elaborate cat's cradle with a piece of string. Herewiss never tired of the joys of having a smaller version of himself around, and spent a few minutes just watching the child. Halwerd sat there in his greasy green tunic, all dark curly hair and fierce concentration. He flipped his hands, and the cat's cradle turned suddenly into a mess. 'Dark!' he said.'You're too young to be swearing,' Herewiss said with affection.'I'm nine,' Halwerd said, as if that should have been enough. 'Did it work?''Yes.''It doesn't look any different.' The boy gazed across the room, and Herewiss looked down at the piece of metal he held.'No, it doesn't. Well, we'll see if it holds up tonight. It's Full Moon; this is a good day for it. Though I could wait for the Maiden's Day Moon. What do you think?'Halwerd considered gravely. 'Do it tonight.''All right.'Herewiss got up, wobbling a little from the backlash of the sorcery. 'Oh my,' he said. 'I must be getting better at this, the backlash is hitting me faster than it used to.''How many swords is this now?' Halwerd asked, starting the cat's cradle over again.'Twenty-three. No, twenty-four. Cheer up, Hal, maybe this'll be the last one.' Herewiss tossed the sword blank clanging on to the worktable and looked around him as he stretched. He was a tall, slender man, lean and lithe and dark-haired, with a finely featured face and a mouth thatsmiled a great deal. His arms and shoulders were slightly overmuscled from much work at the forge; but the effect was not unpleasant. At first glance he gave an impression of spare, restrained power, the taut strength of youth. But his deep blue eyes were beginning to look weary, and his face was gradually acquiring frown lines. 'Be nice to turn this back into a bedroom,' he said, 'and get all this mess out of here, Dark eat it—''Grampa would say,' Halwerd said, '"you're not a good example. Watch your mouth."''So he would. Listen, Hal—'A pigeon landed on the windowsill with a clapping of wings. It strutted there, fluffing its gray-and-white feathers and looking confused. Herewiss looked at it, momentarily startled, and then unease began to trickle coldly down his back. It was one of the homing pigeons that he had given Freelorn for use in emergencies.'Hold still, Hal.' He walked smoothly around the forge to the window. In one quick motion he grabbed the pigeon before it had a chance to shy away. Stripping off the steel message-case, he threw the bird out the window, and fumbled at the little capsule with suddenly sweaty hands.The stiff hinge cracked open, and the expected roll of parchment fell out on the floor. Herewiss picked it up, unrolling it, and the throbbing in his head quickened pace. The message said:AM HOLED UP IN OLD KEEP THREE LEAGUES SOUTH OF MADEIL. A FEW HUNDRED STELDENE REGULARS AND ABOUT SEVEN HUNDRED CONSCRIPTS BESIEGING ME AND THE GROUP. I NEED A COMPETENT SORCERER TO COME GET ME OUT OF THIS RABBIT-HOLE. HAVE ENOUGH FOOD TO LAST US A FEWWEEKS, BUT MUCH LONGER THAN THAT AND IT WILL BE BOOT-CHEWING TIME. GET ME THE DARK OUT OF HERE AND I'LL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND. THE GODDESS SMILE ON YOU. FREELORN AS'T'RAlD ARLENI.'"High Lord of all Lords of Arlen", my—! You know, I am a bad example, Hal. Listen, did you see where your grandfather was?''He was down in the writing room a while ago,' Halwerd said. 'What happened?''Your Uncle Freelorn may be back for a visit in a month or so,' Herewiss said, heading for the door, 'but I have to go and get him first. Forget it, Hal, go get yourself some nunch.''All right.'Herewiss loped down the long paneled stairway that curled around the inner wall of the tower, and hit the bottom of the stairs running. He went down the south corridor at full speed, ignoring the surprised looks of household people and relatives, and ducked into the sixth room to his left. It was a bright place and warm, full of rich carving work, typical of the Woodward. The fireplace was framed in the wings of carven sphinxes, and two-bodied dogs guarded the corners where the moldings met. Over one closet was carven in slightly frantic figures the history of the sixteenth Lord of the Brightwood, who had married a mermaid. The sunlight gleamed from the woodwork, and from the great brassbound table which stood on eagle-claw feet in the middle of the room; but its surface was bare, and no-one had been working there for some time.I hope he didn't go out, Herewiss thought. Damn! He ran out of the room again, turned left and headed to the end ofthe south corridor. A stair led down from it to the central hall of the Woodward, where the Rooftree grew. He had no patience for the stairs, but hopped up on to the central banister, which had been polished smooth first by its craftsmen and then by the backsides of generations of the children of the Ward. At the bottom of the stairs he took a bare moment to nod courtesy to the Tree before he loped off across the tapestried hall, and out into the sunlight of the outer courtyard.His father was there, kneeling in a newly dug flowerbed and setting in seedlings. Hearn Halmer's son was an average-looking man, a little on the lean side, dark-haired except for the places where he was going gray on the sides. He had the usual lazy, sleepy expression of the males of the Brightwood ruling line, the usual blue eyes, and the large hands that could be so very delicate. Those hands had been mighty in war, so that Hearn had come through two battles with the Reavers and one border skirmish with only a cut or two. This had prompted some to suggest that he had pacted with the Shadow, and had brought his relieved family to refer to him as 'Old Ironass'. Now, though, he no longer rode to the wars, and it was often hard for visitors to the Woodward to reconcile the conquering Lord of the Brightwood with the quiet, gentle man who could usually be found training ivy up the Ward's outer wall.'Father,' Herewiss yelled, 'he's doing it again!'Hearn sat back on his heels in the loose dirt, brushing off his hands, and looked over at his son.'Who?''Here,' said Herewiss, coming up and holding out the parchment, 'read it!''My hands are dirty,' Hearn said as Herewiss knelt down beside him. 'Hold it for me.''Dirty? It hardly matters if it gets dirty—' But Herewiss held it out. His father rested hands quietly on his knees and read it through. After a moment he snorted. 'As't'raid Arleni, my ass!'That's what I said.''Not in front of Hal, I hope.''Father, please.' 'So,' Hearn said, 'you're surprised?"Herewiss laughed, a short rueful sound. 'No, not really.''And so you're going riding off to get him out of whatever he's gotten himself into.''May I?''You're asking me?' 'You're the Lord.'Hearn chuckled and took a seedling out of the cup of water beside him. Herewiss noted with amusement that it was one of the ceremonial cups for Opening Night, the rubies flaring in the sunlight and making bright dots of reflection in the mud. 'Could I stop you? Could the Queen of Darthen stop you? Could our Father the Eagle stop you if He showed up? Go on. But when you see the idiot, tell him from me that he'd better not sign himself as King of Arlen unless he's willing to do something about it.''I had that in mind.''You'd never say it, though, you're too damn kind. You tell him 7 said it. Will you be needing men?''I'm sorcerer enough to handle this myself, I think. And the less people involved, the better. If Cillmod hears that Brightwood people were involved, it could be excuse enough for him to break the Oath again and move in on Darthen.'Hearn planted the seed. 'There speaks my wise son,' he said.'And besides – I don't want any Wood people getting killed because of this. And neither do you – but you'd never say it – because you're too damn kind.'Hearn laughed softly. 'My wise son. But don't let it stop you frombringing him back here if he needs a place to stay. No-one will hear about it from us.'Herewiss nodded and stood up.'Take what you need,' Hearn said. 'Take Dapple, if you think he'd help. And Herewiss—'Hearn turned back to his work, his strong hands moving the soil. 'Be careful. I'm short of sons.'Herewiss stood there looking at his father's back for a moment, and then turned and headed back into the Woodward to start preparing for a journey.The Brightwood is the oldest and most honored of the principalities of Darthen. It was the first of the new settlements established after the Worldwinning, by people who came down out of the eastern Highpeaks and found the quiet woodlands to their liking after their long travels. It took them many years to free the Wood and its environs from the Fyrd that infested it, but while many other peoples were still living in caves in the mountains, the Brightwood people were already building the Woodward in the great clearing at its center.Though the Woodward is held by outsiders to be at the Wood's heart, the Brightwood people know that its real heart – or hearts, for there are several – lie elsewhere: the Silent Precincts, secret, holy places where few people not born in the Wood or trained to the usages of the Power have ever walked. There, upon the Forest Altars hidden within the Precincts, the Goddess was first worshipped again as She used to be before the Catastrophe — invoked in Her three forms as Maiden and Mother and WiseWoman. There too Her Lovers are worshipped, those parts of Herself which rise and fall in Her favor, eternally replacing one another as Her consorts. Even the Lovers' Shadow is worshipped there, though with cautious and propitiatory rites enacted at the dark of the Moon. Other places of the worship of the Pentad there may be, but there are none older or more revered except the Morrowfane, which is the Heart of the World and so takes precedence.Night with its stars spread over the Wood, and the pure silver moonlight made vague and doubtful patterns on the grass as it shone through the branches. Spring was well underway; the night was full of the smell of growing things, and the chill wind laced itself through the new leaves with a hissing sound.In the center of the little clearing, before the slab of moon white marble set into the ground, Herewiss knelt and shivered a little. The indefinite blackwork filigree of moonshine and shadow shifted and blurred on his bare body and gleamed dully from the sword he held before him. It was beaten flatter than it had been that morning, and had some pretense of an edge on it; but it was not finished yet. Herewiss had learned better than to waste time putting hilts and finishing on these swords before he tried them with this final testing.The dappled horse tethered at the edge of the clearing stamped and snorted softly, indignant over having to be up at this ridiculous hour. But right now Herewiss had no sympathy for it, and he shut the sound out of his mind as he prayed desperately. It had to work. It had to. He had done a good day's spelling, a good piece of work, though he had paid dear for it, both in backlash and in the pain cutting away part of his self had cost him. But it might work. No, it had to. This was the Great Altar, the Altar of the Flame, the one most amenable to what he was doing,the one with the most bound-up power. And this sword felt better than any of the others he had tried; more alive. Maybe he had managed to fool the steel into thinking it lived. And if he had fooled it, then it would conduct the Power. His focus, his focus at last—O Three, he said within himself, for no word may be spoken in those places, Virgin and Mother and Mistress of Power, oh let this be the last time. Goddess, You're never cruel without a reason. You wouldn't give me the seed of Flame and then let it die unused. Let the Power of this place enter into me and stir the spark into Fire. And let that Fire flow down through this my sword as it would through a Rod, were I a woman. Oh, please, my Goddess, my Mother, my Bride, please. Let it work. In Your name, Who are our beginnings and our endings—He bowed his head, and then looked up again, shuddering with cold and anxiety, and also with weakness left over from that morning's sorcery. If only it would work. It would be marvelous to go riding off to Freelorn's rescue with a sword ablaze with the blue Fire. To strike the whole besieging army stiff and helpless with the Flame, and break the walls of the keep in the fulness of his Power, and bring Freelorn out of there. To strike terror into the army just by being what he was – the first man to bear Flame since the days of Lion and Eagle! And the look in Freelorn's eyes. It would be so—Herewiss sighed. I never learn, do I. Let's see what happens.Delicately, carefully, he set the sword's point on the white stone of the altar, and took hold of the rough hilt with both hands. There was a change – a stirring – something in the air around him moved, waited expectantly; he could catch the feeling ever so faintly in his underhearing, that inner sensitivity that anyone experienced in sorcerydevelops. The Power of the place was alive, moving around him, surrounding him, watching. His own Power rose up in him, a cold restless burning all through his body, demanding to be let out.He lifted the sword away from the stone, and held it straight up before him, point upward, watching moonlight and shadow tremble along the length of the blade with the trembling of his hands. And he reached down inside him, where the Flame was running hot now, molten, seething like silver in the crucible, and he channeled it up through his chest and down through his arms and out through his hands—The sound was terrible, a thunderous silent shout of frustration and screaming anger as the blue Fire, the essence of life, smote against something that had never lived, had never even been fooled into thinking that it lived. A silly idea, Herewiss thought in theterribly attenuated moment between the awful unsound and the sword's destruction. As if plain sorcery could ever mix successfully with the Flame. Stupid idea.And the sword blew apart. Fragments and flying splinters shot up and out with frightening force, gleamed sporadically as they flew through light and shadow, ripping leaves off branches, burying themselves in the grass. One of them struck itself into Herewiss's upper arm, and another into his leg just above the knee, though not too deeply. A third went by his ear like the whisper of death. He held in his cry of terror, remembering where he was, and dropped the shattered sword hilt in the grass.He plucked the metal fragment out of his arm and threw it into the grass, grimacing. For a long while Herewiss knelt there, bent over, hugging himself as much against the bitter disappointment as against the cold. I was so sure-it would work this time. So sure .Finally he regained some of his composure, and finished picking the splinters out of himself, and turned to make farewell obeisance to the Altar. It seemed to crouch there against the ground, cold white stone, ignoring him. He forgot about the obeisance. He went straight over to Dapple and got dressed, and rode away from there.It was several minutes before he passed the marker that indicated the end of the Silent Precincts. Just the other side of it he paused, looking up through the leaves at the starlit sky. 'Dammit,' he yelled at the top of his lungs, 'what am I doing wrong? Why won't You tell me? What am I doing wrong?'The stars looked down at him, cold-eyed and uncaring, and the wind laughed at him.He kicked Dapple harder than necessary, and rode out of the Wood to Freelorn's rescue.2If the cat who shares your house will not speak to you, remember first that cats, like the Goddess their Mother, never speak unless there is something worth saying, and someone who needs to hear it.Darthene Homilies, Book 3, 581They were called the Middle Kingdoms because they were in the middle of the world as men then knew it. To the north was the great Sea, of which little was known. Ships had gone out into it many times, seeking for the Isles of the North mentioned in tale and rumor, but if those Isles existed, no ship had come back to tell about them. To the west, on the far western border of Arlen, was a great impassable range of mountains. Legend said that the demons' country of Hreth lay beyond them, but no-one particularly cared to brave the terrible snow-choked passes and find out. Southward there were more mountains, the Highpeaks or Southpeaks, depending on whether you were speaking Arlene or Darthene; no-one had even ventured far enough into them to find out if they ever ended, though there were stories of the Five Meres hidden among them. Eastward, past the river Stel, the eastern border of Steldin and Darthen and civilized lands in general, the lands stretched into great empty desert wastes. Many had tried to cross them; most came back defeated, and the rest never came back at all. Those who did come back would occasionally speak of uncanny happenings, but most of the time they flatly refused to discuss the Waste. The Dragons might have known more about what went on there, or in the lands over the mountains; but Dragons only talk to the human March– warders who are sometimes their companions, and theMarchwarders, when asked, would smile and shake their heads.The Kingdoms were four: Arlen, Darthen, Steldin, and North Arlen. Through them were scattered various small independent cities and principalities. The Brightwood was one of these, though like most of the smaller autonomies it had joined itself to a larger Kingdom, Darthen, for purposes of trade and protection. Arlen and Darthen were the two oldest Kingdoms, and the greatest; between them they stretched straight across all the known lands, from the mountains to the Waste Unclaimed, slightly more than three hundred leagues. The border between them was defined by the river Arlid,which flows from the High-peaks to the Sea, south to north, a hundred leagues or so. It was not a guarded border, for the two lands had been bound by oaths of peace and friendship for hundreds of years. That, however, might change shortly . . .Herewiss rode along through the sparsely wooded, hilly country three days' journey south of the Brightwood, and thought about politics. It seemed that there was nothing in the world that could be depended upon. The Oath of Lion and Eagle had been sworn for the first time nearly twelve hundred years ago, and sworn again every time a king or queen came to the throne in either country – until now. When Freelorn's father King Ferrant had died on the throne six years past, Freelorn had been in Darthen; but it might not have been possible for Freelorn to claim the kingship even if he had been in Prydon city when it happened. Ferrant had not yet held the ceremony of affirmation in which the White Stave was passed on to his son, and Freelorn's status was therefore in question. Power had been seized shortly thereafter by a group of the king's former counsellors, backed by mercenary forces hired by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer; and thislord, a man named Cillmod, had declared Freelorn outlawed.These occurrences, though personally outrageous to Herewiss, were not beyond belief. Such things had happened before. But six months ago, armed forces, both mercenaries and Arlene regulars, had moved into Darthen and taken land on the east side of the Arlid. Though the Oath had not been sworn again by the ruling junta, that did not make it any less binding on them. In all the years since its first swearing at the completion of the Great Road, neither country had ever attacked the other. Herewiss was nervous; he felt as if lightning were overdue to strike.'Listen,' his father had said to him, leaning on the doorpost of Herewiss's room three days before, 'are you sure you don't want some people to take with you?''I'm sure.' Herewiss had been packing; he was standing before his bookshelf, choosing the grimoires he would take with him. 'Notice would be taken — there would be reprisals later. The situationwould only get worse. And even with the biggest force we could muster, we wouldn't have a third enough people to crack a siege that size. Besides, our people need to be here, putting in crops.' Herewiss took down a thick leatherbound book, filled with notes and spells of illusion.'That's so … Have you got food?''Plenty.' Herewiss dropped the book in his saddlebag, along with another that already lay on the bed. The ornate carving of bed and paneling and windows was lost in evening dark, and only an occasional warm highlight showed in the light of the single oil lamp on the bedside table. 'I cleaned out the pantry. I have enough trailfood to last me through four years of famine, and I ate a big dinner.' He went over to a chest, lifted the lid and took outa white surcoat emblazoned with the arms of the Bright-wood: golden Phoenix rising from red flame, the oldest arms in the Kingdoms. 'Should I take this, do you think?''Is there some formal occasion out in the wilds that you're planning to attend?''No. But if I need to exert political pull, it might come in handy.''You could take my signet.''What if I lost it? That's the second-oldest thing in the Wood, I'd never forgive myself if something happened to it. No, hang on to it. The surcoat should be enough – the device could be counterfeited, but the gold in the embroidery is real.' He folded up the surcoat, stowed it in the saddlebag.'Do you want some mail?''No. I'm going to travel light so I can move fast. Besides, why bother giving anyone the idea that I might be worth robbing? And I'm taking that damn turtleshell of a leather corselet, and I have plenty of padding, and that nice light Masterforge knife you gave me last Opening Night. And the spear; and the cloak is good and thick –Anybody who gets past all that deserves to kill me, I think: and if they do, it'll prove that you and Mard were wasting your talents on me these sixteen years.' Herewiss stood up straight from checking his bags. 'Besides, I inherited your iron britches. Don't worry so much.'Hearn looked with concern at his son. Clothed in dark tunic and breeches and riding boots, cloaked in brown, Herewiss seemed one more shadow of the many in the room. The lamplight reflected from his eyes, and from the metal fittings of the empty scabbard hanging from his belt. 'Son,' Hearn said, 'I'm not too worried about you. But the pattern that's been forming bothers me. I worry about Freelorn. Not so much the fact that he's been runningaround the Kingdoms like a crazy person for the past six years, staying at petty kings' courts until someone finds out he's there and tries to poison him. He's pretty alert about such things, usually. Or the business of his running around with his little sword tail and stealing for a living. He seems to steal from people who need it. But lately he's been coming to grief a bit too often, just missing getting caught – and you've been having to go and get him out of these scrapes. And now this; here he is, stuck in this old keep with a thousand Steldenes waiting to starve him out –and you're going to go get him out of it. Alone. Herewiss, it's not really safe.''I'll manage,' Herewiss said. 'What are you thinking father?''This. What happens when he gets into something that you can't get him out of?''By then I hope I'll have my Power . . .''But you don't have it yet, and if you get killed for Freelorn's sake, you never will. Son of mine—' and Herewiss's underhearing brought him a sudden wash of his father's sorrow, a feeling like eyes filling with tears – 'I have long since reconciled myself to the fact that you're going to die young – by use of the Flame, or more slowly by all this sorcery. Yet I want you to be what you can. Here you are, the first male in an age and a half to have enough of the Fire to use – the first sign that the Kingdoms are getting back to the way things were before the Catastrophe. But you have to live to be what you can. At least for a little longer. And Freelorn is endangering you.''Father,' Herewiss said very softly, 'what good is the Power to me if Lorn dies? He's the only thing I need as much as the Flame. Life would be empty without him, the Fire would mean nothing to me. There are priorities.''Is your life one of them?'Herewiss reached out, took his father's hands in his. 'Da, listen. I won't follow Lorn into any of his famous last stands or impossible charges. I'll try not to let him get into them. I'd like to see him king, yes – but I won't let him drag me into some crazy scheme that has a dead Dragon's chance against the Dark of succeeding. However, I also won't let him get killed if there's any way I can help it –and if my life is the price of his continuing, well, there it is. I can't help how I feel.'Hearn sighed softly. 'You're a lot like your brother,' he said, 'and just as hard to reason with. I gave you the oak as your tree at your birth, my son, and sometimes I think your head is made of it … ''It was a good choice,' Herewiss said, smiling faintly. 'Lightning strikes oak trees more than any other kind. And I have to be crazy sometimes: I have a reputation to uphold. "The only thing sure about the Lords' line of the Wood—'"'"—is that there's nothing sure about them,"' his father finished, smiling too. 'Fool.''They told Earn our Father that He was a fool at Bluepeak, and look what happened to Him.''I would sooner be father to a live son,' Hearn said, 'than to a dead legend.''I'll be careful,' said Herewiss.'Have a safe journey, then. And good hunting.'So Herewiss had taken his leave of his other relatives and friends in the Woodward, and had said goodbye to the Rooftree, and then had stopped in the stable to choose a horse. He had originally been of a mind to take Darrafed, his little thoroughbred Arlene mare, a present from Freelorn – or perhaps Shag, his father's curly-coated bay warhorse. But as he had walked down the aisle betweenthe stalls, Dapple had put his head out over his stall's half-door and looked at Herewiss as if he knew something. Herewiss was not one to ignore a sign when it presented itself.The horse moved comfortably through the low hill country. As long as he kept to a steady southward course, Herewiss let Dapple have his head. The horse was a wise one. About a hundred years before, a Rodmistress had put her deathword on one of Dapple's ancestors and had decreed that the horses of that line would always have a talent for being in the right place at the right time. The talent had seemed to do their riders good as well. One horse, the third generation down, had carried an unsuspecting lady to the arms of the lover who had searched the Middle Kingdoms for her for twelve years. Another had led its thirteen-year-old mistress to the place where the royal Darthene sword, Forlennh BrokenBlade, had been hidden during the Reavers' invasion of Darthis City. Having Dapple along, Herewiss reasoned, would make his father worry a little less – and might incidentally ease his way as he worked on getting Freelorn out of that keep.For three days he had been riding through empty land. It was not bare – Spring had run crazy through the fields, as if drunk on rose wine, flinging wildflowers and garlands of new greenery about with inebriated extravagance. The hills were ablaze with suncandle and Goddess's-delight, tall yellow Lovers'-cup lilies and heartheal. Butterwort and red-and-blue never-say-die clambered up the gullies toward the hillcrests, and white mooneyes covered the ground almost everywhere that grass did not. But there were no people, no homesteads. For one thing, the land was poor for farming. For another, that part of the country was full of Fyrd.The Fyrd had always been in the Kingdoms; they weresaid to be children of the Shadow, sent by Him to spread death and misery in the Goddess's despite: or even creations of the Dark itself, changed things which had been made from normal animals when the Dark still covered the world. Whatever the case, most of North Darthen was still full of the major Fyrd species –horwolves, nadders, keplian, lathfliers, maws, hetscold, and destreth. In Herewiss's time, the land around the Wood was free of them – kept that way by constant use of the Power and the cold-eyed accuracy of Brightwood archers. But outside the Wood's environs the Fyrd raided constantly, taking great numbers of livestock, and also men whenever they could get them. Sheep were pastured here in the hill country, but all the shepherds came up together after the Maiden's Day feasts. Both flocks and men stood a better chance in large numbers.The hills were thinning out now and farms were beginning to appear. They became more frequent as Herewiss and Dapple descended into the lowlands, and one very large farm with stone markers indicated that Herewiss was close to the town he had been expecting to reach that evening. The farm was the holding of a prominent Darthene house, the Lords Arian. He could have stopped there and received excellent hospitality, being after all the next thing to a prince; but attention drawn to himself was the last thing he wanted at this point.He rode on down from the hills, crossing a rude stone bridge over the Kearint, a minor tributary of the river Darst, and came to the forty-house town of Havering Slides just as dusk was falling. Most of the people who lived there were hands on the big Arian farm. Herewiss rode up to the gate in the wooden palisade around the town, identified himself and was admitted without question.The inn was as he had remembered it from earlier visits, a motley– looking place with a disjointed feeling to it; new buildings ran headlong into old ones, and afterthought second storeys sagged on their supports over uneasy-looking bay windows. It seemed that some of the artisans who had done carving work in the Woodward had also passed this way. The gutterspouts were fashioned into panting hound-faces and singing frogs; crows stealing cheese in their wooden beaks leered down from the cupolas.Herewiss rode up to the stable door and handed Dapple over to the girl in charge. As he strode toward the doorway of the inn, his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, he was greeted by the sudden and beautiful odor of roast beef. After three days of nourishing but tasteless journey rations, the prospect of real food seemed almost an embarrassment of luxury. He paused at the door just long enough to admire the carving over it, a cross-grain bas-relief of a local Rodmistress casting the Shadow out of a possessed cow.Herewiss pushed open the door and went in. It took his eyes a few minutes to get used to the dim interior of the place, though there were oil lamps all around. He was standing in a fairly large common room crowded with tables and chairs and long trestled benches. The room was not too full, it still being early in the evening. Several patrons sat about a table, dicing for coppers, and off in one corner a hulking farmer was devouring a steak pie in great mouthfuls.The steak pie particularly interested Herewiss. Bags in hand, he went to the kitchen door, which was carved with dancing poultry, and knocked.The door opened, and the innkeeper looked out at him cordially. She was a tall slender woman, grayhaired butpretty, in a brown robe and a long stained apron. 'Can I help you, sir?' she said, wiping her hands on a dirty gray towel.'Madam,' Herewiss said, bowing slightly, 'food and lodging for the night for myself and my horse would do nicely.''Half an eagle,' the innkeeper said, looking at his clothes, which were in good repair.'A quarter,' said Herewiss, smiling his best and most charming smile at her.She smiled back at him. 'A quarter eagle and threepence.' 'Two.'The innkeeper smiled more broadly. 'Two it is. Your horse is inside?''He is, madam.''Dinner?''Oh, yes,' Herewiss said. The good smells coming out of the kitchen were making his stomach talk. 'Some of what that gentleman is having, if there's another one . . .'She nodded. 'Anything to drink? We have wine, red and white and Delann yellow; brown and black ale; and my husband made a fresh barrel of Knight's Downfall yesterday.''Ale sounds good: the black. Which room should I take?''Up the stairs, turn right, third door to your left.' The innkeeper disappeared back into the kitchen's steam.Herewiss hurried up the creaking stairs and found the room in question. It was predictably musty, and the floor groaned under him. The shutters screeched in protest when he levered them open to let the sunset in, but he was so glad to have a hot meal in the offing that the place looked as good as any king's castle to him. He dropped hisbag in the corner, under the window, and changed into another clean dark tunic; then headed for the door. Halfway through the doorway, an afterthought struck him. He raised his hands to draw the appropriate gestures in the air, and since no-one was near,spoke aloud the words of a very minor binding, erecting a lockshield around his bags. Then down the stairs he went.He sat down at an empty table in a corner and spent a few moments admiring the window nearest him, which was a crazy amalgam of bottle-glass panes and stained vignettes. One of them, done in vivid shades of rose, cobalt, and emerald, showed the ending of the old story about the man who fooled the Goddess into lifting her skirts by confronting Her with an illusion-river. There he lay under the trees at Harvest festival, inextricably stuck to and into an illusionary lover, while the Goddess and the harvesters stood around and laughed themselves weak. The man looked understandably mortified, and very chastened. He had been very lucky in playing his trick on the Mother aspect of the Goddess — had She been manifesting as the Maiden at the time, She might not have been so kind. The Mother tends to be forgiving of Her children's pranks, but the Maiden is sometimes fatally jealous of Her modesty.Someone blocked the light, and he looked up – a girl, maybe eighteen years old or so, with a droopy halo of frizzing black hair. She bent in front of Herewiss, putting his steak pie and ale on the old scarred table. Herewiss took brief notice of the view down her blouse, but he was more interested in the steak pie.'Nice,' he said. 'A fork, please?''Hmm?' She in her turn was being very interested in Herewiss. 'A fork?''Oh. Yes, certainly—' She reached into her pocket and brought one out for him. Herewiss took it, wiped it off, and dove almost desperately into the pie.'Ahh, listen,' she said, bending down again, and Herewiss began an intensive study of a piece of potato, 'are you busy this evening?'Herewiss did his best to look at her with profound sorrow. She really wasn't his type, and there was a mercenary look in her eye that sent him hurriedly to the excuse box in the back of his head. 'If you're thinking what I think you are,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but I'm under vows of chastity.''You don't look like you're in an Order,' she said.'Perpetual chastity,' Herewiss said. 'Or until the Eagle comes back. Sorry.'The girl stood up. 'Well,' she said, 'if you change your mind, ask the lady in the kitchen where I am. I'm her daughter.'Herewiss nodded, and she went away into the kitchen. He sagged a little as the door closed behind her, and settled back against the wall.That was a bit panicky of me, Herewiss thought as he began to eat. I wonder what it is about her that bothers me so—He put the thought aside and concentrated on the hot-spiced food and the heavy ale. The common room began slowly to fill up as he ate; the local clientele was coming in from the fields and houses to enjoy each other's company. The big table nearest him was occupied by a noisy, cheerful group of farmers from the Arian landholdings, nine or ten brawny men and lithe ladies, all deeply tanned and smelling strongly of honest work. They called loudly for food and drink, and hailed Herewiss like a brother when they spotted him in his corner. He smiled back atthem, and before long they were exchanging crude jokes and bad puns, and laughing like a lot of fools.When the inn's cat strolled by, it was greeted politely by the farmers, and offered little pieces of meat or game. It declined all these graciously and in silence, and went on by, making its rounds. As it passed it looked hard at Herewiss, as if it recognized him. He nodded at it; the cat looked away as if unconcerned, and moved on.As the ale flowed and the evening flowered, the storytelling and singing began in earnest. Most of the stories were ones already known to everyone there, but no-one seemed to care much about that – Kingdoms people have a love of stories, as long as the story wears a different face each time. Someone began with the old one about what Ealor the Prince of Darthen had done with the fireplace poker, which was later named Sarsweng and had its haft encrusted with diamonds. Then someone else got up and told about something more recent, news only a hundred and five years old, how the lady Faran Fersca's daughter had gone out with her twelve ships to look for the Isles of the North, and how only one ship had come back after a year, and what had happened to it. This was told in an unusual fashion, sung to an antique rhyme-form by a little old lady with a surprisingly strong soprano. There was a great deal of stamping and cheering and applause when she finished; and several people, judging correctly that the lady was quite young inside, whatever her apparent age, propositioned her immediately. She said yes to one of the propositions, and she and the gentleman went upstairs immediately to more applause.In the commotion, the lute was passed around to the farmers' table and one of them started to sing the song about the Brindle Cat of Aes Aradh, how it carried away the chief bard of a Steldene king on its back because of aninsulting song he had sung before the Four Hundred of Arlen, and what the bard saw in the Otherworld to which the cat took him. Herewiss joined in on the choruses, and one of the ladies at the farmers' table noticed the quality of his voice and called to him, 'You're next!' He shook his head, but when the man with the lute was finished, it was passed back to him. He looked at it with resignation, and then smiled a little at a sudden memory.'All right,' he said, pushed his chair back, and perched himself on the edge of the farmers' table, pausing a moment to tune one of the strings that had gone a quarter-tone flat. The room quieted down; he strummed a chord and began to sing.Of the many stories concerning the usage of the blue Fire, probably the most tragic is that of Queen Beaneth of Darthen and her lover Astrin. Astrin was taken by the Shadow's Hunting oneOpening Night, and Beaneth went to her rescue. That rescue seemed a certain thing, for Beaneth was a Rodmistress, one of the great powers of her time. But the price demanded of her for Astrin's release was that Beaneth must mate with the Shadow, and take into herself whatever evil He would choose for her to bear. Beaneth, knowing that the evil to grow within her would warp her Power to its own use, lay down with the Shadow indeed, but killed herself at the climax of the act, thereby keeping her bargain and obtaining her loved's release.Her little daughter Beorgan was five years old when all this happened. Beorgan made the decision early to avenge her mother, and determined that she would meet the Shadow on His own ground and destroy Him. She trained, and grew great in Power – and also in obsession – waiting and preparing for Nineteen-Years' Night, that night when it is both Opening Night and Full Moon. All the Kingdoms know how the story ends – how Beorgan wentdown to the Morrowfane on that night, being then twenty-four years of age, and opened the Morrowfane Gate beneath the waters of Lake Rilthor, and passed through into the Otherworlds. There she met the Shadow, and there she slew Him, on one of the only nights this may be done, when the Goddess's power conjoins with the returning Sun past midnight. Beorgan's triumph was shortlived, though, and so was she. She had never planned her life past that night, and in a short time wasted away and died. Even her victory was hollow, for however bright the Lover may be, still he casts the Shadow: seven years after He died, He was back again, leading the Hunting as always.Freelorn had always loved the story, and some years back had composed a verse form of it, and a musical setting that Herewiss had liked. At the time, though, Freelorn's voice had been changing, and Herewiss had had to restrain himself from laughing as his loved sang that greatest of tragedies in a voice that cracked crazily every verse or so. He had even refrained from singing it himself for the longest while, for the sound of his pure, deep, already-changed tenor had made Freelorn twice as self– conscious as he usually was.He sang the setting now, letting his voice go as he would have liked to all those years ago, pausing between verses to insert the last dialogue between Beaneath and Astrin, and later the farewell of Beorgan to her husband Anmod, who later became King of both Arlen and Darthen because of her death. He forgot about the hot, smoky room, forgot about time and pain and the systematic destruction of swords, and just sang, feeling very young again for the first time in ever so long.At the end of it he received tremendous applause, and he bowed shyly and handed the lute to someone else, goingback to his table and his ale. There he sat for a few minutes, recovering. Someone began singing almost immediately, but the farmers started talking quietly among themselves. The contrast between the sung verses of terrible tragedy beyond the boundaries of the world and the homely talk of the farmers was abrupt, but pleasant; they had slow, musical voices, and Herewiss dawdled over his ale, listening alternately to the words and the sound of them. One of the farmers started telling a long, drawn-out story of a loved of his who had gone traveling. 'All the way to Dra'Mincarrath she went,' he said in a drawl, 'aye, all that way south, and then east again into the Waste she went, not knowing where she was going, on account of being lost. Right into the Waste Unclaimed, and north she turned after a little, on account of being lost again. And came in sight of that hold in the Waste, indeed, and—''Ssh!' said several of the other farmers, looking upset, and 'She came out again,' said one of them, seemingly the eldest. 'Count her lucky; that place is bad to talk of, even here. Then where did she go? . . .'Herewiss sat nursing his ale, a little curious at the sudden and vehement response. Hold in the Waste—? What could that be? No-one lived out there—His thought was broken by the underheard feeling that someone was looking at him with unkindly intent. He glanced up and saw the innkeeper's daughter. She was across the room, serving someone else, but he could feel her eyes on him. He looked down at his ale again quickly, not particularly wanting to see her bend over again.There was a sudden motion to his right. He looked, and saw the cat, a big gray tabby with blue eyes, balancing itself on the table edge after its leap. It lay down, tucking its forepaws beneath its chest so that it looked like a broody hen, and half– closed its eyes.'Well, hello,' Herewiss said, putting down his mug to scratch under the cat's chin. It squeezed its eyes shut altogether and stretched its neck out all the way, purring like a gray-furred thunderstorm.Herewiss went back to the contemplation of his ale, rubbing under the cat's chin automatically for a few minutes. Then suddenly the cat opened up its round blue eyes. 'Prince,' it said in its soft raspy voice, 'mind the innkeeper's daughter.'He laughed a little under his breath. 'No-one keeps a secret from a cat,' he quoted. 'May I ask what you're called?''M'ssssai,' it said. 'That is my inner Name, prince: the outer doesn't matter.''I'll keep your secret,' Herewiss said in ritual response, and then added, 'but I have none to give you in return. I don't know it yet.''Well enough. Time will come, and then you can come back and tell me.''Forgive me,' Herewiss said, 'but how did you know who I am?' 'I've been in your saddlebag.' 'It had a binding on it.'The cat smiled, and after a moment Herewiss smiled back at it.Cats, the legend said, had been created second after men, and had a Flame of their own, one which they had never lost.'The very fact of a binding,' M'ssssai said, 'made me slightly suspicious. I could smell it from down here, and know you for its author. And the contents of the bags settled the matter. Only two men alive wear that surcoat, and you're too young to be one of them, so you must be the other.''Granted.''What are you doing with those grimoires in your bags?'Herewiss made a face. 'Isn't it said of my Line that there's no accounting for us? I'm a sorcerer. A part-time sorcerer, out seeing the world.'M'ssssai half-closed his eyes again. 'Sorcerers usually stay at home unless they have something in hand. And you're more than just a sorcerer, prince. I know the smell of Flame.''I have no Focus,' Herewiss said, very softly, 'and no control. I can't use a Rod.''The innkeeper's daughter,' said the cat, 'is a dabbler; she has just enough Flame to be able to smell it herself, though she has no focus either, and no control. But she's looking for a way to free her Power, and I dare say she's noticed at least part of what you are. If I were you, I'd keep the shields up around your bags tonight, or else sleep lightly. She's a brewer of semi-effective love potions, and she throws her curses crooked. She has a most undisciplined mind. Not to mention that she'd probably try to drain you—''A vampire?''In the bedsheets; she's acquired a taste for it. I see too many people going out of here looking lost and drained in the morning.''M'ssssai, I thank you.' Herewiss scratched behind the cat's ears.'But why are you telling me all this?' The cat smiled. 'You have good hands.'M'ssssai stood up, stretched, arching his back, his tail straight up in the air. 'Mind her, now,' he said, and jumped down from the table, vanishing into the forest of trestles and benches.Herewiss looked up cautiously. The innkeeper's daughter had just come down from upstairs, and was going through the kitchen door. He took his opportunity andeased out from behind the table, heading hurriedly for the protection of the shadows of the stairway. He took the stairs two at a time, sloshing ale in all directions, pausing at the top of the stairs to get his bearings; it was quite dark up there. Then he headed softly down the hail, trying to keep the floor from creaking under him, his breath going up before him like pale smoke in the chill air.His room door was ajar. He listened at it, but heard nothing. A swift cold draft was whispering through the crack. Gently he put his weight against the door; it opened with a low tired groan. There was no-one inside.He went in, still moving carefully, and bent down by the window to check his bags. The surcoat was ever so slightly mussed, unfolded just enough to clearly show the Phoenix charged on it; and the lockshield around the bags was parted cleanly in one place, an invisible incision right through the spell, big enough for a cat to put a paw through.Herewiss laughed and got up. With flint and steel he lit the room's one candle, a stub of tallow in a smoky, cracked glass by the big four-poster bed. Even in the glass, the flame bent and bobbled wildly until Herewiss closed the shutters at the window. For a few seconds he regarded the worm-holed old door.'All right,' he said softly. 'Let her think I had a bit too much to drink.' He crossed to the door and closed it without shootingthe bolt, then flicked a word and a gesture back at the bags and dissolved the lockshield.Herewiss pulled back the faded, patched coverlet and sat down on the bed. Immediately there was a sudden sharp feeling in the back of his head, a nagging feeling like a splinter, or the dull hurt of a burn. He got up again hurriedly, stripping the covers all the way back and feeling about the sheets. When he lifted up the pillow, there it was– a little muslin bag, with runes of the Nhairedi sorcerer's– speech crudely stitched on it, and a brown stain that was probably blood.
Herewiss took his knife from the sheath at his belt and lifted the little bag on its blade, carrying it over to the table where the candle sat. It took him a little while to poke a large enough hole in it without touching it directly, but when he did, and shook out the contents, he nodded. Asafetida; crumbs of choke-pard and wyverns-tooth; a leaf of moonwort, the black-veined kind picked in Moon's decline; and also a little lump of something soft – a bit of potato from his plate at dinner. He scowled. Elements of sleep– charm and love-charm, mixed together – with the moonwort to befuddle the mind and bind the sleeper to someone else's wishes.
What does she think I am? She must not know I'm a sorcerer or she wouldn't try something so ridiculously simple—
Shaking his head, Herewiss laid the steel knife down on the little pile of herbs. 'Ehrenie haladh seresh,' he said, and spat on the blade. When he picked it up again, the moonwort had shriveled into a tight black ball, and the warning pain in the back of his head was gone.
He set the cloth bag afire with the candle flame, and carried it still burning to the window, opening the shutter and throwing the bag out along with the bits of herbs. Then he went back and stretched out on the bed, reaching for the mug. The ale was getting warm. He made a face, put the mug aside, and lay back against the headboard, crossing his arms and sighing. It was going to be a long wait.
At sometime past one in the morning Herewiss was listening wearily to the sound of some patron of the inn wobbling about in the courtyard, singing (if that was the
word) the old song about the King of Darthen's lover. The inn's good ale seemed to have completely removed any fears the drunk had ever had of high notes, and he was squeaking and warbling through the choruses in a falsetto fit to give any listener a headache. Herewiss had one.
The man had just gotten to the verse about the goats when Herewiss heard the door grunt a little, and saw it scrape inward a bit. He lay back quickly, peeking out from beneath lowered lids. There was another soft scraping sound, and in stepped the innkeeper's daughter, wrapped in a blanket against the cold. She looked long and hard at him, and it was all Herewiss could do to keep from grinning. After a few moments, satisfied that he was asleep, she smiled and crossed the room quietly to where his bags lay.
The one she peered into first was the one with the surcoat. Slowly and carefully she pulled it out and spread it wide to look at the device. There was no light in the room but the pale moonlight seeping in through one half-open shutter, and the dim glow of the torches down in the courtyard. It took her a while to make out the Phoenix in Flames, but when she did she bit her lip, then smiled again, and folded up the surcoat.
Deeper down in the bag she found the book bound in red leather, the unsealed one, and drew it out carefully. The innkeeper's daughter sat down on her heels and muttered something under her breath. A weak reddish light grew and glowed about her hands, clinging to the book's pages as she turned them. For a few minutes she went through the book, turning the leaves over in cautious silence. Then suddenly she stopped, and across the room Herewiss could hear her take in breath sharply. He watched her as she traced down one page with a finger, moving her lips slowly as she read.
That's a bad habit, Herewiss thought. Let's see if I can't break you of it.
The girl was holding the book closer to her eyes, and speaking softly. 'Neskhaired ol jomeire kal stoi, arveya khad—'
Herewiss breathed out in irritation. I might have known. Doesn't she know it's all illusion-spells? She can't know much about what real sorcery is, or what it does. And Goddess knows she would pick that one. She needs a lot more to be beautiful on the inside than she does on the outside. It's not going to work, of course. She's not making any passes, and she's set up no framework inside her head. Dark! I'll teach her to mess with things she doesn't understand—
Herewiss cleared his mind and began to think of another incantation, on another page. He had long since ceased to need to draw diagrams or make passes while conjuring. Constant practice had taught him to build viable spell-structures in his head, without external aids. He built one now, a fairly simple one that he had used many times to entertain Halwerd, an illusion-spell that required minimal energy and provided surprisingly sophisticated results. It went up quickly, in large chunks, taking form and bulking huge and restless — it was one of those sorceries that has to be used quickly before it goes stale. He completed the structure, checking once to make sure that it was complete, and thought the word that set it free to work.
The girl, intent on her reading, did not notice the air behind her thickening and growing dark. Something darker and more tenacious than smoke curled and roiled within a huge man-shaped space in the air, until at last it stood complete behind her – a little tenuous at the edges, where its stuff wisped and drifted into the still air, but dark as starless midnight at its heart. The innkeeper's daughter finished reading the spell and raised one hand to
feel at her face. In that moment the great dark shape put out a hand and brushed the back of her neck lightly.
She slapped absently at what she thought was an insect, and felt her hand go through something cold and damp. Her eyes went wide with startlement; she turned. She saw, and opened her mouth to scream. But Herewiss was ready. Since freeing the illusion, he had been readying another spell, and as she drew breath he said the word of control and struck her dumb and stiff. There she knelt, her mouth ridiculously open, head turned to look over her shoulder –probably a most uncomfortable position. Herewiss smiled, and got up out of the bed, praying that the backlash would hold off for a few minutes.
'Do you always go through your guests' bags at one in the morning?' he said, bending down to take the book away from her and toss it on to the bed. 'And do all the rooms come equipped with that charming little addition under the pillow?'
She could not even move her eyes to follow him as he went to open the window wide. 'Would you excuse us?' he said to the smoke– creature. There had always been controversy over whether illusion– creatures were alive and thinking in any sense of the words, but Herewiss, being both cautious and courteous by nature, treated his illusions as if they were both. 'And while you're out there, please take that man down there and bed him down in the stable or something. If I hear that part about the goats again, I may turn him into one.'
The dark shape waded slowly through the air, trailing streams of black smoke behind it, and climbed over the windowsill into the night. It drifted down silently into the courtyard.
'Would you like to be a goat?' Herewiss said, going back to look at the girl from behind, so that she could see him.
'Or an owl might be better – you seem to like being up in the middle of the night.'
He was bluffing outrageously, for no mere sorcery could do such things. She seemed not to know this, though. She stared at Herewiss wide-eyed, the terror frozen in her face. Outside, a voice broke off its singing. 'Boy, izh really dark out here,' it said, woozily surprised.
'Or maybe you'd like to bed down with my friend out there,' Herewiss said, 'since you do seem to be so eager, with that love– charm and all. I should tell you, though, he is a little cold, and you might have a baby afterwards, and I couldn't guarantee what it would look like.'
He made a small adjustment in his mind and snapped his fingers, freeing her upper half but keeping her legs bound tight. She sagged and turned her face away from him quickly. 'Tell me what you were after,' Herewiss said.
'I—' She shuddered. 'I don't want to share with that—' 'Then start talking.'
She stared sullenly at the floor. 'I smelled the Power,' she said. 'You have it. I want to know how. If a man can have it, then there has to be a way for me to bring mine out.' She looked up, glared at him. 'How did you do it?' she demanded bitterly. 'Who did you pact with?'
'My my,' Herewiss said. 'You are a dabbler. Everyone has the Power, dear, didn't you know that? Men and women both, everyone born has the spark. But few have enough to do anything with. And Goddess knows there's more to it than just having enough Flame. What was the bag for, by the way?'
She scowled at the floor again, and would not answer him.'A little draining to amuse yourself? I should tell you, the Bride doesn't look kindly on such things. Draining away your lovers' potency is likely to make you less of awoman, not more. And anyway, who taught you your Nhaired? Two of the words on the bag were misspelled, and there was too much asafetida. If you had left that there much longer, it would have started to recoil, and half the place would probably have tried to rape you. Try draining that.'Herewiss sighed. 'You're not being very open with me,' he said. 'I'm in a quandary as to what to do with you. Maybe you really do want to be a goat.' He went over to the bag on the floor and took out the other book, the one with the seals on it. Softly he said the word to undo the seals, and the second word that spoke the pages apart, and then went through the book slowly, looking for the right page.The innkeeper's daughter was beginning to worry now. 'Please!' she said, 'please, no – I'll do anything—'She squirmed her torso at him, and Herewiss looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head in mild amazement. 'I'm not interested in that kind of anything,' he said. 'I might consider information, though,' he said. 'Tonight at dinner some people were talking and someone mentioned a place called the "hold in the Waste", and everyone else hushed them up. What is that? Why won't they talk about it?'Fresh fear went across the girl's face like a shadow. 'I don't know—'His underhearing jabbed him hard under one rib, like the pain one gets from running too hard, and he knew she was lying. 'Then I guess I'll have to turn you into a goat,' he said, wondering how he was going to make the bluff good, and turned his attention to the page before him. 'Faslie anrastuw oi velien—''No, no, wait—' She looked around fearfully. 'It's unlucky even to talk about it—''Being a goat isn't unlucky?''Uh – well. Out in the Waste Unclaimed, about forty miles or so into the desert, there's an Old Place – the oldest of the Old Places in all the world.' She gulped. 'It's full of the Old wreaking, and ghosts and monsters walk around there. Sometimes the desert around it – changes somehow, and becomes other places. I don't know how—''I know what you mean.'They say that the rocks roll uphill, and water flows sideways along the hills there, or up the sides of valleys –and it rains scorpions and stones instead of water. Even the Dragons won't go near it; they say it's too dangerous. There are doors into Otherwheres—''Doors?' Herewiss echoed.'That's all there is,' the girl said. 'It's not lucky to talk about it. It's a cursed place.''No,' Herewiss said, 'just Old, I would imagine. We don't know enough about the Old people's wreaking to know their curses from their blessings. Forty miles into the desert. Near where?''North of the pass above Dra'Mincarrath,' she said, 'about sixty miles or so. But it's cursed—'Herewiss stood there silently for a long few moments, holding the backlash away while reading the spell in the book, readying it. 'That'll do, I think,' he said. 'But one thing only.'She looked at him in fear. 'I don't trust any promises you might make about your future behaviour,' he said. 'So I am going to give you a conscience of sorts.'He spoke the last word of the spell under his breath, and immediately the girl groaned and doubled over, clutching at her stomach. 'The next time you sleep with a man or woman for whom you don't care, that will take you,' he said. 'Don't bother trying to rid yourself of it; if you meddle, you may find that particular avenue of pleasurepermanently closed. And let me give you advice – don't play around with sorcery. It shortens the life.'Go on.'He cut the air with one hand in a short quick motion, and the girl staggered to her feet and lurched without another word out thedoor.Herewiss closed and sealed his book, fetched the other one from the bed, and put them back in his bag again. His head was aching violently, and his stomach churned, threatening to reject the steak pie.Suddenly a dark shape loomed at the window. It was the smoke– creature, peering in curiously.'Oh Dark, I forgot,' Herewiss said. He gestured at the window, the same quick cutting motion. 'Go free! And thank you.'The creature bent a little with a passing night breeze, and dissipated silently.'Ah, my head,' Herewiss groaned as he headed back to bed. 'Shortens the life indeed. I wish I were dead.'He pulled the covers up around him again, and laid his throbbing head down on the lumpy pillow as tenderly as he could. The darkness was almost peaceful for a few moments — until the sound of a drunken countertenor began to float up from the stable, half a tone flat, singing of what the King of Darthen did with the shepherdess and her brother.'Oh Goddess,' Herewiss moaned, and buried his face in the pillow. 3Opening Night is not so much a time of year as it is a state of mind. It can be invited, by no more difficult a measure than keeping one's eyes and heart open all the time. There are Rodmistresses who could not share in the Opening if they stood at the Heart of the World on Nineteen-Years' Night; and there are children, and the eager of heart, who can break the walls between the Worlds in broad day, and call the wonders through. Those who do not close their hearts to Possibility soon find their lives full of it.Reflections in the Silent Precincts, Leoth d'Elthed, ch. 7The next day was gray and overcast, threatening rain. Herewiss left early, having been awakened by the impending light of dawn despite the fact that there was no sunrise to be seen. He didn't stop for breakfast – partly from a desire to hurry, and partly to avoid running into the innkeeper's daughter again. He felt a little guilty for laying as restrictive a spell on her as he had. But then again, she had been messing with his private property — and her actions had hardly been intended in benevolence.'Aah, the Dark with it,' he said to himself as the inn receded behind him. He was heading south again; Dapple was trotting along briskly and needing little encouragement to hurry.Doors into Otherwheres. Such doors were legendary –they might open on to other times, like the Eorlhowe Door hidden in the mazes beneath the melted stones of the Howe in North Arlen; or other places, like the old King's Door in the Black Palace in Darthis; or other worlds entirely, as does the Morrowfane Gate beneath the waters of Lake Rilthor in southern Darthen. There were not many permanent doors, and they tended to be difficult of access and dangerous to use, because of time limits or unpredictable behavior. One of the Queens of Darthen acquired the sobriquet One– Hand when she crossed through the King's Door and it closed unexpectedly.Out in the Waste? Well, it would be a good place to putthem if there are time-gates. At least the Dragons would think so – they won't let anyone but Marchwarders near the Eorlhowe Door, and the human Marchwarders won't go near it themselves for fear of changing the past.Herewiss sighed. He would have given almost anything to go through a time-door, or just look through one, to find out if things really happened as the histories said they had. Or to see the great days of the past happen again – to see Earn and Healhra take the Power upon Themselves at Bluepeak, to see the terrible Gnorn come tottering over the mountains and go up in a blaze of the blueFire as the Lion and Eagle gave Themselves for the destruction of that last menace. Or to see the founding of the Bright-wood, or of Prydon city, or Darthis. To watch the last stone being set into the paving of the Great Road, and watch the Oath of Lion and Eagle being sworn for the first time by Earn's and Healhra's grandchildren. Maybe even to see what no man had seen, the Worldwinning, as the Dragons dropped out of the darkness and the Messenger in Her glory drove the Dark away—I'm getting carried away with this, he told himself severely.And you're enjoying it, another part of him answered him back. Well, why not? Dreaming was free. Consider this: how about going back to the day Freelorn's father died, and finding out where old Hergotha had been hidden? That would certainly make Freelorn happy. True, Freelorn had Suthan now, and that was not exactly a sword without lineage – the princes of Arlen had been carrying it since the time that Anmod had used it to kill the Coldwyrm lairing in the fords of Arlid. But it was just that, a prince's sword, and Freelorn was king, if not in name, at least by right. Herewiss didn't need his under-hearing to detect Freelorn's dissatisfaction with Suthan.Lorn wanted Hergotha, which was the king's sword; he lusted after it the way some people lust after others' bodies and desire to possess them.Hergotha, though, had gone missing after Ferrant's death – he had not been wearing it on the day his heart stopped, and it had never been found in the palace. Perhaps he had taken it with him past the Door into Starlight, and walked the shore of the final Sea with it slung over his back, the kingliest of the shadows that dwelt there. Or perhaps the Lion had taken ft back into His keeping again, maybe to return it to the rightful wielder one day, if one of the Line ever came back to claim the throne. Herewiss doubted that Freelorn would have the patience.To find Hergotha, bring it back to Freelorn—This is ridiculous, Herewiss thought. I don't know for sure thatthis place has time-doors in it – or any doors, for that matter — and if it does, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to get through them. Or even make them serve my purpose.He sighed. It was still nice to think about. To look back in time. To see his mother. To see Herelaf—Or to look forward in time, perhaps, and see how he would finally forge the sword that would work for him, then do it.Yes. And if those doors looked out into other worlds, mightn't there be one world somewhere much like this one, except that both men and women had the Flame? Or maybe there would be a door into that long-past time before the Catastrophe, when everyone could use the Power—Dapple stopped abruptly, and Herewiss looked up in confusion. About a hundred yards away, at the foot of a little hill that rose suddenly from the grassland, stood a small building.It was built of logs stood up on end and bound together. The roof was thatched, and there was one door, and a window on the side that faced him. It wasn't a house –there was no sign of a garden, or even a cow. A shrine, perhaps?His curiosity nudged him, and he pulled on Dapple's reins and rode up to the place. He dismounted before the open doorway. 'Hello—?' he called. No-one answered.There was a wooden plaque fastened next to the door, and though it was weathered, the runes were deeply scratched and easy to read: OF OUR LADY OF LIBERATIONS – USE, CLEAN, BLESS, AND GO SAFELY.Herewiss stepped in and looked around. The inner walls were plastered, and there were scenes painted on them in a primitive and vigorous style, the colors bright, the figures stylized, stark and clean. In the middle of the room was a rough offering table. Dead leaves and bits of grass were scattered about on the table and floor. Something made an irritated twitter, and Herewiss looking up, saw a sparrow's nest high in the corner, where theplaster had fallen away and left an opening to the outside.He smiled at the appropriateness of the place, for there was one aspect of his personality sorely in need of liberation. The few minutes it would take to clean and reconsecrate the shrine wouldn't be wasted. Besides, if the Goddess were to come to his house when he wasn't there, and if it were full of leaves and such, She would certainly clean it up.For a moment he grinned at the image of the Tripartite Lady busy in the Woodward with a broom. But the Goddess had never been known for standing on ceremony. On Her travels through the world She tended to leave home Her Cloak which is the night sky, and the Robeglorious as Moonlight, in favor of plainer and more utilitarian clothes. Even at that most sublime and beautiful of times, when She comes to share Herself in love – as She comes to every man and woman born – even then She rarely appears in any of the forms or manifestations attributed to Her by legend. Once in a lifetime, a person will know the joy of being held in the Goddess's arms. She comes as just another person, with human quirks and wrinkles; sometimes She comes in the form of someone you know – perhaps even your own loved, by way of an affectionate joke. But She never comes when or where you expect Her. As the proverb says, 'The Goddess is as likely to come in the window as through the door.'Herewiss found a broom in one corner, not much more than a mildewed bunch of birch twigs, and did his best to sweep up all the detritus on the floor. As he swept, he looked at the figures painted on the plaster. One wall depicted the Triad in its first form – Maiden, Mother and Wise Woman, Their hands joined to show that They were One: and then underneath that, the Maiden with Her hands full of stars, busy with creation. But her back was turned to the other Two, illustrating the Error. Behind the Three of Them hung the symbol for the Great Death, the downpointing Arrow, and only the Eldest of the Three saw it. Her hand was outstretched to Her younger self, but the Maiden ignored the Eldest and went on creating as if her works would last forever.In the next panel the Maiden stood in Her sorrow, Her hands covering Her face, as She realized the nature of Her error: She had forgotten about Death. And now that She had spoken the Final Word that set the Universe on its way, Death was trapped inside it. This whole Universe would have to run down and die itself before She could make it perfect. The Mother and the Wise Woman stoodbeside the Maiden, trying to console Her; but for some things there is no consolation.The following panel showed the Maiden's solution for Her own grief and guilt. She knew Her other selves in the manner of woman with woman, and became with child. Now she sat on the birthing-stool, and was no more Maiden, but Mother. The children She bore were twin sons, and She suckled Them one at each breast with a smile of maternal joy. The pane! below showed the Twins grown already, beautiful young men, Her Lovers, and She stood between Them and They all three embraced one another. Then came the New Love, and the Lovers knew Each Other and found yet another joy. In the painting, Their mouths touched with almost ritual solemnity, even as Their strong arms strained about each other and They strove to be one.But then the great Death entered in, casting the Shadow over the Lovers, filling Them with jealousy, each desiring to alone know the other Lover to the Mother's exclusion. The Lovers' hands went about each other's throats, and They choked the lives out of each other. The Triad stood above them in sorrow, and together They lifted up the dead, and with Them entered into that Sea of which the Starlight is a faint intimation, therein to be renewed and reborn, to close the circle and make all things whole again.The last panel, near the door, showed why the shrine had been built. There was a sorrowing mother with her four dead children in her arms, three little girls and a boy; and the inscription, My Children. The Plague Came in the Night. Having Pronounced, She Sets Free. May I Meet Them on the Shore.Herewiss stopped there, leaning on the broom, saddened. He thoughthow it must have been for that poor mother, building this place with her own two hands, mostlikely, hard by that little hill which probably housed her children's bodies; painting those scenes, slowly and with care, and trying to find some sense in the deaths of her little ones. Probably there wasn't any; but at least she had left something beautiful behind in their memory, and it may have been that having something to do had brought her at least partway through her grief.He swept the last of the leaves out the door. The sparrow chittered faintly in its nest, and Herewiss looked at it with affection. Another mother, and her children, safe and comfortable. The nameless lady who built this place would probably be pleased.He went out to where Dapple stood grazing, and rummaged around in the left-hand saddlebag until he found what he wanted, his lovers'– cup. Herelaf had made it for him, a long time ago. It was of white oak, simply carved and stained, with a border of leaves running around the outside just under the lip, and Herewiss's name scratched under the foot. He could remember watching Herelaf carve it. 'When it's finished,' his brother had said, 'take good care of it and it'll last you a long time—'It certainly had. Fourteen years. Herelaf had been dead for twelve of them.Herewiss took a waterbag out of the pannier, and filled the cup with it. Carefully, so as not to spill any, he carried the old brown cup into the shrine, and set it on the altar.'Mother of Days,' he said softly, looking for the right words, 'Mother of Stars – bless the lady who built this place, and her children, whether they're reborn or not — may she find love again, and may they too. Take care of the people who pass here; keep the Fyrd off them, and the terrors of night, and save them from loneliness. And take care of Freelorn for me, until I get there, and afterwards too.' He paused, swallowed the lump that was filling histhroat. The hurt was twelve years gone, it was silly to be still crying about it. 'And take care of Herelaf – let him come out of the Sea and find joy—'He picked up the cup, drank quickly. It was harder to cry with his head tilted back and his eyes squeezed shut. By the time he had drained the cup, he was back in control again.'—and help me find my Power when I get back home,' he said. 'In Your name, Who are our beginnings and our endings—'He went out of there in a hurry. Dapple had stopped grazing, and was looking at him inquisitively. It had begun to rain. 'Let's go,' Herewiss said. 'Freelorn is waiting.' He undid his rolled-up cloak from the back of his saddle and swung it around him. The rain began in earnest then, pelting down hard. Herewiss made as if to mount, and to his utter surprise Dapple reared up and danced away from him, whickering.'What?' he said. 'What's the matter?'The horse's eyes were calm, but when Herewiss reached for the reins, Dapple backed away again. 'What, then?' said Herewiss. 'Am I supposed to stay here?'Dapple took a step backward and gazed at him.'Dammit, when Dareth made your family smart, I wish she'd made you a little more verbal! All right, let's see what I can find—'Herewiss pulled his cloak more tightly around him and slipped the hood over his head, then leaned up against the wall of the shrine and closed his eyes. He tried to put his underhearing out around him like a net. It was a fickle talent, one which often refused to manifest itself when it was needed, and for a moment or so he couldn't find it at all. He concentrated, and tried to listen——tried—
Warmth?—he listened harder—
Very faint warmth. A banked fire. No, more like a fire being rained on, going out gradually. The first drops splattering into the flames, and the fire in panic, seeing its own destruction.
What in the world is that? Not a human reading, no-one I ever read felt anything like this. It feels so dry, and I can hear the heat—
Fire in the rain. The fire in terror, the flames being beaten down, steam rising—
Somewhere over to the west——coming this way—
Herewiss opened his eyes and looked westward. The rain was making it difficult to see clearly. It was coming down hard, a silver– white rushing wall, the typical spring cloudburst that seemed to beat the air right into the ground. If there was something out there, it would have to come a lot closer before he would be able to see it.
Fire, dwindling, dying out— Whatever it was, the source of the feeling was coming closer: the image had intruded on Herewiss's underhearing that time without his having to listen for it—
Herewiss pulled his hood further down over his face and took a few steps into the rain, following the feeling. It wavered, grew a little stronger. Possibly it was sensing him too. Herewiss squished along for several minutes, shivering as the rain soaked through his cloak.