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THE DOOR INTO SHADOWDIANETHE DOOR into shadowDUANEThe Wound is healed by the sword that deals it;the heart is knitby the pain that breaks it;the life is made wholeby the death that starts it;the death is made wholeby the life that ends it. (Hamartics, 186)Four lands hemmed in by mountain and waste and the Sea — those were the Middle Kingdoms: and the greatest of them, Arlen and Darthen, were in peril of destruction. For seven years Arlen's throne had been empty of the royalty needed to keep the land fertile and the people at peace. And Darthen suffered as a result of Arlen's lack, for the Two Lands were bound together by oaths of friendship and by joint maintenance of the royal sorceries that kept their lands safe from the ever-present menace of the Shadow.In those days there appeared a man with the blue Fire — not just the spark of Flame that every man and woman possesses, but enough to channel and use to change the world around him. His lover was the child of Arlen's last king, heir to his usurped throne. In the Firebearer's relationship to Freelorn, King Ferrant's son, many later saw the Goddess's hand. She had been working quietly, so as not to alarm Her old adversary the Shadow. Her hand seemed visible elsewhere too. Freelorn had taken com-panions with him into his exile. They lived as outlaws and bandits, stealing what theyneeded when they had to — though none of their hearts were in it. One of them in particular would certainly have been elsewhere, if she had had a choice. Swordswoman and sorcer-ess, trained in the Silent Precincts and in every other place in the Kingdoms that dealt in the use and mastery of the blue Fire that some women bear, Segnbora d'Welcaen tai-Enraesi was a spectacu-lar and expensive failure. She had the Fire in prodigious quantity, and couldn't focus it. On her way home from one more school that couldn't do anything for her, chance threw her together with Free-lorn's people one night. Bitterly frustrated with what seemed a wasted life, desperately needing something useful to do, Segnbora swore fealty that night to the rightful heir of the Arlene throne, and fled with him and his people into the eastern Waste where Free-lorn's loved, Herewiss, awaited him.The children of House tai-Enraesi traditionally had a talent for getting themselves into dangerous situations. There in the Waste, in an ancient pile built by no human hand — a fortress rising gray and bizarre out of the empty land, skewed and blind-walled and omi-nous—s he started wondering whether even the tai-Enraesi luck would do her any good. There were stories about this place, about soul-eating monsters that guarded innumerable doors into Other-wheres. Even the mildest of the stories were gruesome. Fear gripped her, but her oath gripped her harder. She stayed with Freelorn and his people.And there in the Hold, fulfilling her fears, the stories she had heard came true — even the one of how nothing good would come out of this terrible place until (ridiculous improbability) a male should focus his Fire.On the night Herewiss declared his intention to use his newly gained Fire to replace Freelorn on his throne, Segnbora lay in the darkness and considered the old rede that spoke of her family's luck. That luck would run out some day, when the last of her line died by his or her own hand, in a time of ice and darkness. But that hardly had anything to do with her. She wasn't the last of the tai-Enraesi, and anyway her luck was holding splendidly. She would be riding out of here with three good friends, a sometime lover, a prince about to retake his throne, a fire elemental, and the first man in a thousand years to focus his Fire. So maybe, maybe just this once, everything was going to turn out all right. .OneSirronde stared at the Goddess. "Are You saying, then, that You were wrong to make heroes?" "Indeed not," She said. "But I should have warned them— if you save the world too often, it starts to expect it."Tales of the Darthene South, book iv, 29When she was studying in the Silent Precincts, the Rodmis-tresses had warned her: If you're going to look for meaning in a dream, first make sure it's your own. Any sensitive is most sensitive in her sleep; and others' dreams can draw you in and fool you. Now, therefore, Segnbora held quite still in her sleep so as not to disturb whoever else was dreaming the landscape into which she had stumbled. It wasn't often, after all, that one was privileged to see the Universe being created. The Maiden was working, as She always is, while the other two Persons of the Goddess, the Mother and the Eldest, looked on. Young and fair and preoccupied was the Maiden, as She worked elbow— deep in stars and flesh and dirt. She was so delighted with the wild diversity of Her creation that She never noticed the Mother and the Eldest desperately trying to get Her attention. They saw what she did not: the shapeless, lurking hunger that hid in the darkness at the Universe's borders.Finally the Maiden, satisfied that Her world was complete, cried out the irrevocable Word that started life running on its own and sealed the Universe against any subtractions. And the instant She had done so, Death stood up from where it had been hiding, and laughed at Her.She had locked the doors of the world, and had locked Death in. Slowly it would suck the Universe dry of life, and She could not prevent it. Nor could She prevent Death's dark-ness from casting shadows sideways from Her light — rogue aspects of Her, darksides, bent on destroying more swiftly what was already doomed. The Maiden was grief-stricken, and took counsel with Her otherselves to find some way tocombat death. Among Them, They invented first the heart's love, and then the body's — lying down together in the manner of woman with woman, and becoming with child.The Maiden, becoming the Mother now, brought forth twins — sons, or daughters, or daughter and son; the ambiva-lence of the dream made the Firstborn seem all of these at once. Swiftly They grew, and discovered Love in Their Mother's arms — then turned to one another and discovered it anew. But in the midst of Their bliss, surrounded by the blue Fire that was Their Mother's gift and Their pride, the Death stood up again. It entered one of the Lovers and taught that one jealousy.The shadowed Lover slew the innocent One — and in the same act destroyed Its own Fire, which had been bound by love to the Other's. Cursing, the Dark Lover fled in a rage into the outer darkness, where It would reenact Its murder and loss and bereavement for as long as the Universe should last. It was not a Lover anymore, but the Shadow.In the dream Segnbora wept, knowing all along what was going to happen. She knew that mortals would be reenacting this tragedy in their own lives forever. The dream broke, then, and gradually re-formed as an image in water does when a stone is. thrown in, She saw a scene skewed sideways, as if her head rested on someone's shoulder. Much of the great room where she stood was dark, but in her hand — which had become a man's hand — she held a core of blinding white light, wreathed all about with flames as blue as summersky. Herewiss, she realized. Last night.His weariness was so terrible he could barely stand. He had banished the hralcins, the soul-eaters, yet he was too tired to exult in. the focus he had forged, — the unfinished sword he would call Khavrinen. He was the first man in a thousand years to focus the Fire, and, he knew what, difficulties lay ahead. The Shadow would, not long tolerate him, or any man who enjoyed the Power It, had cast. away. It would deal with him quickly; before the Goddess had time, through him, to consolidate newly regained, ground. We must move man quickly, then, the dream said. For look whathe Shadow has planned. Segnbora shuddered in her sleep at the sight of a whole valley suddenly buried under mountains that had formerly stood above it. Dead, a voice said soundlessly. She's dead. Snow whirled wildly down onto a battlefield, turn-ing red as soon as it fell. Monsters gnawed the dead. Else-where a wave of blackness came rolling down out of murky heights, crashed down onto a leaping, threatening fire, and smothered it.The air was thick with the feel of ancient sorceries falling apart, fraying. Grass forgot how to grow. Grain rotted on the stalk and fruit on the bough. Plague downed beasts and peo-ple alike, leaving their blackened corpses to lie splitting in the sun. Even the scavenger birds sickened and died of what they «ate. It was happening. The royal magics were failing. If they weakened enough to let the Shadow fully into this world, into Bluepeak, this was what would happen.The soundless voice of the dream spoke urgently. Freelorn must see to the Royal Bindings quickly. This is his job, he's the Lion's Child and heir to Arlen. Go with him, Herewiss, in the full of your Power. Use the Fire to the utmost. He'll need assistance.But I just got the Fire, Herewiss said, terrified. It takes time to master it. There is no time. What must be done needs doing now. The Other is coming.And she could feel it, that throbbing of hatred in the back-ground, getting stronger by the minute. As she watched, the sky grew dark. The snow blasted about them, in that place to which they would have to go to reinforce the Royal Bindings. Herewiss's Fire, for so long a blaze within him, was now faint under a blanket of oppressive power. Just in front of him, Freelorn started to stand up. The whole dream focused then on the sight of Freelorn's back, with a three-barbed, razor-sharp Reaver arrow standing out of it.Sagging, Lorn sunk back slowly against Herewiss. Then there was a deeper darkness, and the two of them stood to-gether before a Door in which burned the stars that would never go out. Freelorn, his face in shadow, was pulling his hand gently out of Herewiss's grasp, turning away toward death's Door. .No!Do what you must to come to the full of your Power. There's no time! Her voice was almost frightened. Herewiss had never be-lieved She could sound that way. But if I do — and we get there — then Lorn— It must not be prevented. But—You must not attempt to prevent it! /— Hurry! NO!!The scream tore through her throat as she sat bolt upright in the bedroll, sweating — still seeing against the darkness the long ruinous fall of an entire mountain, still hearing the crash of it, first note in a song of disaster.In the great main hall of the old Hold, people fumbled frantically for their swords — the memory of the hralcins' sud-den arrival the nightbefore was very fresh. The fire in the firepit rose up too, putting several broad curves of flame over the edge and leaning anxiously out to see what was the mat-ter. As a fire elemental, Sunspark had not had much experi-ence with fear, but after last night it was apparently taking no chances.Segnbora lifted a hand to her pounding head and found that she was holding her sword, Charriselm. Evidently she had drawn it while she was still half-sleeping. Beside her in the bedroll, blond Lang was still blanket-wrapped, but neverthe-less he had found his graceknife in a hurry. Lying propped on one elbow with the knife in one ham of a hand, he blinked at her like an anxious owl. A few feet away, big swarthy Dritt and lanky Moris were sitting up back to back, looking as panicked as Segnbora felt. On the other side of the firepit, Harald was attempting simultaneously to string his bow and brush the brown hair out of his eyes. All of these looked at Segnbora as if they thought she was crazy. "A bad dream?" Lang said.She nodded, sliding Charriselm back into its sheath and looking across the room toward the firepit and the bedrolls laid down there.Herewiss was sitting up, bracing himself with one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. He took the hand away from his face, and Segnbora was shocked to see his terrified expres-sion. Lorn was holding Herewiss tight and peering worriedly into his face. Under other circumstances it could have been a touching and humorous sight — the little, dark-mustachioed, fierce-eyed man comforting someone who, judged by his slim hard build and shoulder musculature, might have been the village blacksmith."Are you all right? What happened?" "It was a dream," Herewiss said, his voice anguished. "Shh, it's all right." "No, it's not." Herewiss rubbed his eyes again, then glanced around him with frightened determination. He started searching in the blankets for his clothes. "We've got to go." "What?""We have to hurry."Herewiss grabbed one bunched-up blanket and impatiently shook it. A sword fell out and clattered to the floor — a hand-and-a-half broadsword of gray steel that would have seemed of ordinary make except for the odd blue sheen about it. He reached out for it, and at his touch his Power ran down the blade: blinding blue Fire, twisting and flurrying about as if in bright reflection of his distress."It was — there was — the mountain fell down, just like that. And there were thousands of Fyrd, and bigger monsters too — and a wave came down over everything, and Sunspark went out — " (I did not!)"Loved, slow down so I can understand what the Dark you're talking about — ""So much for a whole night's sleep," Lang muttered under his breath. Putting his knife away under the rolled-up cloak that was serving them as pillow, he lay down again. "Wake me up when they're finished?" "If necessary," Segnbora said, rubbing his shoulder ab-sently. The gesture was more for her comfort than for his. Her underhearing was wide awake, bringing her the hot coppery blood-taste of Herewiss's fright as if it were her own. Herewiss was talking fast. He had yanked a shirt out of the blankets and was struggling into it, while in his lap Khavrinen kept on blazing like a torch."It's angry as anything," he was saying. "And It's going to work the worst mischief It can, by putting pressure on the Royal Bindings that have been keeping It in check." He started feeling around for his britches. "For seven years no one's reinforced the Arlene half of those Bindings, and they're wearing thin—"Freelorn glanced away from Herewiss. Segnbora put her hands behind her and leaned back, closing her eyes and brac-ing herself againstthe gut-punch of grief and anger she knew would come from Lorn. When his father had died on the throne, and the Minister of the Exchequer, Cillmod, had taken the opportunity to seize power, Freelorn had fled for his life with a price on his head. Now Lorn would wonder again whether staying in Arlen to see to the bindings, and possibly getting killed as a result, might not have been the more noble course.It was an old midnight pain that Segnbora had come to know as well as the arthritis in Harald's right knee, or Drill's self-consciousness about his weight. Indeed, no Precinct-trained sensitive could have helped underhearing her sur-roundings as Segnbora did. It was the gift she would have been happiest to lose when she gave up her studies. She had enough trouble dealing with her own pains. Those of others were an unwelcome burden."Lorn, enough," Herewiss said, catching Freelorn's an-guish himself. "The fact remains that if the Shadow leans Its full strength against the Bluepeak bindings, we're done for. The Kingdoms will founder. I saw the southern passes full of Reaver armies. And the plains full of Fyrd. There were storms and earthquakes, and where the earth opened a whole town fell in. And that cliff at Bluepeak—" Herewiss broke off. Freelorn, still holding him close, looked puzzled. "But it was just a dream!*'' "Oh no," Herewiss said, shaking his head emphalically. "I saw.""He's dreaming true," Segnbora said quietly. Freelorn's frightened eyes flicked to her. "He's focused now," she said hurriedly. "It's to be ex-pected.""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?"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 pro-cess. I was given all this Power. Now it has to be used, fully, and I won't be able to 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 done a little reading on the subject," he said.It was a great understatement, for among the responsibili-ties of a throne prince of Arlen was the curatorship of rr'Virendir, the Arlene royal library, and that meant intimate knowledge of nearly every extant writing dealing with both mundane sorcery and more elevated matters of Power."All the sources say 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, and the elemen-tal threw back a smug feeling. During the time Herewiss had spent in the Hold forging Kheivrinen, Sunspark had come to.be his loved too. Lorn, not yet at peace with the situation, was still subject to occasional twinges of jealousy."I don't mean shapechanges," Lorn said with exaggerated patience. "Soul-changes. Great alterations in personality. Madness and other brands of sanity that human beings don't usually survive.""The change needn't be harmful," Herewiss put in. "Re-member, 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, very 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 a situation.""True, but you know the royal rites, don't you? You have to do it." "Who says?""Whom do you think?" Herewiss said, very gently. "When you dream true, Whom 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 pretty annoyed about that missing money, and if we go back to Arlen so soon, and he hears 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 at all? The Shadow is a far greater danger. It can't afford to leave you alive now, can It? 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 Khavrinen'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 atten-tion. "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 follows his liege oaths too well," Free-lorn 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. EyesTHE DOOR INTO SHADOWlooked 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 deaf-ened 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. But if this argument keeps up any longer I'll have to sleep outside." She went over to Freelorn in her shift and offered him Charriselm hilt-first, about an inch from his nose. "Do you seriously want your oath back?" she said. "That whole 'my— lordship-shall-be-between-you-and-the-Shadow-while-in-my-service' busi-ness?" Lorn glared up at her, fierce eyes going fiercer. 'Wo/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. "Good night, Lorn," Segnbora said, and went back to her bedroll. She was careful not to smile until her back was turned. Sunspark pulled itself back down into the firepit, and 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 fall-ing asleep, and the physical sensations of those asleep already — breathing, the slide of muscles, muted pulse-thunder. It 5 a gift, she told herself for the thousandth time. Truth,however, reared its head. It was a nuisance. If her Fire was focused, as Herewiss's was, she wouldn't be having this prob-lem. . If. She exhaled sharply at her useless obsession with what she couldn't have. It wasn't focused. It would never be. She had given up. Other things had become more important now. Oaths, for example. .It had been 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, and regarded him. Eventually thethought 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 embarrass-ment. (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, driven to the brink of panic, unable to do even the smallest sorcery. Hands upheld, shak-ing all over, she cowered before the advancing, screaming horrors and made blinding light — a byproduct of her blocked Fire — until even that guttered out and left her exhausted.Segnbora bit the inside of her cheek, annoyed even though Herewiss had been compassionate afterward.(What we're facing,) he said with gentle sarcasm, (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?)(I plan to win,) she said. (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 Aim about this—) A quick thought, a flicker of the shape of an arrowhead, passed between them. (I hope you won't either.) (Of course not.)He straightened, laid Khavrinen 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 human-kind, the Power that founded the world, that the Shadow had lost and caused men to lose.And there's nothing It haf rs more, Segnbora thought to herself. Though love probably comes close. She closed her eyes to the light of Herewiss*s hands, shud-dered, 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 wQimyn gretest of Fire att 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 talk's heart; and all dyed there, that Fyre might bee spared from the Danrk for those to comm after. Therefore it ys called Morrow-fane,(Of the Dayes of Travaile, ms. xix, in rr'Virendir, Prydon)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 expanses 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 dapplegray, Gyrfalcon. The Hold unnerved her too. The Old People from whom the humans of the Middle Kingdoms were 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 had more legs than humans; more rooms inside the inner buildings than their outer walls could possi-bly contain.And worst of all, or best, the place was full of doors— entrances into other worlds. Likewise, there were entrances 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 shuddered. "You sure you can pull this off?" Freelorn was saying nerv-ously to Herewiss."Mmmph," Herewiss said. He was standing with Khavrinen 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 Khavrinen, 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 pose 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 traveller among worlds before love had bound it to Herewiss's service. (Those doors are com-plex; it would have taken quite a while to figure them out. Don't complain.) "I'm not."Segnbora felt like laughing, but restrained herself. Sun-spark had done perhaps more than any of them to save 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 his motives to Lorn — and Freelorn, if he knew, was at best ambivalent about them.Herewiss was now scowling at the air he had been examin-ing, 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 leafabout 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. . Herewiss didn't move, but from where Khavrinen's point rested against the ground, a sudden runnel of blue Fire un-coiled like a snake and shot out across the sand. It put down swift roots to anchor itself, then leaped upward into the air. The atmosphere prickled with ruthlessly constrained Power as the line of blue light described a large doorway as tall as Herewiss and equally as wide. When the frame was complete the Fire ran back along its doorsill and reached upward again, this time branching out like ivy on an unseen trellis, filling the doorway with a network that steadily grew more complex. In a few breaths' time the door became one solid, pulsing panel of blue. Sweat stood on Herewiss's face. "Now," he said, still un-moving.The blue winked out, all but the outline. From beyond the door a wet-smelling wind struck out and smote them all in the face. Lake Rilthor, their destination, lay in the lowlands, a thousand feet closer to sea level than the Waste. Through the door Segnbora saw green grass, and a soft rolling meadow leading down toward a silver-hazed lake, within which a hill was half-hidden. "Go on," Herewiss said, and his voice sounded strained. "Don't take all day."They led their horses through as quickly as they could, though not as quickly as they wanted to, for without exception the horses tried to put their heads down to graze as soon as they passed the doorway, and had to be pulled onward to let the others through. At last Segnbora was able to pull through the reluctant Steelsheen. She was followed closely by Here-wiss and Sunspark, behind whom the door winked out with a very audible slam of sealed-in air.Segnbora turned to compliment Herewiss and found him half-collapsed over Sunspark's back, with Freelorn support-ing him anxiously fromTHE DOOR INTO SHADOWone side. He looked like a man whohad just run a race; his breath went in and out in great racking gasps, and his face was nearly gray. "I thought there would be no more backlash once you got your Fire!" Freelorn said.Herewiss rolled his head from side to side on the saddle, unable for several moments to find enough breath with which to reply. "Different," he said, "different problem," and began to cough.Freelorn pounded his back ineffectually while Segnbora and the others looked on.When the coughing subsided, Herewiss rested his head on the saddle again, still gasping, " — open too wide," he said. "What? The gate?" "No. Me."Confused, Freelorn looked at Segnbora. "Do you know what he's talking about?"She nodded. '*In a worldgating, the gate isn't really the physical shape you see. The gate is in your mind — the 'door' shape is just a physical expression of it. When you open a gate, you're actually throwing your soul wide open. Anything can get. out. And anything can get in. It's not pleasant.""*I can't hear anything,'1 ' Dritt muttered, wondering what all the discussion was about."Swallow,"Herewiss said. "Your ears'11 pop." At last, his strength returning, he looked around with satisfaction. "You're better than I am with distances, Lorn. How far from Lake Rilthor would you say we are?" Freelorn shaded his eyes, looking first at the Sun to orient himself. "It's lower—""Of course. We're sixty leagues west." Freelorn looked southwest toward the lake, and to the mist-girdled peak rising from its waters. "Four miles, I'd say." "That's about what I wanted,"Herewiss said, pleased. "Not bad for a first gating."'"It's so quiet," Harald said,, looking around suspiciously. "It's a holy place/" said Moris, unruffled and matter-of-fact as always.Segnbora looked around at the silent green country, agree-ing, opening out her undersemes to the affect of this place.Like most fanes or groves or great altars, Morrowfane had a feeling as if Someone was watching — Someone who would only speak using the heart's own voice. Yet the feeling was less personified, more awesome, than any she had ex-perienced before. Above everything hung a waiting silence like the one when the hawk sails high and no bird sings. Below the silence was a slow, steady throbbing of incalculable power, as if the world's heart beat nearby. A ruthless benevo-lence slept at the center of Lake Rilthor, she sensed, and slept lightly. It was no wonder that there wasn't a town or a farm or even a sheepfold for miles around.— It was not a smell, or a feeling, or a vision precisely, that started to creep up on her. Segnbora stood up straight, glanc-ing around at the others. None of them sensed what she had. Herewiss and Freelorn were leaning against Lorn's dun, Blackmane, together, speaking quietly; Moris and Dritt had walked off a little way to look southwest at the Fane; Lang was rubbing down the perpetually sweaty Gyrfalcon; Harald was seeing to yellow-coated Swallow's cinches. Sunspark had dis-appeared on some mysterious errand of its own. She turned and looked east, her hand unconsciously drop-ping to Charriselm's hilt. There it was again, another flash of sight — vague and odd, focus bizarrely rounded, colors all awry. And smell too, acrid, terrible, enraging. That's familiar, I know that — Then the memory found her: that one time in the Precincts when the novices, carefully supervised, were al-lowed to shapechange and feel what a beast's body was like.
"Herewiss!" she said, turning to him in alarm. He put his head up to the wind, gazing eastward as she had, but saw nothing. "You just did a wreaking," she said. "You may still be overloaded. Taste it!"
The fear in her voice brought unease to his eyes. He closed them and reached out his undersenses. She did too, standing swaying in the long grass, and caught the impression again, stronger this time. Now there was something even more un-nerving added to the flash of skewed viewpoint: thought, stunted and twisted and bizarre, but thought. And it was all of hate.
The mind she touched bounded above the whipping grass for a moment. It saw forms on the horizon, the source of a maddening stench.
She heard a cough, opened her eyes to see Herewiss chok-ing briefly. His empathy must have been more profound than hers, for the
remembered shape of the runner's throat was not letting his words out."Fyrd!" he managed to croak, and pushed away from Black-mane, unsheathing Khavrinen hurriedly.The word took Segnbora by surprise. "But that was think-ing! Fyrd are Shadow-twisted, but they're just of dumb animal stock. They don't think!" She let the rest of her protest drop then. There was no mistaking what she had felt."My move was anticipated," Herewiss said bitterly. He swung Khavrinen sideways, whipping a great brilliance of Fire angrily down the blade. "It's a step ahead of me — and mock-ing me, too."Segnbora understood. At Bluepeak, long ago, the Shadow had driven down that first terrible breed of thinking Fyrd into the Kingdoms. Far more dangerous than the noxious things It had twisted out of the beasts of ancient days, these Fyrd had the cunning of warriors. It had taken the Transformation, in which Earn and Healhra burned away their very forms and their mortality, to exterminate that breed. And now, for Here-wiss, here they were again—Steel scraped out of sheaths all around as movement be-came visible in the high grass to the east. Segnbora's under-senses brought her more and more clearly the experience of their hungry rage. They knew their quarry was human, and they hated them. They had come to murder."Dammit," Herewiss muttered, "Sunspark, where are you when I need you?!" But no answering thought came, and Herewiss hefted Khavrinen grimly. Only two days forged, and already the sword would be tasting blood.There was little time to prepare. One moment the dark backs were jolting through the tall grass and the next, with a wave of grunts and screeches, the Fyrd were upon them. Segnbora found herself holding her blade too high to guard against a maw that was suddenly springing at her throat. Shethrew herself sideways. Jaws went mick! above her, in the air where she had been. She hit the ground, rolled, found her footing and sprang up again. The maw hit the turf where she had been. For a moment it tore the ground with teeth and talons, its hunched back to her. That was all she needed. Chosing her spot she swung Charriselm up, sliced through thick flesh to the shock of bone. The maw writhed and screamed once, as its half-severed head flopped into the grass. She paid it no more heed, simply whipped the blood off Charriselm and swung around to find another foe. There were certain to be plenty—— More maws, five or six of them, broad and round with piggish, wicked eyes; several keplian, horse-looking things with carnivores' teeth and three razory toes on each forefoot; other shapes less identifiable. The standard Fyrd varieties had been twisted further away from the animals they had anciently been. She forgot about specifics and dove away from the spring of one maw, took another one across the chest with a two-handed stroke and was knocked down by its momentum. Move, move, as long as you 're moving you 're safe! she remembered her old sword-instructor Shihan shouting at her.
Off to her left she heard Steelsheen scream in defiance and crash into a Fyrd, followed by the flat brittle sound of a skull being crushed by hooves. At the same time she got a pinwheeling glimpse of Khavrinen, Herewiss's sword, being jerked up after a downstroke. Then a half-seen form came at her low and sideways — she chopped at it, a poorly aimed blow that slid off hard smooth plates. Hissing, the nadder's gigantic serpent-head rose up before her, then struck; she danced desperately aside and chopped off the head at the neck.
Segnbora turned away and looked around. Khavrinen was striking downward again, and as it struck both Herewiss and the keplian he had killed moaned aloud. The Fire wavering about those parts of the blade not yet obscured illuminated Herewiss's face. Crying? Segnbora thought, surprised, but not too much so. Khavrinen was more of a symbol than a weapon. Herewiss was no killer— Steelsheen trampled another maw, and Moris nailed the
last one to the ground with a two-handed straight-down thrust. Finally everyone was standing still, panting, sagging, wiping blood out of their eyes.
"More coming!" Segnbora said, groaning aloud at the feel-ing of yet another of those hot, hating minds heading their way.
She looked northward. It was a hundred yards away, and it showed much more of itself above the grass than had the other Fyrd.
Segnbora's heart constricted in terror as she recognized it. She had never seen one of these, but if the stories of the creatures* endurance
were true, this one could afford to take its time."Oh Goddess," whispered Freelorn from beside her. "A deathjaw!""With the Fire,"Herewiss said between gasps, "possibly — " He lifted Khavrinen again, but there was. no great hope in the gesture. Deathjaws were so fearsome that there was only one way to successfully hunt them: stake out a human being as bait, and hide a Rodmistress close by to do a brainburn when the thing got close enough. We've got plenty of bait, but he doesn't know the protocol for a brainburn. If he did, he would be doing it. The shambling form came closer. "Run for it," Herewiss said, sounding very calm. Everyone hesitated. "I mean it'!"'Lang turned, and Moris, and Harald, but they were slow about retreating. Freelorn didn't move from beside Herewiss. "Lorn — ""Big, isn't it," Freelorn said. His eyes were wide with fear, but his voice was as steady as if he was discussing a draft horse. '"'Shut up. Dusty," Freelorn said. "Do whatever you're going to do to that thing. I'll watch your back."Segnbora stepped up behind them as they set themselves. "I don't know how to burn it," Herewiss said to her. "The eye, though, that's possible — "— Pul a langsword into that little eye, and hope to hit the brain?
Segnbora thought, and didn't laugh at the idea. The deathjaw was close — shaggy-coated, brindled, the size of three Dar-thene lions. Shiny black talons gleamed on its great catlike paws. The deathjaw opened its mouth just a little, showing two of its three lines of fangs above and below. Then it began to run, its face wrinkling into a horrible mask.
Herewiss swung Khavrinen up vrith elbows locked and let it charge — his only option, for running was as hopeless as a slash-and-cut duel would be. The blade into the eye, she heard him thinking, and Fire down the blade, enough to blast the brain dead. He never used his plan. While still twenty feet away the deathjaw screamed horribly as fire suddenly bloomed about it, eating inward through flesh and muscle and sinew quick as a gasp. The still-moving skeleton burned incandescent for a moment more before the swirling flames blasted bone to powder, then ate that too. The deathjaw was gone before its death shrieks died.
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And Sunspark appeared — a brief bright coalescence like a meteor changing its mind in mide*plosion — and paced casu-ally over to the three. It was exuding a feeling of great pleas-ure, its mane and tail burning merrily as holiday bonfires. (You called for me?) it said to Herewiss, who was breathing hard now with delayed terror.
"I believe I did,"he said. Sunspark looked at Freelorn with an expression of good-natured wickedness and said nothing. "Thank you," Freelorn said, courteous enough; but there was a touch of grudge in his voice. Sunspark snorted. (Gratitude! Next time I'll choose my moment with more care … a little later.) "Choose the moment—!" (So that you'll appreciate me.) "You mean you watched those things attack us and you didn't—!"
"Lorn, enough," Herewiss said. "It doesn't think the way you do. Luckily for us. Loved," he said to the elemental, "did you notice any other wildlife in these parts while you were having breakfast?"
(Singers,) it said, looking to the northwest. (The ones with fur.)"Wolves? Perfect." Herewiss glanced down at Khavrinen, which blazed just long enough to burn the blood off itself. "We won't be climbing the Fane until sunset, since a Sum-moning there works best at twilight. But damned if I'm going to put up with any more Fyrd, in the meantime. I'll go have a word with the wolves and see if I can work something out. Now, how do I manage this—" He frowned, closed his eyes. Fire swirled outward from Khavrinen, hiding both sword and wielder. The pillar of bril-liance shrank as it swirled, and sank close to the ground. When the blue Flame died away it left behind a handsome cream-white wolf with orange-brown points and downturned blue eyes.(Not bad,) Sunspark remarked, (for a beginner.) (Hmp!) Herewiss said, grinning a wolf-grin. (Stay close till I get back, loved, just in case the Fyrd try again. I won't be long.)The wolf bounded away through the long grass. Watching him go, Segnbora dug down in her belt-pouch for a square of soft paper, with which she began cleaning off Charriselm's blade. When she had finished, she looked thoughtfully at the Fane. It seemed to gaze back, calm and blind and patient, waiting for something. Fyrd so close to this place — that's unheard of. All ike rate are changing. After this nothing is going to be the way it was.. Not even me, She shook her head uneasily, not entirely understanding the thought,"You going to stand there all day?" someone shouted at her. Freelorn and the others were in the saddle, getting ready to ride down to the Fane. Segnbora swung up into Steel-sheen's saddle and went, after them,She sat underneath an old rowan tree near the lakeshore, her 'back, against its trunk,, and watched the long shadows of men, horses, and trees drown in slow dusk. The Fane, a half mile away across Rilthor's water, shone golden as a legend where its heights still caught the sunset. The mirroring waterlay still in the breathless evening, ihe mountain's burning image broken only by the wakes of the gray songswans glidingby. Truly it's not so impressive, she thought, stretching. The Fane's mountain was a little one, no more than a half mile wide at the base, broad atthe bottom and flat at the top, stippled roughly with brush and scrub pine.But for all the seeming plainness of the landscape, their camp that day had been abnormally quiet. Freelorn had been pacing and frowning most of the afternoon. Herewiss had come back from his parley with the wolves, reporting success— and a sore throat from much howling. Now he sat under an alder with Khavrinen flaming in his lap, meditating; for hours he hadn't moved, gazing across at the Fane with an expression that was half wonder and half fear. Harald and Moris had been keeping so close to one another that one might have thought they had been lovers for only a week or so, rather than several years. Dritt and Lang had become almost obsessive about caring for their horses, and the otherwise fearless Lang had been looking over his shoulder a great deal. Even Sunspark, while in its horse-shape, had been cribbing quietly at an elm tree, leaving small scorched places bitten out of the bark.
She laughed at herself then, a mere breath of merriment. And me. All this time on the trail, all this time I've been a hunted woman — look what kind of watch I'm keeping. My back turned to open country, where Goddess knows what could be coming up from behind — and me sitting here staring at this silly kill as if it's going to jump out of the water and come after me! Yet that silent benevolence kept watching her, kept waiting.
She shivered with expectation. Practically at the same mo-ment, a clear melodious sound like the night Ending its voice rose up in the distance — then was joined in the long note by another voice wavering downward a third, and yet another, higher by a fourth. The unsettling harmony sent a delighted shiver down her spine. The wolves were on post as their rearguard, singing to while away the watch. The Goddess's dogs, she thought, the old affectionate name for them — votaries who sang to Her mirror, the Moon, through all its phases, silent only when She was dark and dangerous. Where is the Moon tonight, Segnbora wondered,
glancing upward. It had not yet risen. But she was distracted, as always, with the sight of the first few stars pointing through the twilight, and the memory they always recalled. How old was I? she wondered, but wondering was vain. Very small, she had been — small enough to still be wearing a shift instead of a kilt, but large enough to push open the front door of the old house at Asfahaeg and escape at bedtime. She had gone out into the dark, unsure just what she was looking for, then had glanced up and found something, a marvel. Not just sunset, or dusk, or dark, but a sky burning with lights, every one solitary and glorious; and she knew, small as she was, that somehow or other she and those lights were intimately connected.
Now she knew them as stars, knew their names, knew about the Dragons that had come from among them, and about the Goddess Who had made them. But the wonder had never left Segnbora: that desire to get closer to those lights that called her — and, eventually, closer to the One Who had made the stars. When the Rodmistresses tested her at the age of three and found the Fire, she had been overjoyed. Everybody knew that when you had the Flame, you often got to talk to Her.
But years of study had failed her; school after school had been unable to provide her with a focus strong enough to channel the huge outflow of her Power — and so there had been no breakthrough, and no truedreams in which She walked. After much bitter time she had admitted the truth to herself, that she was one of those who was never going to focus. She might as well give up sorcery and lore and Flame and all the other timewasting for something useful, as her father had always said.
So it was that she had met the Goddess at. last. She was good with Charriselm; she went looking for a job as a guard in a little Steldene town called Madeil — and found Freelorn in the mucky alley behind a tavern. Later, fleeing from an old keep in which the aroused Steldenes had laid siege to them, the group had come across a little fieldstone inn on the border between Steldin and the Waste. It was strange that there should, have been an inn out there at the very edge of human habitation, but the innkeeper had put them all at ease. Find
ing that they were short of money, she offered to share herself with one of them to settle the scot. A common enough ar-rangement, and
Segnbora had won the draw for the privilege. It had been a sweet evening. The innkeeper had been fair, but there was more to her beauty than that. A long while they sat together by the window of Segnbora's little room, she and a white-shifted shadow veiled in hair like the night, talking and breathing the apple-blossom scent while the full Moon went softly up the sky. The talk drifted gradually to matters that Segnbora usually kept deeply hidden — old joys, old pains
— while the brown-and-beige-banded pottery cup went back and forth between them, filled with a wine like summer wind running sweet under starlight.
I'm talking a great deal, Segnbora had thought, not so much frightened by the intimacy as bemused. The wine— But the wine was not intoxicating her; she was seeing and feeling, if anything, more clearly than usual. Shivering with delight at the feeling of magic in the air, she drank deep of the cup, deeply enough to drain it… and found it still three-quarters full. Two hours we've been drinking from this cup, she realized, and she only Jilled it once.
She looked across at the other, then, and realized Who had come to share Herself with her, as She conies to every man and woman bom, once before they die. Not Mother now, as she had been at dinner, feeding them all and gossiping about the Kingdoms, but the aspect of the Goddess she loved best
— Maiden about to be Bride, Creatress about to create some-thing as beautiful as the multitude of stars. Back and forth a few more times that cup went, while Segnbora drank deep of building joy and anticipation, and named the Other's name, and saw her joy reflected a hundredfold, a thousandfold, in-calculably.
Then she went to bed. And was joined by warmth that enfolded, and lips that spoke her name as if she was the only thing in creation. She was intensely loved; and was given to drink of that other cup that briins ovei forever, the endless source. She drowned, eternally it seemed, in the deep slow bliss of her own deity, and the Other's. .
The bark against her back was hard as she blinked, glanced down from the sky. Oh, again, she thought, someday again. Though the odds of that were slight. Once in a lifetime in that manner, one might expect the Goddess. Otherwise,
only at birth did one see Her, in one's own mother — quickly forgotten, that sight — and at death, when the Silent Mother, the Winnower, came to open the last Door.
She glanced across the lake, at the Fane standing silent, watching her, surrounded by the constellations of early sum-mer. He'll be ready soon, she thought. Somewhere to northward the wolves began singing again.
Someone came lurching along toward her in the darkness, walking loud and heavy as usual. Oh, Lady, not now, she thought with affectionate annoyance, as Lang plopped down next to her. "Are we waiting for Moonrise?" he said.
He smelled of unwashed horse and unwashed self, and Segnbora wrinkled her nose in the dark — then wrinkled it more, at herself, for she had no call to be throwing stones on that account.
"Just full nightfall," she said. "I guess the theory is, if you're crazy enough to climb the Fane, then exercise your madness in the dark, as the Maiden did. 'Out of darkness, light; out of madness, wisdom—' "
Larig nodded. "How crazy are you?"' His tone was very uneasy. Her stomach knotted, hearing in his words a reflection of the nervousness she had been trying to ignore. Worse, she didn't feel like talking. Segnbora wished for the thousandth time that Lang weren't thought-deaf.
She plucked a blade of grass from beside her and began running it back and forth between her fingers. "I think I told you about my family, a little,''* she said.
She could feel his confusion, typical of him when she chose to come at a question sideways. Lang rarely understood any approach but the head— on kind. "Tai-Enraesi," he said. "Enra was a 'Queen's sister of Darthen, wasn't she?"
Segnbora nodded. *Tm related to a lot of people who've been up that hill. Beorgan, and Beaneth, the doomed Queens. Raela Way-Opener. Efhiaer d'Seldun. Gereth Drag-onheart. . " She trailed off. Then, after a while, "To be where they were., I don't know how I can pass the Fane by—"""
Lang slouched further down against the tree, his face calm,but his heart shouting, Yes, and look what happened to them! Beorgan and Beaneth dead of the Shadow or of sorrow, Raela gone off through some door and never heard of again, Efmaer dead in the mountains or worse in Glasscastle—Segnbora twitched uneasily, resettling her back against the rowan's trunk. She heartily wished there was something else to try, but over twenty years she had exhausted the talents of instructors all over the Kingdoms. "I thought I might talk you out of it," Lang said, very low. "I like you the way you are." The words came a breath too late. She had chosen. "I don't," she said. "But if you go up there there's no telling what'll happen to you—" "I know. That's the idea!" Lang pulled back, pained."Look," she said. "Twenty years of training, and I'm Fire-trained without Fire, Fin a sorcerer who doesn't care for sorcery and a trained bard who's too depressed to tell stories. It's time to be something else. Anything."4 'But, Berend—"The use of the old nickname, which Eftgan had coined so long ago, poked her in a suddenly sensitive spot. She laid her hand on Lang's, startling him out of his frightened annoy-ance. "You remember the first time we met? You tried to talk me out of joining up with Lorn, remember?""Stubborn,"Lang muttered, "you were stubborn. I couldn't stand you." She glanced at him humorously. "Maybe change isn't such a bad thing, then?"They traded gentle looks through the dark, and he squeezed her hand. "Care to share afterwards? If you haven't turned into a giant toadstool or some such, of course."Her heart turned over inside her. When Lang made such offers, there was always more love in his voice than she could answer with, and the inequity troubled her. It had been a long time since her ability to share had been rooted in anything deeper than friendship. "Yes," she said, hoping desperately he would be able to lighten up a little. "Youdisturb me, though. You have a prejudice against toad-stools? …" Lang chuckled."You two ready?" said another voice, and they both looked up, Herewiss was standing beside them with Khavrinen sheathed and slungover his shoulder. Freelorn was with him, arms folded and looking nervous."What do you mean 'you two'?" Lang said. "I prefer to die in bed, thanks."Segnbora squeezed his hand back and got up, brushing herself off. "You found the raft, I take it."THE DOOR INTO SHADOW"It was hidden in the reeds," Freelorn said. "In fact, the reeds were growing through it in places. Evidently not many people come this way." "Just the three of us are climbing, then." Herewiss said. "Still, it's probably better that we all go across — in case any Fyrd get by our rearguard."Lang nodded and got up, and the four of them went off to join the others by the lakeshore. Dritt and Harald and Moris were standing at a respectable distance from the raft, for Sunspark was inspecting it suspiciously.(You really want me to get on this thing?) it said to Here-wiss as he came up. (That water's deep, If I fell in there—) It shuddered, at the thought."So fly over," Herewiss said, stepping onto the raft from the bank.Sunspark gazed across at the Fane, its mane and tail burn-ing low. (There's a Power there, and in the water,) it said. (I'm not sure I want to attract Its attention. . ) "Then come on."ThreeThe Goddess's courtesy is a terrible thing. To the mortal asker She will give what is asked for, without stinting, without fail. Nor will She stop giving until the gift's reciptent, like the gift, becomes perfect. Let the asker beware. ..(Charesttcs, 45)35THE DOOR INTO SHADOWThey all climbed onto the raft. Sunspark came last, picking its way onto the mossy planks with the exaggerated delicacy of a cat. But it stood quite still in the midst of them as Herewiss and Freelorn poled the raft. No one broke the silence. On the water the feeling of being watched was stronger than ever.The raft grounded, scraping and crunching on a rough beach of pale pebbles, Herewiss stepped off, Freelorn behind him, and each of the others in turn. Everyone winced at the sound of their footsteps. Segnbora, second-to-last off, thought she had never heard anything so loud as her light step on the gravel. Sunspark, behind her, got off and made no sound at all. It was carefully walking a handspan above the ground.They were not only watched, they were felt. There was no mistaking it. There was no threat in the sensation; the regard running through them was patient, passive. But whatever fueled it was immeasurably old, and huge. The others looked at one another wondering, as the Power reached up into them, and found old companions suddenly strange.Segnbora, feeling what they felt, understood the sensation as most of her companions couldn't. The Fire within her, that had dwindled over the years and was now nearly dead because of her lack of focus, was suddenly leaping up as wildly in her as if a wind had blown through her soul The Power pushed at her, urging her upward toward the mountain. At the same time it looked through her at the others, and looked through them at her, determining what changes, would be made—Oh Goddess, she thought, this is what I'm needed. 'There' was no mistaking the Source of what stirred here, though thishalf-slumbering immensity of calling Flame was only the least tithe of Her Power. And I'm terrified—Herewiss and Freelorn were standing transfixed, keeping very close to each other. She could not see their faces, but Freelorn's arms were unwound from around Herewiss for the first time since the morning. Khavrinen in its back-sheath was blue-while with Fire. Its light shone through seams in the scabbard, and the hilt blazed like a torch. "There's the trail," Freelom said quietly, looking upward. "Til race you," Segnbora said, just as quietly. She slipped past them and started climbing.The trail wasn't too difficult. Part of it followed old gullies or slide-paths; part of it seemed to have been cut into the hillside, but only lightly, so that rockfall or deadwood fre-quently blocked the way. The hill was no more than five hun-dred feet high, but in the starlight it was hard to see where to put one's feet. Each of them fell and slid at least once. By the time they reached the flattened hilltop, they were all bruised, and breathing hard.But the gasping for breath didn't last. It was replaced al-most immediately by a sensation of being anchored, centered, secured past, any dislodging. Freelorn and. Herewiss stood as still as Segnbora, feeling their pulses become tranquil, their breath come more gently. The three of them, stood poised at the apex, of the world's Heart. The Universe swr ung around them, slow and silent, waiting. After a few moments Segnbora sank to one knee, bending to touch the gullied ground with one hand, the ground where Raela and Efmaer and Beorgan had stood. She could feel the Power, bound, waiting, alive. Her own.Fire strained downward to reach it, and, unfocused, could not. But that seemed unimportant as she knelt there, feeling the ages run through her. This place was more impor-tant than the needs of any one human being.Freelorn. turned to Herewiss, "Loved," he said, his voice uncertain, "'something's strange inside me—""Of course there is." Herewiss reached out to Freelorn and drew him close, not so much in compassion as in, exultation. "It's your Fire. You have a spark of it like everyone else; hereat the heart of Fire, how could you not feel it? The Fane is reaching up to you." "I thought so." Freelorn sounded almost in pain. "It wants me. But I don't know what to do." "Listen to what it has to say to you," Herewiss said. "Just feel it. Few enough people ever do."Herewiss let go of Freelorn with his right arm, then stretched slowly upward and felt behind him for Khavrinen's hilt. He drew the sword from the back-scabbard slowly, with relish and ease and much tenderness, as he might have drawn himself from his loved after passion spent. The sword swept effortlessly over his head and downward before him, Fire trailing behind the blade. Even now, before the wreak-ing had begun, the Flame was too bright to look at direct-ly."So much," Lorn said, soft-voiced, blinking and tearing in the light. "You can do anything now. …""Yes. For the moment." Herewiss laughed gently at Free-lorn's puzzled look. "Lorn, how did you think 1 was able to destroy those hralcins? Under normal circumstances twenty Rodmistresses, fifty, couldn't have done it. I was in 'break-through,' as they call it in the Precincts, and I will be for maybe another tenday or so. After that the Power begins to drop to more normal levels. That's surely why She wants me to hurry."He gazed down at the Flame-flowing sword in his hand. "I'll give back some of what was given to me," he said, resting Khavrinen's point on the ground. The Flame about the blade burned brighter, lighting the hilltop more brilliantly with every breath he took, "It's going to cost me, Lorn. But it will be worth it."His words failed him, then, but his Fire did not. The light was becoming like an otherworldly Sun now, a blaze of deter-mination and joy that dazzled the mind as much as it did the eyes, transfiguring what it touched.Segnbora had a brief vision through the brilliance of a young god raising His arms, offering His loved, across His two hands, the thunderbolt He wielded… In.her vision the other, blasted by the overpowering magnificence into anothershape, yet somehow still unchanged, reached out hands to lay them, fearless, in the Fire—For long seconds Segnbora did not move, could not. Once not too long ago, when Herewiss had been away and Lorn had seemed to need consoling, she had entered a little way into the relationship between these two — sharing her-self with Lorn, offering her friendship. At the time she had thought her motives benevolent enough. But recent events had made her suspect that, in fact, she had been the one in need of consoling. Now, by this light, in which any untruth withered and fell away, she clearly saw the shape of her own loneliness and sorrow. Likewise she saw the essential twoness of Herewiss and Freelorn — something even Sunspark had perceived more clearly than she did. No more interference, she thought. There was no sadness about it. The decision came almost triumphantly, with a feeling of celebration and re-lease.This was Herewiss's moment, and Lorn's, not hers. Un-steadily — for the forces being freed on the hilltop had made her a bit lightheaded — Segnbora turned her back on the ferocious glory raging there. By the time one of the Lovers began speaking Nhaired in invocation—"Ae, hn'Hldfede, irun-taje Lai—'"'she was descending from the hilltop, sliding and stumbling down the path. Dear Goddess, Segnbora thought as she reached the end of the steepest part of the path. The first wreaking he tries is the Naming of Names? I wish I had his faith. Ifsonu dark power should slip close enough to hear—The possibility so unnerved her that Segnbora lost her balance. She had to grab at brush to catch herself. An inner Name was a powerful commodity even after its owner's death, useful to lend power to various spells and wreakings. The Names of great Rodmistresses, for instance, were passed down through, generations. In Segnbora's own family, Queen Efmaer's ancient Name was. preserved, though the Queen herself was long lost.Segnbora exhaled in sudden arn.usem.ent at the notion that someday sorcerers and Rodmistresses. would probably pay great treasures for the true Name of one Herewiss — a slimdark young man with a tendency toward creative swearing in dead languages—The path went right out from under her. It was not her own clumsiness this time, but the Morrowfane itself trem-bling under her feet. Segnbora looked up. The blaze on the hilltop, hidden till now by the bulk of the hill, was hidden no longer. A narrow, sword-shaped core ofblue-white Fire swung up into view, and then a light of impossible brilliance broke the night open from end to end. Like lightning burn-ing in steel, it turned the dark into sudden day and extin-guished the stars. The Fane shook to its roots as outpoured Firelight smote into everything, illuminating every leaf and tree trunk and stone with fierce clarity. On the surface of the shivering lake, the light shattered into countless knives and splinters of dazzle.Blinded, Segnbora turned away and rubbed her eyes. When they saw clearly again, she started once more down the trail. She had no trouble finding her way; the Fane was lit like midrnorning. At one point she paused for breath, looked around, and saw something she had missed in the dimness on the way up — a huge crevasse or cavern around on the south-ern face of the hillside, an opening into darkness that even Herwiss's Fire didn't illumine. How about that The World's Heart has a secret in it—Above her Herewiss's Flame dimmed and faded, leaving her looking at where the cave entrance had been. He's taking a rest, I suppose. I bet I could have a closer look at that before he starts shaking things again— Once piqued, Segnbora's curios-ity would never give her peace until it was satisfied, and she knew it so she gave in. Scrabbling up off the trail, she used scrubby bushes and trees to climb toward the area she had seen. It took, a few minutes to climb up a ravine that ran down between, two folds, but finally the cave opening loomed huge before her, dark as uncertainty. There Segn-bora halted, uneasy. Her undersenses were still blunted from, the onslaught of Power and. joy at the top of the hill, but not so much so that she couldn't catch an odd mental flavor that grew stronger the closer she came to the cave-mouth. Something hot. Metal? Slow? She drew Charriselm with a whisper of steel that suddenlysounded very loud indeed. Very carefully she stepped over and around the boulders that lay about the great cave en-trance, and slipped a few feet inside where she paused to listen again.Nothing. I must have been imagining that feeling. Cautiously, keeping her left hand against the cave wall, she took another step in. The faint crunch of her footstep echoed away into the dark. She took another step. This one echoed too. The place was huge, filling most of the mountain from the sound of it. Another—A voice spoke, and Segnbora froze, clenching Charriselm. Her heart pounded. For a moment she thought the cave was about to fall in on her. The voice was huge, and incredibly deep. It thundered, rumbling, shaking the air; yet there was music in it, a slow and terrible song of pain. Hair stood up all over Segnbora. She could make nothing of the words the voice seemed to be speaking. At the end of the sentence, the silence that fell was waiting for her answer.She swallowed hard. "I don't know that language," she said, her1 voice.sounding amazingly small despite all the echoes it awoke. "Do you. speak, Arlene or Darthene?"There was a long pause; then the voice spoke once more. It, used Darthene, but the timbre was that of a storm on the Sea. "You were a long time corning," it said. "But you're thrice welcome nevertheless.Segnbora leaned against, the wall of the cave, bewildered. Her eyes were getting used to the darkness, and in, the faint starlight from the doorway she could make out a, great lumpy mass lying on the floor of the cave before her. The hot stone smell she had noticed before was coming from it, though there was little actual warmth in the place. "I don't under-stand," she said. "What are you?""""Lkhw'ae," the voice said, a rumbling growl and, a sigh. Segnbora gripped Charriselm even tighter, for that word of the strange language she did understand. A Dragon— The voice' began to speak again, and was suddenly choked off. Rocks cracked, and rattled, about in the cave, rolling, shat-tering, The Dragon had abruptly started thrashing around. Segnbora leaped, for the doorway, as afraid of being attacked as of a cave-in; but after a, few moments the uncontrolledmotion subsided and the immense half-seen bulk of the Dra-gon lay quiet again. She stared at it fearfully."I am about to lose this body," the Dragon said, an an-guished-sounding melody winding about the words. "That is the cause of my seizures.""You're dying?" Segnbora said, and then had to grab for balance once more as another convulsion threw rocks in all directions. When the Dragon had settled again, she saw that it was looking at her from great round eyes, each of which was at least four feet across, globed and pupilless. Segnbora shud-dered as she realized how big the rest of the beast must be, and was glad she couldn't see it. "Going rdaheih." The Dragon whispered the word, but even its whisper sounded like a thunderstorm. "My time came upon me." The pain in its voice confused Segnbora. No one but Marchwarders — the humans who lived with Dragons in their high places — knew much about Dragons, but the one thing everybody said about them was that they never died. Even more confusing was the undercurrent of joy that ran under the Dragon's pain, growing stronger by the moment. "No matter." it said. "You are here. At last, what was, is—" The words had an ominous sound to them. For an instant she considered running away, but did not. She had been curi-ous about Dragons ever since the first and only time she had seen one, at the age of seven, soaring over the blue Darthene Gulf. Now that old curiosity was raging, and it overcame her fear.Slowly Segnbora sheathed Charriselm, then began to pick her way toward the Dragon's head among the fallen stones, watching carefully in case another seizure should occur. Lying flat on the rubble, the head from lower jaw to upper faceplate was twice her height. Above it, the spine in which the shield-ing faceplate terminated speared up into the gloom for an-other ten or fifteen feet. Segnbora reached out gingerly and touched the edge of the plate between nose and eyes, It was hard and rough as stone, and warm.. The eye on that side regarded her steadily, but she couldn't read its expression. It looked dimmer than it had.—"Are you sure you're not just ill?" Segnbora said. "T know my time," said the Dragon. "I welcome it. I always have."She shook her head. With her hands on the Dragon, she could feel its wear)' sorrow as if it were her own — but also that perplexing joy, both sober and expectant at once."Is there anything I can do for you?" she said. The Dragon's eyes flared brighter, and a tremor ran up and down its body. "Arke-sta rdakeh q'ae hfyn 'tsa!" the Dragon whis-pered in a great rush of fulfillment, as if its last fear had been lifted from it. "If you truly ask/' it said in Darthene, "don't let me — die — uncompanioned. *' Segnbora shivered, having misgivings. Again she consid-ered running away, but only briefly. "I'll stay with you." "Yes," the Dragon said. The light of its eye ebbed again. "You always did."That was when the last, and worst, convulsion happened. Walls shook. Stone chips and splinters rained from the ceil-ing. The floor danced. There was nothing for Segnbora to grab for support but the Dragon's head. A brief feeling of hot stone—— and the next moment, her head burst open from the inside. Segnbora knew how it felt to share her mind with another consciousness, but this was nothing like her experi-ences in the Precincts; those decorous, sliding melds of one Rodmistress-novice with another, each always wary of dis-turbing the delicately balanced economy of the other's mind. This was like a boulder dropping into a bucket — a brutal invasion that smashed her against the borders of her self and threatened to.smother her.
Strangling, agonized, she flailed about inside for room to think. There was none. Her inner spaces, were crowded with otherness, a multitude of ruthless presences straining and seething in intolerable confinement — minds that beat at her, 'buffeting' her like wings; thoughts that gnawed at her like alien jaws; strange memories that stalked through, her past, promis-ing her a horrifying and incomprehensible future. The Dra-Igon's imminent death— AW Segnbora screamed. She pushed desperately away
without knowing for sure what she was pushing back from, but ready to do anything, even die, to avoid it. She fell and fell, yet the images followed her inexorably as a doom, becoming more and more real. / don 't want to remember! she screamed, but the words wouldn't even come out right. In-stead, a white-hot burning and a strange language took her by the throat, twisting the plea into a wracking curse: ste, taueh-sta 'ae mnek-kej, mnek—!
A roar of condemnation went up in he stifling, crowded darkness; the damp cold dirt rushed toward her face. Then mercifully the fall ended in a pain-colored flash that killed the presences, and the memories, and, Segnbora hoped, her too. .
"Are you going to kill meT" said the child to the Dragon."Kill your?" The Dragon smiled at him. "Certainly not until we have been introduced."fates for Opening Night, Nia d'ElethThe darkness tears wide, splitting as hewn skin does when the sword strikes.This is Etachne field, all one gloomy sodden mass of miser)' —lead-gray above with clouds that have been pouring rain for three days now, dun and black and red below with the scat-tered bodies of the slain. The stench is incredible. Those who fight do so with their faces wrapped, and fall as often to the sick miasma of the air as to Reaver arrows. Fyrd are harrying the fringes of the battlefield, devouring the dead. A few hun-dred feet away, a maw and a horwolf and a nadder are busily dismembering a fallen woman. Her surcoat was once Darthene midnight blue. Now it is mostly red-brown.THE DOOR INTO SHADOWShe gulps down sourness for the hundredth time and stares across the misty valley. Somewhere over there the Reavers have retreated into cover, regrouping for the next attack, There are only about a thousand of them left, but those are more than enough to break the Darthene defense at the other end of the valley and let them out into the open lands, Once that happens they'll begin pillaging at Etachne and leave the country burning behind them as far as Wend wen. Around her the Darthenes holding the gap are huddled, soaked through, hungry, outnumbered, waiting.The Rodmistress is dead, so they have no idea when rein-forcements may be coming. Segnbora is the only sorcerer left, and over the past few days her sorceries have been going progressively flatter — a starved sorcerer is good for very little. It was all she could do yesterday to stop the miserable rain for a little while; today her head still aches with the backlash. OA, food, she thinks. Just oatcakes and milk— She stops herself, does a brief mind-exercise to calm down.It doesn't work. Her partner Eftgan has been gone for three days now, ridden off for the reinforcements; and the Goddess only knows whether she lives or not, for there's a great silence where her mind used to be. Oh, Tegdne, loved, be all right, please— She winces away from the painful thought, opening her eyes on the Fyrd again. The sickness comes up in her throat as she sees them tugging at the limbs of the woman in Darthene blue. Then sickness turns to rage and she throws her sodden cloak off savagely and stands up in the rain, fists clenched."Ira maehsta in? aehsta," she whispers, as within, so without, and begins a bitter poem in Nhaired, shaping in her mind a construct. Anger— fueled sorcery is dangerous, she knows, but anger and terror are all she has left. Her desperation fuels the sorcery, scansion shapes its skeleton, meter sets the beast-shape, filling it out. Words link in sliding musculature, the hot pelt of intent furs it over, angry purpose glares like eyes beneath a shaggy mane of verse.Uncaring of the backlash to come, she grips the shape of words and wraps it round her like a cloak — then drops to all fours in the rain, and leaps roaring at the Fyrd— —and the darkness falls.(—they all do that, we've watched them do that since we first came. Yet while they feel for one member of their kind, they still do murder on others, Sttiuh-std annikh'S—) (We don't understand* it either. What about this one—)Here's the last rise before home, with the little rutted track that serves for road. Steelsheen quickens her pace a bit, sens-ing road's end. The air is full of the smell of salt: beach-grass hisses incessantly on either side of the track. She makes the top of the rise — and there it is, spread out blue and wrinkled, glittering and lovely, the Darthene Gulf. "The Sun is beginning to pierce through from a silver sky; the black beach glistens as the waves slide back; sandpipers dance daintily after them, poking for whelks in the bubbling crevices and tide pools. She looks across at the lonely stone manor-house built on the headland — Home! Steelsheen breaks into a canter, They 'II be so proud. My masterhas never before given live steel to anyone so young. And Tegdne has spoken for me to see if I can be in the royal household. To live in Darthisf in a town with walls f And Sheen, Father mil be so proud when he sees her. A real Steldene, a silverdust Steldene, and I broke her myself with all the tricks he taught me!She punches the inare into a gallop and rides into the demesne, under the old stone arch with the tai-Enraesi arms, lioncelle, passantTHE DOOR INTO SHADOWregardant, sword upraised in the dexter paw. Chickens scatter in all directions. Dogs scramble to their feet and bounce around her, barking, as she rides in to the dooryard with a great clatter of hooves. She dismounts. A yellow cat on the doorstep opens one eye at the noise, says a rude word and closes the eye again.Segnbora laughs as she pulls offSleelsheen's saddle, drops it on the ground, fends off various dogs with pats and scratches, and bends to chuck the rat under the chin. Three weeks she has been on the road from Darthis. Three weeks of lousy wea-ther, an attack by bandits and a case of the flux. One cat, how-ever grumpy, isn't going to spoil this splendid homecoming. "Mother, Father, I'm back!" she shouts, shoving open the front door and swaggering in.She walks through the little main hall with its benches and carvings and hangings and firepit. Secretly she's a little shocked by the shabbiness of the place; it never looked this run down before she went to the city, Her father's old com-plaints about failed crops and the sorry state of family finances suddenly begin to disturb her— "Mama?"No answer. She's in the kitchen, then. Through the hall and out into the big stone-paved kitchen and pantry. Her mother is just stepping in the far door with a string of onions from the buttery shed outside. Close behind is her father, who carries a newly dispatched chicken. "Hi!" she shouts.'" 'Rerend!" says her mother, and ""'Don't shout,'" says her father, both at once.She trots over, embraces them both in a huge hog, and pulls her sheathed sword out of her belt to show them. "Mama, look, I named it Gharri—""How is your Fire coming, dear?" her mother interrupts. Her father says nothing, waiting for the answer, holding him-self aloof. And suddenly it's all wrong. Don't they think if I had finally focused, I'd have come in here streaming blue Fire from every orifice? Why d&n*t they—"Mother," she says, "can't you ever ask me about some-thing else?"Her mother looks surprised. "What else is there?" she says; and, "Don't talk to your mother in that tone of voice," her father says. "I have to rub down my horse, excuse me." She bites the inside of her cheek hard to keep from saying anything else, and walks out the way she came— —and then darkness again.She staggers about, lost in the darkness of her self, and begins to tmderstand madness.(Stihe'h, stikeh-std annikh'S-!) rumbles the voice of storm again. It's joined by more voices, all intoning the same rushing phrase, a litany of incomprehension and curiosity. They won't go away. They bump and jostle her roughly when she stumbles into them in the dark, feeling for a way outThe p'lace where she walks is walled and domed and floored in adamant, built that way long ago to protect her inner verities. There her1 memories are stored. Some have been buried by accident, some she's seated in stone on purpose; many stand about smooth and polished from much 'handling,It's the buried ones that chiefiy interest her invaders. Stone means nothing to them, it 'being one. of their elements. Cruel claws slice down effortlessly. White fire bums and melts. Delicate talons turn over exposed thoughts — old joys like polished jewels, razory fragments of pain. (Khai" rae todwt? Sshir'stihe'-khai'?)(No, this moment's fairer far. Look.! hadn't thought they sang—) —it's quite dark, but she needs no light to know that the slab of marble is a handspan from her nose. The sound of her breathing is loudbeneath it, and the condensation from herbreath drips 'maddeningly onto her face'. The sarcophagus —shaped Testing Bath is full of icy water, and Segnbora, naked as a fish, is submerged in it up to her face. Her hands are bound to her sides. On her chest rests a ten-pound stone. Above her is the three-inch-thick lid of the Bath, open only at the end behind her head, just enough to let in air and Saris's voice.This is the final test of a loremistress-Bard, which will deter-m ine whether three years of training will desert her under extreme stress. There's no telling which of the Four Hundred Tales she'll be required to recite faultlessly tonight, or what song, or poem, or legend. When the lid is removed in the morning, she'll be expected to take up the kithara and extem-porize a poem in tragic-epic meter on the forging of F6rlennh BrokenBlade."Sunset to sunrise?" she had said to Eftgan this morning, be-fore the last of the orals. "I can do that, standing on my head." Now she's not so sure. She feels like she's been in this cold, wet tomb forever. She suspects it's more like two hours. "The Lost Queen's Ballad," Saris says from outside the Bath.Segnbora closes her eyes, hunting for the memory-tag she uses to remember that ballad, and finds it. She sings softly, in a minor key:"Oh, when Darthen's Queen went riding out of Barachael that day, she rode up the empty corrie and she sang a rondelay;and the three Lights shone upon her as on Skadhwe's bitter blade, and she fared on up that awful trail and little of it made;She stood laughing on the peak-snows with the new Moon in her hair, and she smiled and set. her foot upon, the Bridge that isn't There;She took the road right gladly to the Castle in the Sky, and Darthen's sorrel steed came back, but the Queen stayed there for aye. …"She lies there expecting to be asked for the rest of the history — the suicide of Queen Efmaer's loved, and her jour-ney up to Glasscastle, where suicides go, to get her inner Name back from him. But no, that would be too easy. "Jarrin's Debt," says Saris.Segnbora sighs. "As long ago as your last night's dreams, and as far away as tonight's," she begins, "the Battle of Blue-peak befell. …" — and the darkness in the Bath is suddenly the darkness inside her mind.Damn you! Damn you all to Darkness! Get out of here!— the courtyard is fairly large, but its size is no help; there's nowhere to hide from Shihan's sword, which is everywhere at once. She dances back and swings her wooden practice sword up in a desperate block — a mistake, for no conscious act can possibly counter one of Shihan's moves. He strikes the prac-tice sword aside with a single scornful sweep of Clothespole, then smacks her in the head with the flat in an elegant back-hand — a blow painful enough to let her know she's in dis-grace. Segnbora sits down hard with the shock of it,
saying hello to the hard paving of the practice yard for the millionth time.