The Door into Shadow (3 page)

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

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

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

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

She exhaled quietly. Her determination was set.

There has to be a way.

There has to.

You’re not going to get him…

***

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

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

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

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

(The scales are even, then.)

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

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

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

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

(I love him too,) she said.

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

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

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

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

Segnbora shook her head.

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

Book of Places of Power
, ch. 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“
I’m
not.”

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

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

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

Herewiss didn’t move, but from where Khávrinen’s point rested against the ground, a sudden runnel of blue Fire uncoiled 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 doorway as tall as Herewiss and twice 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 unmoving.

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 the reluctant Steelsheen through after the others. She was followed closely by Herewiss 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 supporting him anxiously from one side. He looked like a man who had just run a race; his breath went in and out in great racking gasps, and his face was going gray.

“
I thought there’d 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 to reply. “Different,” he said, “different problem,” and started 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 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 don’t know about you people, but I can hardly hear,” Dritt said rather loudly.

“
Swallow,” Herewiss said. “Your ears’ll 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 a little higher—”

“
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.”