9

“Now indeed may it be seen,” said Earn. “that our life’s days are ended.” “That were ill seen,” Héalhra made answer. “Wherefore,” said Earn, “seeing that we shall meet again by the Shore of that Sea of which the Starlight is a faint intimation?” “ ’S truth,” said Héalhra, “my loved; yet though our Mother waiteth on that Shore, still here would I remain with thee. For life and breath are sweet. And also, She loveth not well those who let Life and Love, Her gifts, slip away through a grip made loose by resignation. Dearly She bought those gifts for us, and dearly shall the children of Night purchase them from me in turn. Well the Goddess loveth the driver of a hard bargain.”

In the walls of his self. Herewiss was slightly aware of Sunspark watching him from the forge, of bright eyes in the fire, looking at him with concern. But he dared not let himself respond to the look; to do so would have been to waste precious time. He let the hammering take him and use him for its own purposes. It was rather pleasant to not think at all, just to be arms at the end of a hammer—

(Herewiss.)

He dared not stop. He kept on hammering.

(Herewiss. You asked me to let you know about that binding at intervals.)

(Mmph.) Again and again and—

(It’s holding rather nicely—under the circumstances, that is. But you’re going to have to try to control your fear a little better. When you discharge so strongly, the binding weakens.)

(I’ll remember.)

(But Herewiss—how can you expect to control yourself properly with as little sleep as you’ve been getting? An hour here, two there—)

(Spark,) he said, pacing his thoughts between the hammer-blows. (My loved. I haven’t time. Something is happening. The Fire’s going out. I have to hurry—)

(Your fear is killing it,) the elemental said softly. (I couldn’t have understood that before. Now I know. Freelorn has gone off to Osta without you, and there’s been no word all this month and more. You fear for him. I hear the terror singing while you sleep; it runs from you like blood. And you feel that you should be with him, though if you were, you couldn’t be working—)

(Some things are even more important than Flame.)

Sunspark was silent for a moment. (And the hralcin,) it said, (the matter of its unbinding that troubles you so. That fear is killing your Power too. I hear the sound of it every now and then: ‘If I had the Fire,’ you think. ‘what kinds of things would I be letting loose by my carelessness?’ You are working against yourself, my loved—)

(Sometimes, Sunspark, you hear too much for your own good.) The thought was a slap of anger, and Sunspark shrank away, out of Herewiss’ mind entirely, dwindling down to a few uncertain tongues of fire shivering among the coals. Herewiss sighed then, ashamed of himself, looking at the elemental in the firepit and realizing that it was the first thing he had really seen all day.

(Spark,) he said as gently as he could. (Love, I’m sorry. Oh, come out of there.) He put the hammer down on the anvil, atop the blank he had just finished.

(You are angry at me.) Its voice was subdued and fearful.

(It passed. Spark, you have to learn that around these parts it’s possible for two partners in a union to be angry with one another without the union being destroyed. Come out of there—)

It put up a few cautious tongues of fire and then flowed over the edge, a bright firefall that pooled and rose upward to envelop him. Silently the elemental wrapped its warmth around and through Herewiss, filling all his cold empty places with its glowing self. They were joined for a few minutes, and Herewiss looking inward saw all his fears flare into incandescence. He could see the shapes of them clearly now, and while the union persisted they were not fears any more. He saw them as Sunspark perceived them, as energies bound into strange fanciful shapes that meant little against the larger scale of things. The sensation was pleasant, and Herewiss stood there for a long while, eyes closed, letting himself be cared about and reassured.

(You matter, Spark,) he said softly. (You matter very much.)

It pulsed warm within him, a deep silent flare of fulfillment.

(But I have to work . . . )

It unwrapped itself, slowly, regretfully. (Let us work that sword to red heat again, so you can quench it, and I’ll go watch the binding.)

(That sounds fine. Back in the pit then . . . ) Herewiss tried to chuckle, but the sound came out wrong. All the places that Sunspark had filled and warmed so thoroughly with itself were bleak and cold again, and his fears were back, all the more shadowy for having been so bright.

He laid the blade of the sixty-third sword in the forge and turned away, wishing that Sunspark would melt it accidentally.

The grindstone was useful for times when Herewiss didn’t want to think. The noise of it rasped on his nerves, and the vibration rattled so far down his spine that any session with it left him in a state of profound and unfocused irritation. For this reason he usually didn’t use it, preferring to blow up the sword before putting a good edge on it. Today, however, anything that would shut out thoughts of the hralcin was welcome.

He sat there behind the stone, pumping away at the pedals until his legs threatened to cramp (which diversion he would also have welcomed). The irritation fed on itself, making him pump faster and press the sword harder against the turning stone, until sparks sprayed from it, and again and again it grew too hot to handle. By the end of a couple of hours, the sword had an edge on it that was much better than it needed, and in some places had become wire-edged and would have to be stropped.

(Herewiss?)

(Mmm?) He was working at it with the horsehide strop now, holding the sword between his knees as he worked and taking a certain cranky pride in the quality of his work. The blade would need some finishing work with oil and smoothing stone, but the edges had already acquired that particular silvery sheen that swordsmiths strive for, the mark of a blade that will cut air and leave it in pieces.

(We have company.)

(!!) He looked up from his work. (Who?)

(From the feel of them, Freelorn and his people. They are in high good spirits. No-one else would be feeling that way out here, if the Waste is as ill-omened as you say.)

Herewiss frowned, and then smiled. (He has a talent for showing up when I have a piece of work in hand . . . )

(But then you’re always working, loved. How could it be otherwise?)

(Hmph. True, I guess . . . ) And Herewiss became cold with fear. (But, Spark, that binding . . . !)

The elemental shrugged. (I’m watching it. So far none of the parameters you described to me has changed. The hralcin hasn’t bothered testing it in a while.)

(That could be good—and then again—)

(Well, whatever. Probably it will be all right if you don’t get in another fight with Freelorn. The extra stress of having more people around might wear it a little, but you can reinforce now and again.)

(Yes . . . )

(So keep things subdued. I for my part will do the same. There’s a stand of brush to the north of here that could use a fire, and I could use a meal. Maybe I’ll be away for the night; that might decrease the stresses.)

(It’s a thought. How close are they, Spark?)

(Some miles. You have time to finish that, at least.)

(All right. Watch that door . . . )

(Oh,) Sunspark said dryly, (if anything comes out of it, you’ll know shortly . . .  )

Herewiss thought of slime and the smell of burning, and stropped harder.

The polished outer walls of the hold had a walkway recessed into the top surface, sort of a double non-crenellated battlement, accessible by a long flight of those oddly staggered steps which led up from the inner courtyard. Herewiss leaned on the outer battlement and watched Freelorn and his people approaching. Sunspark, beside him, wavered and shimmered palely in the sunlight like heat-shimmer above a pavement in summer.

(Look at all those mules. I wonder who he stole them from?)

Sunspark made a don’t-know-don’t-care feeling. (There’s something,) it said, (something that I couldn’t catch while they were further away—can you hear it?)

Herewiss reached out with his underhearing. Because of his fatigue, all he got was a faint confused impression of a number of emotional systems going about their business, and a fainter one of two specific systems somewhat at odds with themselves.

(Slight unease,) he said to Sunspark. (I’m a bit off today, and I don’t usually do too well anyhow unless I’m at close range. They’re half a mile away.)

Sunspark shrugged. (Freelorn,) it said, (and Segnbora, I think.)

Herewiss nodded slowly. (It didn’t take long for what I saw to start happening, alas. This isn’t good, Spark, their negative emotions are going to fray at the binding—)

(Work on Freelorn, then,) Sunspark said. (You would anyway—)

Herewiss caught a sudden pang of jealousy, a flurry of angry, swift-moving brilliances like swords flashing in sunlight. Sunspark was trying to conceal it, and Herewiss laughed softly.

(I bet you’d like to burn him.)

The elemental flinched away in chagrin. (I would,) it admitted.

(I think I would’ve been a little suspicious if you hadn’t wanted to. We all do as our natures dictate, Spark. I know it’s hard for you to understand how I can love you both, but believe me, I can, and I love neither of you the less for loving the other more—)

(I’m not sure I understand this.) Sunspark sounded ashamed.

(Trust me, Spark. I will not give you up for him.)

(Neither will you give him up for me—)

(That’s right, little one. Firechild, trust me. You haven’t done wrong yet by doing so. Nor have I,) he added with a gentle smile, (in trusting you. By rights and the Pact you could have parted company with me after you saved me from the hralcin.)

(It would seem,) Sunspark said, smiling back, (that there are some things more important than even the Pact. Do what needs to be done, loved. I’ll be within call till this evening.)

It vanished. Herewiss looked over the wall at Freelorn, alone at the head of the approaching line, and went down the stairs to meet him.

At the bottom of the stairs Herewiss paused, slightly irritated by the sight of the dust lying thick all over the courtyard’s polished gray paving. He was usually a tidy sort, but lately there had been too much to do—swords to be forged, doors to be looked through. And then the hralcin had come. He thought of cleaning the courtyard now, but he was too tired to want to do it by sorcery, and he didn’t have a broom.

He walked across the court to where there appeared to be a solid wall, facing west. It was only a little illusion, rooted in where the wall would have liked to be, where it had been before Sunspark disposed of it. The illusion, which he’d erected earlier in the month, was a sop to his own insecurities. It made him nervous to live alone, or nearly alone, in a hold that had a great gaping hole in it. Herewiss looked up at the wall, reached out with his arms, and spoke the word that severed the connection between was-once and seems-to-be-now. The wall went away.

Freelorn and his people were very close, and Herewiss leaned against the wall and waited for them. They’re all there; thank You, Goddess. I couldn’t cope with one of Lorn’s guilts right now, if one of them had been hurt or killed. Or my own, now that I think of it . . . 

Blackmane whickered a greeting at Herewiss as Freelorn dismounted. No Lion coat? Interesting! Herewiss thought as Freelorn hurried over to him, his eyes anxious. Freelorn reached out hesitantly, took Herewiss’ hands in his and gripped them hard. They stood that way for a long moment, each of them searching the other with his eyes, almost in fear.

“Well,” Freelorn said, gazing at the ground and pushing the dust around with one booted toe, “I’m back . . . ”

Herewiss reached out and drew Freelorn close, and hugged and kissed him hard.

For a few minutes they just hung on to one another, sniffling slightly. “I, uh,” Freelorn said, his voice muffled by talking into Herewiss’ tunic, “I was—oh, Dark, loved, you know how I am when I can’t get my way.”

“It’s not as if I wasn’t being a little stubborn myself. Or a little snide—Lorn, I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Freelorn gave Herewiss a great bone-cruncher of a hug and then held him away, peering at him with concern. “Are you all right? You look as if somebody smote you a good one in the head. And look at your eyes, they have circles under them.”

“Smote me—” Herewiss laughed. “I feel like it. It’s been a busy week. Come on in, I’ll tell you about it later.” He looked at Freelorn, noticing something that hadn’t been there before, a look of tiredness and discomfort and depression. “Are you all right?” he asked.

The expression on Freelorn’s face partook of both relief and loathing. “Later,” he said. “It’s been a lively month.”

Freelorn’s people were leading their horses into the courtyard, and as Herewiss glanced toward them he saw Segnbora passing through the gate. Her expression was hard to make out clearly, for the late Sun was behind her; but she looked pained, and puzzled as well. Herewiss looked back at Freelorn, took him gently by the arm and began to walk back into the hold with him.

“Lorn, where did all those mules come from?”

“Osta.”

“You did go ahead, then—”

“Yes indeed.”

They passed into the coolness of the hold. “And you made it out all right.”

“It’s just as I told you, no-one knew about the secret way in from the river. We didn’t even have to kill any of the guards. By the way, we brought a plains deer in with us. Didn’t see any reason why we should use up your supplies.”

“You always were a considerate guest. Lorn, what are all the mules for?”

“I was getting to that. They’re for the money.”

Herewiss led Freelorn into the great lower hall, and they sat down beside the firepit in chairs that Sunspark had brought in from the village to the north. “Six mules? How much did you get?”

Freelorn made a smug, pleased face. “Eight thousand talents of silver.”

“Eight thou—You mean you went into the Royal Treasury and stole all that money and got away again?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Freelorn said with mock-righteousness. “It’s my money.”

“My Goddess, maybe I should listen to you more,” Herewiss said, reaching down for a brown earthenware bottle and the lovers’-cup. “Lorn, you should’ve killed the guards. It’d be kinder than what Cillmod’s probably doing to them.” He broke the seal on the bottle-stopper, opened the jug and poured.

“Maybe. But I have the money now. We can have a revolution.”

“Just like that,” Herewiss said with a laugh, and drank from the cup. “May we be one, my loved.” He passed it on to Freelorn.

“As is She.” Freelorn drank, and his eyes widened. “Lion’s Name, this tastes like Narchaerid.”

“It is.”

“South slope, too. Mother of Everything, it’s like so much red velvet. What year?”

Herewiss held up the jug to look at the bottom. “Ninety-two, it says.”

“Dark, what am I worrying about the year for? How are you getting that out here?”

Herewiss flicked an amused glance at the firepit. An ordinary fire appeared to be blazing there, but the pattern of the flames had repeated twice since they’d been there. “I have my sources,” he said.

“Well, whatever. How long can a revolution take, anyway? You should hear the kind of things going on in Arlen. The people are getting sick of Cillmod. It was a bad year at harvest, there were omens and portents: sheep miscarrying and two-headed calves being born, and fruit dying on the trees before it was ripe—” Freelorn drank deeply, and his eyes over the rim of the cup were troubled. “In a lot of the little villages we passed through, everyone was hungry a lot of the time. It’s bad back home . . . ”

“Well, the reason is obvious—”

“Of course.”

“After all, not even Cillmod is stupid enough to go into Lionhall, and he hasn’t been enacting the rites of the royal priesthood, even if he knows them—”

“That wasn’t the reason I meant.”

Herewiss raised his eyebrows at Lorn.

“Me,” Freelorn said, very quietly, studying his cup.

Herewiss looked at his loved.

“Me,” Lorn said, not looking up. “Dusty, they’re starving because of me, because of what I was scared to do.” He laughed just once, a sound so low and bitter that it twisted in Herewiss like a knife. “Because I was afraid to get caught and put on a rack, afraid to spend a few days dying . . . There was a village—it was five houses and two cows, and acres and acres of stubble. It hadn’t rained for months, and nothing would grow but a few radishes. The people—there were only about four of them left, all the others had starved or left—they came out and offered us hospitality. Radish soup. They were all thin as rails, and one of them, this little old man, was lying in the house on a straw pallet, dying of starvation. They had all been giving him their food, trying to keep him alive, but it was too late, he was too far gone.”

Lorn took a swallow of wine. “I think he suspected who I was. He asked if I would bless him. I did, and he died. Right there . . . Then I found out he was twenty-two. I’d thought he was those people’s father. He was their son. How many days, weeks, had he been dying? . . . ”

“Oh, Lorn . . . ”

“No,” Freelorn said, looking up at Herewiss through the tears. “Don’t try to make it better. It can never be better.” He stared at his cup again. “And I don’t want it to be. How many other deaths like that am I going to have to make good to the Goddess after I die? I’m the Lion’s Child. Their deaths are mine. And there was what She said to me at the Tavern . . . ”

Herewiss kept silent. After a few breaths, shaking his head, Lorn said, “No more running. No more. All the other reasons, the Arlene lords getting restless and wanting a real king again, Cillmod botching his relations with Darthen, the Queen being in trouble, her armies getting demolished by Reavers down Geraithe way, and her nobles becoming willing to support me—none of it matters. None of it matters but that man’s head in my lap. The poor cracked voice saying, ‘The King is back.’ ”

Freelorn was quiet for a few seconds. “That was mostly why I came back so quickly,” he said. “There were other places we could have hidden all this money. Darthen, in particular. But I had to come back and tell you: I can’t stay here with you. I have to turn around and go back. Even if I die of it. Which I may. No, let me finish. Cillmod’s forces have been overrunning the borders of Darthen, raiding for food. He may be ignoring the Oath of Lion and Eagle, but I can’t. I have to move to defend Darthen. Even if I have to do it by myself.” He smiled, wistfully, and with pain. “It’s what a king would do. Though I’m not sure where to go from there . . . ”

Herewiss reached out, took Freelorn’s hand and held it. “I just wanted to say that I missed you,” he said. “And I’m sorry we fought. And sorrier that I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt when you said you could pull off the Osta business. But seeing you now, hearing you . . . I can’t say I’m sorry about that.”

Freelorn looked at Herewiss and smiled. “Nor I,” he said. “It’s all right.” And he handed Herewiss the lovers’-cup. “We’re one, loved.”

“So may it be.” Herewiss drank off the cup in three or four swift draughts and looked at it with satisfaction. “Let’s get high,” he said, “and I’ll tell you my news after dinner.”

“You mean I’m going to have to be drunk to believe it?”

Herewiss chuckled and poured more wine.

A long while later Herewiss and Freelorn and all his following sat around the fire pit, in various states of repletion. The stripped-down carcass of the desert deer was still on the spit. The fire in the pit had died down to a soft glow of embers, with only an occasional tongue of flame showing. Most of Freelorn’s people were half-dozing in their chairs, except for Segnbora, who had pled time-of-moon pains and retired early. Herewiss and Freelorn sat together, a little apart from the others, cups in hand.

“A hundred and eighty-four doors,” Herewiss was saying wearily. “Permanent ones, that is. I gave up trying to count the ones that are here one day and gone the next; and a lot of them move around, whole new wings of the building appear and disappear. There are more doors at night than during the daytime, and more than half the doors at any one time show water; but outside of that . . . ” He trailed off.

“And none of them was what you were looking for.”

“I can’t make them change,” Herewiss said. “And the closest I’ve come is something that doesn’t bear discussing.”

“No?”

Herewiss considered the wine in the lovers’-cup, breathed in, breathed out, a long moment of decision. “No,” he said. “If there’s a somewhere that men have Flame, I wish them joy of it and good weather, ’cause I’m never going to get there. Not at this rate.”

“No luck with the swords?”

“I break them,” Herewiss said, fumbling around for the wine-jug and refilling the cup. “I should start a business: HEREWISS S’HEARN. SWORDS BROKEN. NO JOB TOO LARGE OR TOO SMALL.”

Freelorn gazed at him sadly, and Herewiss shook his head and took another drink. “Lorn,” he said softly, “what happened while you were gone?”

“Huh?”

“With Segnbora.”

“That’s one of the problems with having a sorcerer for a loved,” Freelorn said in a resigned voice. “Let me have some of that.”

“Surely. No, Lorn, it’s just the way you looked when you came in, and the way she looked at you . . . I’m not blind.”

Freelorn drank some wine, held the cup in his lap. He looked suddenly very tired. “We—were in comfort with each other—it was nice. I fell a little in love with her, I guess. I needed to talk, especially after I left here so mad—though this had been going on to some extent while we were escaping from Madell, before we got trapped. She was always there to listen, and what I thought seemed to matter to her, really did. So we—got close—but I began to notice that she never told me anything back, not that it says anywhere that you have to, but she never seemed to tell anything about herself. She would listen, but never give—or never really share.”

He drank again. “Well, when I got lonely, I asked her to sleep with me, and she said yes. I guess I thought it might have been different there. But it wasn’t. She still couldn’t share.” His voice grew lower, and the pain of the words scraped it raw. “She was good—she was very good—the way she was very good at listening. But she still couldn’t, didn’t share. Not that she wasn’t responsive, or warm, but there was no—” He gestured with the cup, looking for the right words. Finally he held the cup out to Herewiss to be refilled, and took a long moment’s refuge in the wine. “She couldn’t—I don’t know. She couldn’t let go. Couldn’t trust me. I wanted so much for her to . . . but she didn’t dare . . . ”

Herewiss sat there and let the silence grow again. And now he uses the pain to punish himself for what he knows to be his part in it, he thought. “Was it your fault, Lorn? You sound guilty somehow.”

“No . . . I don’t know.” Freelorn drank again. “I think maybe I slept with her because I missed you. Instead of you, as it were. Does that make sense?”

“It does. Though, Lorn, don’t sell her short; there are enough good things about her that I’m sure she’s worth sleeping with on her own . . . ”

They sat there in silence for a few moments. Freelorn looked around at the polished gray walls, dim in the faint firelight.

“I wish there was something I could do for you,” he said mournfully.

“Lorn, you’re my loved, you’re my friend. I can live without the Power, but not without friends. And I may have to get used to living without the Power pretty soon—it doesn’t have long to run in me without focus.”

“What we need,” Freelorn said solemnly, “is a miracle.”

Herewiss began to laugh, the kind of laughter that is a breath away from tears.

“No, I mean it,” said Freelorn. “I’m the King’s son of Arlen, descended in right line from Héalhra Whitemane, and by the Goddess if there’s anyone who has a right to ask the Lion for a miracle, it’s me.”

Herewiss laughed until he was weak and his sides hurt, though some small corner of his mind was surprised that he could laugh so hard over something so painful and serious.

“Me,” Freelorn was saying, “I’ll do it. I will.” He finished his cup of wine, and held it out to Herewiss again.

“Haven’t you had enough?” Herewiss said as soon as he gained control of his laughter.

“I’m talking about miracles,” Freelorn said with infinite weariness, “and all you’re interested in is how drunk I am.”

Herewiss poured again for Freelorn. “You throw up and I’ll make you scrub the floor.”

“Throw up! This stuff is like mother’s milk,” Freelorn said, spacing the words with exaggerated care. “Thanks.” He smiled, a small gentle smile strangely at odds with his inebriation. “Come to bed with me tonight?”

“In a while. I have some things to take care of first. Wait for me?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Except,” and Freelorn wobbled to his feet, “to sleep.”

“Later, then.”

Freelorn made his way around the firepit, nudging his people one by one. “Come on,” he said, “everybody get up and go to bed . . . ”

Herewiss got carefully to his feet and crossed the hall to the uneven stairs. As he went up them he noticed two doors hadn’t been there earlier in the day. He paused only long enough to note that one of them looked out on some green place with a river running through it, and the other on a waste of cold water beneath a bleak gray sky.

Coming up to the tower room, he dissolved the appearance of solid wall that camouflaged its doorway, passed through, and sealed it behind him. Sunspark was waiting for him on the furs and cushions in the corner, stretched out, lush and warmly beautiful in the silvery moonlight from the open window. Light from the two great candlesticks on Herewiss’ worktable caught in her red hair and touched it with coppery sparks and glitters.

(You were a long time coming,) she said.

(It’s been a while since Freelorn was here. We had a lot to talk about.)

(I would imagine.) The sudden flicker of jealousy again, like bared swords in the moonlight; but not as strong as the last time.

(Spark, relax,) Herewiss said. He went to the window and looked out. The Moon was gibbous, waxing toward the full, and from the walls of the hold to the horizon, the desert shone silver and black. The midnight stars struggled feebly with the moonlight, cold and pale and mocking, faint as the Flame within him.

(I didn’t mean it,) Sunspark said. (Ah, Herewiss, it’s hard to do, this loving—)

(You meant it,) he said. (And, yes, this loving is hard. There is nothing harder, which is probably the way it should be, for there’s also nothing more precious, I think. Spark, please, don’t be afraid of me. I love you well as you are.) He leaned on the windowsill, wondering whether the wine was the source of the strange feeling inside him—a feeling like something trying to happen.

(Something’s bothering you—) Sunspark got up and came to him, slipped warm arms around him from behind.

(No more than usual. Maybe I should go away for a little while, though, walk around in the world a little, get away from all these damn doors for a while—)

He stroked one of Sunspark’s arms absently. (Maybe. Sunspark, I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood tonight.)

(Oh? How’s this, then? You liked it before.) The elemental shimmered momentarily, and when the wavering died down he stood there, a lithe young man, arms still around Herewiss.

(No, loved,) Herewiss chuckled, turning around and hugging him back, (that’s not what I meant. I have some things to do, a feeling I want to follow up. That’s all.)

(Well enough, then. I’m going to tend to that brush. Whatever this is about, though—be careful!)

(I will.)

Sunspark dissolved into flame, then went out altogether.

Herewiss stood at the window long enough to notice the faint radiance spring into life on the horizon. He turned away, then, went to a chest on one side of the room, opened it and rummaged around. He found the bottle of Soulflight, went over to the pile of cushions by the window, and sat down wearily.

He could feel time fast flowing over him, taking little pieces of him with it as a stream whirls flotsam unresisting down its current. There was no more time. He was being worn away steadily by the days, and raggedly by his fears—Sunspark had been quite right about that. The image of the hralcin, ravening silently at the dark door, wanting him with an implacable hunger, moved again in the back of his mind. The sight of Freelorn and the sound of his voice hadn’t driven it away—merely startled it into stillness, like the bright fierce glance of a hawk. Now the vague dark shape stirred, restless, and looked at him with deadly patience—

He cursed his overactive imagination, wishing that the hralcin would just go away and leave him alone. But no achievement is without price, he reminded himself, most especially the dark ones—

Herewiss looked at the little stone bottle, wondering if it was going to be worth it. After he came down in the morning, things would be no different. The hralcin would still be behind the door, hungering for him, and the Power would be no more his than it was now.

But Soulflight was good for walking the future as well as the past. He could go forward, look down the course of his life from its end and see if there was some way to forge the sword he needed. Or a way to stop the hralcin, to kill it—

No, no. When you use Soulflight to look forward, it shows you options, chances, pathways—there’s no way to tell which is actually going to happen. And even with the drug there are usually gaps in the pathways, variables that can’t be predicted—

He rolled the bottle slowly between his hands. And as far as the hralcin goes, I doubt that I could avail myself of any art that I might learn. I’m so tired, I couldn’t turn the sky dark at nightfall. And by the time I’m strong enough to try something useful, that thing will probably come back and break the binding down. No, that’s no good.

Herewiss gripped the bottle hard. No matter how I approach this mess, the answer keeps coming up the same—I’m not going to live out the week. Well, so be it. I plowed this crooked furrow and now I must sow in it. But by the Goddess, if I’m going to die, I’ll die knowing my Name!

He took the lovers’-cup, filled it with the last half-cup or so of the Narchaerid, and poured a dollop of the drug into it from the little bottle. It fell slowly in a clear ribboning stream like honey, and he watched the bubbles in it as he poured. I’ll have to look at my Name before this night is over. But first I’ll make my peace with myself, with Lorn—let him understand what’s been happening, why I’m doing what I am. Maybe the understanding will help him handle my loss. Oh, Mother, I wish I didn’t have to die, I wish I’d let that door alone, it’s going to hurt Lorn so much when I’m gone—He rubbed his eyes briefly. Enough of that. I have to leave him in love and with joy, otherwise it’ll be worse for him. And the others deserve my best, too. Their dreams will take them past the Door, I’ll meet them there—and then go on. No shying away from the truth this time. Oops, better stop here—and he pulled the bottle away, twirled it free of a last drop that clung to the lip. He stoppered the bottle and set it aside carefully. I do want to come back.

He swirled the cup to mix the drug with the wine. And something else I could do. If I’ve got to die, then I will share myself with Lorn tonight, as those beyond the door share, wholly, in that union which transcends the ecstasies of the flesh. One last sharing, one last best gift before that damn hralcin gets me—

He drank the wine down, a long draft that made him choke a little. There was a burning at the back of his throat, but it passed. Herewiss reached over for another jug of wine—not Narchaerid, but a vin ordinaire from up north—poured a cupful, and sat down to wait for the drug to work.

He watched the moonlight move ever so slightly across the floor, and the silence of the desert night sank deeply into him. For a moment his eyes rested on this morning’s sword, which lay up against the wall a few feet away. Nothing more than a long dead piece of steel, carven with no runes, untreated, untried in any way. He tried for a moment to think of something new to do with it, but could see nothing in his mind but the depressing sight of a fine sword, beaten out of strong tempered steel, shattering itself to splinters at the touch of the Power.

The image made him cringe, unwanted harbinger of reality that it was. The fragrance of the wine crept up his nose, fruity and sweet, and glad of the distraction he drank again.

As he did, a moth came flickering in the window. It fluttered around in confusion, bouncing and wobbling around the square of moonlight on the floor, until it saw one of the candlesticks. It flew straight toward the flame, and with a directness that surprised Herewiss, circled it twice, three times, and dove headlong into the flame. There was a fizzing sound. The candle burned low for a moment, then sprang up again.

Herewiss sat there and felt the drug begin to work. He laughed, but the sound didn’t seem to be coming from his own throat, though he could hear it plainly enough. The detachment extended itself to his thoughts as well. Part of him was sad for the moth, but the rest was uninvolved, though alert and observant. A small thing, a small thing, it seemed to be singing to itself, though in a minor key.

Disorientation came quickly. There was a spinning, a confusion, everything was subtly wrong, and Herewiss struggled to his feet, or tried to. He had a bad time of it, his muscles didn’t work, he seemed tied down to something. Then, with an abrupt slight rending sensation, he found himself no longer tied to anything. He rose up. He stretched, and though there was no feeling of moving muscles, his mind slipped outward and filled his form. He was himself, totally.

Herewiss looked down at his body, where it lay among the pillows. There was no sickening feeling of entrapment, this time, nor was there the limitless rapture he had felt with the second use of the drug, a feeling of being free of a decrepit prison. He looked down now and felt pride, and an odd kind of tenderness. Unfulfilled and incomplete he might be in many ways, but he had a fine body: slim and long and graceful, with the muscles corded hard in it from the strain of his disciplines and the forging of swords. It lay there, eyes closed, one arm outstretched toward the wine cup. It looked relaxed and innocent, and beautiful in an angular kind of way. I always knew that a person’s personality imprints itself to some extent on the body he wears, he thought, but I never thought to look at myself in that light—or if I did, I refused to believe what I saw. I am beautiful, Lorn and Sunspark have been right when they’ve told me so. How curious it is that I never felt that way when I’ve been awake and in it. Must be a matter of viewpoint . . . 

He turned away and looked around him. The walls of the room glowed softly with a subdued rose-golden radiance. It seemed that his guesses were right, that some kind of life did sleep in the stone. The sword lay up against the wall near him, a long dark oblong blot against the light. Herewiss held up his hands before him. In shape they were the same as always, but there was a difference about them, a subtle transparency, and below that the muted glow of suppressed Flame. The moonlight had an added piquancy to it, a feeling like the cold taste of bitten metal, and Herewiss marveled as he breathed it in.

He looked down at the wine cup. The wine left within it was a white blaze of light, an expression of all the sunlight and moonlight that had become part of the grapes. Faintly he could hear the cries of ecstatic agony uttered by the vines as their burden was ripped from them, and he felt at a distance the silver touch of rain. He caught the languorous thoughts of one of the young girls who had helped to press out the vintage, and he felt how it had been for her, the night before, under the pomegranate trees with her lover. All that experience was too much for Herewiss to leave untasted. He knelt down by the shell of himself, took up the essence of the cup and drank off the joy and sorrow and time within it at one draft. The tangled, vivid selfhoods of bees and vintners and young girls flowed down his throat like cinnamon fire, and left an aftertaste like a summer dawn. I will never call a wine ‘ordinary’ again, he thought. Never—

Herewiss looked over his shoulder at the candle, and got up and went to it, amused and curious. The candle flame was an intricate web of bright energies, an entangled tracery of heat and light, in constant motion. Wobbling in earnest circles around and around it was the moth, a soft golden flicker, like a little flame itself. Apparently it had not noticed that it had died. Herewiss put out his hands and caught it carefully. It fluttered within his caging fingers, leaving here and there a wing scale like pale gold-dust, and finally sat on one of his fingers and looked up at him with confused dark eyes.

He carried it to the window and opened his hands, offering it to the night. The moth sat bewildered for a moment or so. Then it caught sight of the flood of silver light pouring in the window, and fluttered out of Herewiss’ hands, bobbling upward into the night, straight for the transfigured Moon.

He smiled up at the moth, wishing it well, and looked out at the night and the stars. They blazed, blue and brilliant, as if seen through one of the doors down the hall. The world seemed to be hanging breathless in the midst of a clustered cloud of them. Their light was not cold, now, nor were they mocking him. They were singing, a song almost too high for him to hear, like the song of the bat. The song had words, but the multitude of voices drowned out the meaning in a million blended assonances. Herewiss contented himself with a few minutes of standing there in that inexpressible glory of sound and light, taking it all in, hoping that he would remember it tomorrow, through the headache.

Lorn is waiting for me, he thought at last, and so are my other guests, all of them, past the Door. I perhaps slighted them a little earlier. Let me make up for that now. Downstairs—

He exerted himself, and was there, standing in the midst of the silent main hall. Nearly all the people were asleep now, curled in dark silent bundles or stretched out beneath their cloaks. Dritt and Moris were still awake, unmoving, caring about each other in the darkness. Herewiss could feel the texture of their waking thoughts moving softly between them, as they rested in the twilit borderland between love and sleep. Herewiss smiled at them. Later, he thought, he might ask to share himself with them.

He looked around, identifying Freelorn’s people one by one. Most of them were dreaming, in some cases quite vividly, so that faint images of their minds’ wanderings were apparent. Segnbora lay curled in one corner, dreaming more loudly than the rest, her dream towered against the ceiling, some huge gossamer creature under a firefly sun. Herewiss was intrigued, and went to where she lay.

He knelt beside her, studying her for a moment before he would enter the dream. A clear sight like that of the last drug experience was on him again, but this time it was a more intimate and kindly vision, informed with compassion, very unlike the coldly clinical evaluation of the last time. Segnbora’s hand lay out on her cloak, and he looked at it and shook his head sadly. Under the frail casing of the skin, such a violence and potency of untapped Power raged that it should have burned her out from within. But he also saw the barrier that sealed it away from her use, a wall of old frozen fears that all the inner fires couldn’t melt. And the rules forbade him to tell her what to do about it. He sighed, and entered in.

There was the smell of salty spray, and black pockmarked rocks worn smooth by the sea, and a hot white midsummer sun, and Segnbora sat atop a boulder festooned with clambering strands of kelp. A sea-ouzel was building a nest in a cranny of the boulder, and Segnbora was watching it intently. So was the Dragon that towered over her, a huge one, at its full growth but still young—no more than six or seven hundred years old. They watched the bird fly down to the surf line of the black beach to pick up pieces of dead seaweed. Another ouzel appeared, carrying something in its beak that was not seaweed. Segnbora clucked to it, and with a whirring of wings the bird went up to where she sat. It alighted on her outstretched hand, dropping the object in her palm. Herewiss, standing next to the Dragon, looked at the thing. It was a gem, like a diamond but more golden, finely cut into a sparkling oval.

“It’ll take a while to hatch,” Segnbora said to the ouzel. “Do what you can, though.” The bird picked up the jewel and flew down to the nest with it.

“But it’s a stone!” Herewiss objected.

“Strange things won’t happen,” Segnbora said, “unless you give them a chance.”

“I’m trying,” Herewiss said.

“Yes, I see that. You’re past the Door. The drug?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well,” Segnbora said, “a short life, but a merry one.”

The Dragon bent its great head down toward Herewiss, regarding him. He bowed low, feeling that this creature was worthy of his respect. It was apparently one of the Oldest Line of Dragons, the children of Dahiric Worldfinder, to judge by its star-emerald scales and topaz spines.

It spoke to him in deep-voiced song, but the words were strange and he could not understand them. There was warning in its voice.

“What?” Herewiss said.

“You don’t speak Dracon?” asked Segnbora.

“I could never find anyone to teach me.”

“Well, she greets you by me, and says that something is trying to happen, and you should beware of it.”

“That’s what I thought,” Herewiss said. “But to beware of it? . . . I don’t understand.”

“Neither does she. She says to look to your sword.”

“But I don’t have a . . . well, I suppose I do . . . ”

“I don’t think much more will fit in there,” Segnbora said to the first ouzel, which had come back with a piece of kelp nearly twice its size. It was trying valiantly to stuff it in the crevice, and failing. Herewiss felt suddenly that there was no more to be found or shared in this dream. He bowed again to the Dragon, and waved to Segnbora, and came forth.

Herewiss stood up, wondering a little, and went over to where Freelorn lay, curled up in a ball as usual. He spent a moment or two just looking at his loved. Sleep was the only time when Lorn lost his eternal look of calculation, and Herewiss loved to watch him sleeping, even when he snored.

Herewiss sat down beside him, the sweet sorrow of the moment passing through him like the pain of imminent tears. This could very well be the last time in this life—and if the hralcin got him, as seemed likely, in any life at all. Mother, he said softly, I give You this night, as you gave me one of Yours. Whatever else happened or didn’t happen in this life, Lorn loved me—loves me; and that’s as great a blessing as the Fire would be, and possibly more than I deserve. Take this night, Mother, and remember me. You understood me—a little better than most . . . 

He reached out to touch Freelorn’s cheek, brushed it gently. I’m going to try to give you all the parts of me I never dared to, he said. I hope I can give you all the joy you deserve.

Herewiss entered in.

There were clouds of haze, lit by a light as indefinite as dawn on a cloudy day, and vague soft sounds wove through them. He found Freelorn moving quietly through the mists, looking for something. Herewiss fell in beside him, and they paced together through the haze.

“Where are we, Lorn?”

“A long time ago,” Freelorn said softly, “I used to come here alone. I was really young, and I would come talk to the Lion and ask Him for help with my lessons. I mean, I didn’t know that you’re not supposed to ask God for help with things like that. So I just asked. And it always seemed that I got help. Maybe I can get some here.”

The mist was clearing a little. All around them was a stately hall with walls of plain white marble. Tall deep windows were cut into those walls, and lamps burned golden in the fists of iron arms that struck outward from the walls at intervals. There was no furniture in the hall of any kind.

At the end of the room was a flight of steps, three of them, and atop the steps a huge pedestal, and on the pedestal a statue of a mighty white Lion couchant, regal and beautiful. Herewiss knew where they were. This was Lionhall in the royal palace in Prydon; the holiest place in Arlen, where none but the kings and their children might walk without mishap befalling them. Though Herewiss had never seen it before, in Freelorn’s dream the place was part of his longed-for home, one which he had never thought to see again. And the Lion was not merely another aspect of the Goddess’ Lover, but the founder of Freelorn’s ancient line, and so family. Herewiss and Freelorn walked to the steps together, and stopped there, and felt welcomed.

“Lord,” Freelorn said, “I promised I would come back, and here I am. Where is my father?”

It was a little strange to see them facing each other; Freelorn, small and uncertain, but with a great dignity about him, and the Lion, terrible and venerable, but with a serene joy in His eyes. “He’s gone on,” the Lion said gravely. “He’s one of Mine now.”

“But where is he? I can’t find his sword, and it’s supposed to be mine, and I must have it. I can’t be king without his sword.”

“He’s gone on,” the Lion said, and He smiled on them out of His golden eyes. “You must go after him if you want Hergótha.”

“I’ll do that,” Freelorn said. “Uh, Lord—”

“Ask on.”

“You are my Father, and the head of our Line?”

“You are My child,” the Lion said, bending His head in assent. “Make no doubt of it.”

“Lord, I need a miracle.”

The Lion stretched, a long comfortable cat-gesture, and the terrible steel-silver talons winked on His paws for a second’s space. “I don’t do miracles much any more, son. You’re as much the Lion as I am. You do it.”

“It’s not for me, Héalhra my Father; it’s for Herewiss here.”

Herewiss looked up, meeting the gaze of the golden eyes and feeling a tremor of recognition, remembering how his illusion had looked at him even after it was gone from the field at Madeil. “Son of Mine,” the Lion said then, shifting his eyes back to Freelorn, “his Father the Eagle and I managed Our own miracles for the most part. I have faith in you, and in him.”

Freelorn nodded.

“Go down to the Arlid, then,” the Lion said. “and follow it till it comes to the Sea. Your father is in the place to which his desire has taken him, but to get there you’ll have to go down to the Shore first. Your friend will go with you.”

They bowed down, together, and were suddenly out by the river Arlid, which flowed through the palace grounds. It was night, and the water flowed silverly by under a westering Moon.

“The Sea is a long way off,” Herewiss said. Even as he said it, he perceived something wrong with him. He was being swept away with this dream, losing control. Too much drug! something in him cried, thrilling with horror. But the fearful voice was faint, and though it cried again, Down by the Sea is the land of the dead! still he walked with Freelorn by the riverbank, through the green reeds, toward the seashore.

“It’s not that far,” Freelorn said. “Only a hundred miles or so.”

“It’s a long way to walk,” Herewiss insisted.

“So we’ll let the water take us. Come on.”

Together they stepped down through the sedges on the bank and on to the surface of the water. The Arlid was a placid river, smooth-flowing, and bore their weight without complaint. Its current hurried them past little clusters of houses, and moss-grown docks, and flocks of grazing sheep, at a speed which would normally have surprised them but which they both now accepted unquestioningly. Once or twice they walked a little, to help things along, but mostly they stood in silence and let the river flow.

“You really think your father has the sword?” Herewiss said.

“He has to.” Freelorn’s voice was fierce. “They never found it after he died. He must have taken Hergótha with him.”

Herewiss looked at Freelorn and was sad for him, driven as he was even while dreaming. “It takes more than a sword to make a king,” he said, and then was shocked at the words that had fallen out of his mouth.

Freelorn looked back at him, and his eyes were sad too. “That’s usually true,” he said, “but it’s going to take at least Hergótha to make a king out of me, I’m afraid. I’m not enough myself yet to do it alone.”

For a while neither of them spoke. The river was branching out now, the marshes of the Arlid delta reaching out northward before them, toward the Sea. Freelorn and Herewiss picked their way from stream to stream as along a winding path, stepping carefully so as not to upset the fish,

“I’ve never been this way before,” Herewiss said, very quietly. He felt afraid.

“Maybe it’s time,” Freelorn said. “I was here once, when I was very young. Don’t be scared. I won’t leave you alone.”

The river bottom was getting shallower and sandier. The stream that bore them turned a bend, past a little spinney of stunted willow trees, and suddenly there it was, the Shore.

Herewiss looked out past the beach and was so torn between terror and awe that he could hardly think. Under the dark sky the Sea stretched away forever, and it was a sea of light, not water. It was as liquidly dazzling as the noon Sun seen through some clear mountain cataract. But there was no Sun, no Moon, no stars even; only the long vista of pure brilliant light, brighter than any other light that ever was. Herewiss began to understand how the Starlight could only be a faint intimation of this last Sea, for stars are mortal, and bound with the laws and ties of materiality. This was a place that time would never touch, and mere matter was too fragile, too ephemeral, to survive it.

The waves of white fire came curling in, their troughs as bright as their crests, and broke in foaming radiance on the silver beach, and were drawn in sheets of light back into the Sea. But all silently. There was no sound of combers crashing and tumbling, no hiss of exhausted waves climbing far up the sand: nothing at all. Along the shore there walked or stood many vague forms, shadows passing by in as deep a silence as the waves. Herewiss was very afraid. The fear held his chest in its hand and squeezed, so that the breath couldn’t come in. He thought suddenly of the choking darkness behind the door in the hold, where the hralcin waited and hungered for him, and the fear squeezed harder. But Freelorn stepped from the water, and held out his hand; and Herewiss took that hand and went with him.

They went down the Shore together, slowly, looking at each of the shadows they passed, but recognizing none. There were men and women of every age, and many young children walking around or playing quietly in the sand. There were couples, some of them young lovers, and some of them old, and some couples where one person ravaged by time walked with one hardly touched by it, but walked all the same with interlaced arms and gentle looks. Freelorn would stop every now and then and question one or another of the people they passed. They always answered quietly, with grave, kindly words, but also with an air of preoccupation.

Herewiss was not paying attention to either questions or answers. His fear was too much with him. All he perceived with any clarity was the rise and fall of the quiet voices, which arose from the silence and slipped back to become part of it again when the speakers were finished. He began to feel that if he spoke again, the words and the thoughts behind them would be lost forever in that silence, a part of himself gone irretrievably. But no-one asked him to speak, and Freelorn led him down the sand as if he had a sure idea of which way they were headed.

“Are we going the right way?” Herewiss said finally, watching carefully to see if the thought behind the question became lost.

“I think so. This place will come around on itself, if we give it enough time.”

They walked, and their feet made no sound on the sand. They passed more people than Herewiss had ever seen or known, some of them looking out over the gently moving brilliance of the Sea, or standing rapt in contemplation of the sand, or of something less obvious. When someone turned to watch them pass, it was with a look of mild, unhurried wonder, a wonder which soon slipped away again. The fear was beginning to ebb out of Herewiss, little by little, when suddenly he saw someone making straight for them across the strand, not quickly, but with purpose.

He could hear his heart begin hammering in his ears again. “Your father?” he said.

Freelorn shook his head. “My father was a bigger man—is.”

Herewiss stopped, still holding Freelorn’s hand. He knew that shadowed form, knew the way it walked, the loose, easy stride. “Oh Goddess,” he whispered into the eternal silence. “Goddess no.”

Freelorn looked at him with compassion, and said nothing.

Herewiss stood there, frozen in the extremity of terror. The world was about to end in ice and bitterness, and he would welcome it. He deserved no better. He waited for it to happen.

And out of the darkness and fixity to which he thought he had completely surrendered himself, a voice spoke; his own voice, not angry or defiant, but matter-of-fact and calm, speaking a truth: If this is the worst thing in the world about to happen, we won’t just stand here and wait. We’ll go meet it.

He stepped forward, pulling Freelorn with him, and the strain of taking the first step shook him straight through, like a convulsion. His bones, his flesh rebelled. But he kept going. The shadowy form approached them steadily, and they walked to meet it. Fear battered Herewiss like a stormwind. He wanted to flee, to hide, anything, but he pushed himself into the teeth of the wind, into the face of his fear. He had been struggling against it, walking into it head down. Now he raised his head, and opened his eyes again. The wind smote tears into his eyes, and he looked up at his brother.

He was as he had been the day he died. Tall and dark-haired, like most of the Brightwood line, with the droopy eyes that ran in Herewiss’ family, he came and stood before them. His eyes smiled, and his face smiled, and the blood welled softly from the place where Herewiss’ sword had struck him through, an eternity ago.

“Hello, Herelaf,” Freelorn said.

Herewiss let go of Freelorn’s hand and sank down to his knees in the sand, trembling with terror and grief. He hid his face in his hands, and began to weep. All the things he had wanted to say to his brother after he died, all the apologies, all the guilt, everything that he had decided to say when they met after his own death, now froze in his throat. And the worst of it was that he felt quite willing to let the tears take him. Anything was better than trying to deal with the person who stood before him.

But there were hands on his hands, and they pulled gently downward until Herewiss had no choice but to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head away. “Dusty,” his brother’s voice said, “don’t you have anything to say to me?”

The old name, so rarely used, so much missed, pierced Herewiss with more pain than he had thought possible to stand without dying—but then, how could he die on these shores? He sobbed and coughed and caught his breath, and finally dared to look up again into his brother’s face. There was no anger there, no hatred, not even any sorrow. Herelaf was glad to see him.

“Why are you so surprised that I’m here?” his brother said. “You know how the drug works. I’m as likely to turn up in your realm as you are in mine. And if you walk here, you’re more than likely to run into me.”

“I—” Herewiss choked, cleared his throat. “I suppose I knew it. But I was so sure that I wouldn’t, wouldn’t lose control—”

“—and run into me. Yes, I can imagine.” Herelaf held Herewiss’ hands in his, and the touch was warm. “I’m glad you came.”

“But—but I killed you—!” The words were too much for him, despite all the thousand times he had whispered and moaned and cried them into the darkness in the past. He crumpled back into tears. Freelorn was crouched down beside him, holding him again, and his brother’s hands touched his face to wipe the tears away.

“Herewiss.” The voice was still young, but there was power in it, and Herewiss was startled out of his weeping. “You didn’t kill me. We were drunk, and messing with swords in a dark room, and you made one of those grand gestures with your sword, and I lost my balance and fell on it, and I died. You didn’t kill me.”

“But I should have been more careful—I shouldn’t have encouraged you—”

“Herewiss, I started it.”

“But—”

“Dusty, I started it. Listen, little brother mine, did I ever tell you a lie? Ever? Doesn’t it strike you a little funny that I’d start trying to lie to you here, where there can be neither lying nor deception?”

Herewiss scrubbed at his eyes and looked up again. “You’re still bleeding,” he said.

“So are you, and that’s why. This is a peaceful place, there’s healing to be had here before we go on. But the thoughts of the living have power over those who’ve gone on, just as the dead have some influence over the lives and ways of the living.”

“But you’re not really dead!” Herewiss cried. “You live, you’re here—”

“I’m here. But alive? Not the same way you are. I finished what I had to do.”

“But it was so senseless—you were young, and strong, and in line for the Lordship—” The tears broke through again. Herelaf shook his head.

“Little brother,” he said, and he held Herewiss’ hands hard, “I was all of that. And we loved each other greatly, and I loved my life, and when I first got here I raged and screamed and tried to get back into the poor broken body. But knowledge comes with silence here, and soon I found that it wasn’t senseless. What sense there is to it may seem evil to us, but that’s because it’s past our understanding.”

“I wish I could believe that—”

“Herewiss, I know this. I did what I was there to do while I was there, and then I came here, and when it’s time, I’ll go on to something else. That’s the way things are.”

“But—I don’t understand. What did you do?”

Herelaf smiled at him. “That, like the matter of Names, is between me and the Mother. Besides, I may not be finished yet.”

“I—oh, what the Dark! Herelaf, I wish I could stay here with you—I failed so miserably with the Flame—”

Herelaf laughed, and the mingled pain and joy that the sound struck into Herewiss was amazing to feel. “Goddess, Dusty, what a crazy idea. You don’t even know what you’re for yet, and already you want to abandon the battlefield! Idiot. So tell me. If you can tell me, you might be able to stay.”

“I never really gave it much thought—”

“A lot of people don’t. I certainly never did.”

Herewiss frowned in irritation. “I,” he said. “am the first man in a thousand years to have enough of the Flame to use, and know it.”

“That’s what you are, or what you have been—not what you’re for. You just have to go back and find out the answer. Allow yourself to be what you can, and that will point you toward what you’re for like a compass needle seeking north.”

“But—”

“Shut up. You always were a great one for butting around, looking for holes in what you didn’t want to hear. That hasn’t changed, at least. Listen to me, Dusty. I’m only a ghost. No, look at me—” Herewiss had turned his face away, but Herelaf took both his brother’s hands in one of his, while with the other he took Herewiss’ face and turned it to him. “I’m only a ghost, Dusty. I can’t hurt you any more, unless you make me. Since I fell onto your sword, you haven’t been able to use one, not even to fight with—I guess because of me, or what you think you did to me. But the time’s coming when you’re going to need a sword. And you won’t feel right with one, it won’t do you any good, it’ll turn in your hand unless you acquit yourself of my ‘murder.’ You have things to do. Better things than sitting around sorrowing for me. And I have better things to do than walk this shore and bleed.”

Herewiss knelt there on the sand, and felt Freelorn’s arms around him, and his brother’s eyes upon him, and he shook. He didn’t know what to think, or what to say.

“I’m not angry, Dusty,” Herelaf said softly. “There’s no anger here after one comes to understand things. I was set free at the appropriate time. How could I be angry about that? But we’re in bondage, both of us, and you can free us both. Turn me loose. Turn yourself loose. You didn’t kill me.”

“I—” Herewiss looked at his brother, and at the truth in his eyes, and for the first time began to feel something strange and cold curling in his gut. It was doubt, doubt of the crenellated certainties he had walled into his mind, and the doubt twined upward, curling around his heart and squeezing it hard. “I—”

PAIN. Sudden, terrible, and Herewiss foundering in darkness, the shore and the Sea’s light and Freelorn and his brother’s gentle voice all gone at once, lost, no light, no sound, only an awful tearing pain through his head and his heart and the place where his soul usually slept. Tearing, gnawing, and then just aching, and still the darkness, but there was a floor under him now—at least he thought there was, yes, his hands were against it, that was a pillow, and ohh his head hurt, spun and throbbed—and dear Goddess, what was that noise?

A howling. A sick ugly howling like an axe being sharpened too long, and mixed with it other sounds, human voices crying out in terror, the sound of scrabbling claws and—

Herewiss tried to stand up. The binding spell. Broken. A pack of hralcins; the one had gone back for reinforcements. A touch too much stress on the binding somehow. The spell broken, and now all of them loose, hunting. Hunting him. But he hadn’t been in his body. So they couldn’t find him. But they had found something else to hold them until he returned. Freelorn. Freelorn’s people. Downstairs. Defenseless.

He tried to stand again, and it didn’t work. Too much drug. Out of it too suddenly. His body disobeyed him, and responded to his commands with vengeful stabs of pain. The screaming was louder, voices terrified beyond understanding. He refused to let his body’s punishments stop him. There was a little light now, sickly, the light of the Moon almost gone down. Against the wall was a dim gray blot, the only thing he could really see. He made a hand go out, despite shrieking protests from his head and arm and aching torso, and took hold of the thing. It swayed in his grasp. The other hand, now. He gripped the object hard, and wrenched himself to a sitting position next to it.

If his voice could have found his throat, he would have screamed. It was the sword, sharpened that morning, and it cut into his hands in icy lines of pain, and the blood flowed. But he had no time, no time for the pain, and he struggled to stand, using the sword as a prop. He moved his hands feebly to the unsharpened tang, where the hilt would go, and pushed himself up, and somehow managed to stand. His legs wobbled under him as if they belonged to a body he had owned in a former life. He made his feet move. He went to the door.

The stairs were dark, and Herewiss fell and stumbled down them, using the sword as a cane, caroming off the walls with force enough to bruise bones—though he couldn’t feel the blows much through the shell which the drug had made of his body. The cries of men in terror were closer now. They mingled with that awful lusting hunger-howl and were nearly lost in it, faint against it as against the laughter of Death. As Herewiss came to the landing at the foot of the stairs, very faintly he could see some kind of light coming from the main hall, a fitful light, coming in stuttered and flashes. With every flash the hralcins screeched louder in frustration and rage. Segnbora! He thought, she’s holding them off with the light until I can get there. But what can I do? Nothing but Flame would do anything—

He reeled against the wall to rest his blazing body for a second, and the answer spoke itself to him in his brother’s voice: (It’ll turn in your hand unless you acquit yourself of my ‘murder’)

He stumbled away from the wall and went on again, shuffling, hurrying, pushing himself through the pain. The light before him grew brighter as he approached the hall, but the flashes were becoming shorter and shorter. Segnbora spoke of choosing when to listen to the voices of the dead—and when you can choose freely, and not be driven by them, you’re free to find out who you really are—

And the voice spoke again in the back of his mind, saying. (There’s neither lying nor deception, back of the Door—)

He couldn’t lie, Herewiss thought through the effort of making his body work. He was telling the truth. He was! I didn’t—

He came to the doorway of the hall, and stood there, trembling with fear and effort, taking in the scene. There was little sound from the people in the hall now. They were crowded together in one corner, huddled together with closed or averted eyes. Before them stood Segnbora, arms upraised, shaking terribly, but with a look of final commitment on her face as she summoned the Flame from the depths of her, brilliant and impotent. As Herewiss watched, supporting himself on the bloody sword, she called the light out of herself again. But this time there was no starflower, no burst of blue: only a rather bright light, quickly gone.

In that light he could see the huge things she was holding off, as they backed away a bit. They reached out with twisted limbs, black talons raked the air like the combed claws of insects. Even through their banshee wail the sound of sheathed fangs moving hungrily in hidden mouths could still be heard. The light seemed to refuse to touch them, sliding away from hide the color of night with no stars—though there were baleful glitters from where their eyes could have been, reflections the color of gray-green stormlight on polished ice. The air in the room was bitter cold, and smelled of rust and acid.

The light flickered out, and the hralcins moved in again for their meal.

Herewiss staggered in, into the thick darkness. Well, maybe this was what he was for. The hralcins had come after him: he would give himself to them, and they would feed on his soul and go away, satisfied. His friends would escape. He found himself suddenly glad of those few precious moments with his brother, however painful they had been. After the hralcins were through with him, there would be nothing. No silent shore, no Sea of light, no rebirth ever; only terrible pain, and then the end of things. But if this was going to be the last expression of his existence, he would do it right. He drew himself up straight, though it hurt, and lifted up the sword. Almost he smiled: it was so good to face his fears at last—!

“Here I am, you sons of bitches!” he yelled. “Come and get me!”

The howling paused for a moment, as if in confusion—and then, to Herewiss’ utter horror, resumed again. They were not interested. They had found other game; they would take the souls of Freelorn and his people, and then later have Herewiss at their leisure.

“No,” he breathed. “No—”

“Herewiss!” two voices cried at once, and there was the light again, but only a shadow of itself, pallid and exhausted. Segnbora held up her arms with fists clenched, as if she were trying to hold on to the light by main force, while her eyes searched the shadows for Herewiss. Freelorn stood apart from her, grim-faced and terrified. His sword was naked in his hand: a useless gesture, but one that described him in full. That man walked the land of the dead with me unafraid, Herewiss thought, and here he is facing down things that’ll drink him up, blood and soul together, and he’s afraid, and still he defies—!

The light died out, for the last time. The hralcins howled, and moved in—

The hall exploded into fire, an awful blaze of white-hot outrage. Freelorn and Segnbora and the others crowded further back into the corner as Sunspark flowered between them and the hralcins, its fires raging upward in a terrible blinding column until they reached the ceiling and turned back on themselves, the down-hanging branches of a tree of flames. The hralcins backed away again.

“Sunspark,” Herewiss cried, the sound of his shout hurting his head. “Spark, no, don’t—”

The hralcins were already sliding closer again. (Herewiss,) it said, lashing out at them with great gouts of fire, (he loves you. And you love him, more than you do me, I dare say. How shall I stand by and allow him to be taken from you? And then afterwards these things would take you too—) Its thoughts were casual on the surface, almost humorous, but beneath them Herewiss could hear its terror for him.

“Spark—”

It went up in so unbearable a glare that Herewiss had to close his eyes, but before he did he saw that the hralcins were still moving closer. (They don’t seem to be responding as well as before to this,) it said conversationally, while beneath the thought all its self sang with fear. (I think—)

There was a sudden shocked silence. Herewiss opened his eyes again to see one of the hralcins reach out and somehow tear the pillar of fire in two, hug a great tattered blaze of light to itself with its misshapen forelimbs, suck it dry, kill the light. The other hralcins moved in for the rest, tore at the light, fed, consumed it, darkness fell—

“SUNSPAAAAAARK!”

The hralcins howled like the Shadow’s hounds, and moved in again. And through the howling, Herewiss heard Freelorn scream.

The scream entered into Herewiss and burned behind his eyes, ran through his veins in a storm of fire and filled him as the drug had filled him with himself. He needed his Name. There was no time any more. He threw the door open, and looked. Time froze in him. No, he froze it—

All his life he had thought of time as being flat like a plane. It was the world that was three-dimensional. A moment had seemed to have an edge sharp enough to slice a finger on, and by the time he summoned up the self-awareness and desire to try balancing on such a razor’s edge, the moment was past already, and he was teetering on the next one.

Now, though, he found himself poised there, effortlessly, in the exact middle of a moment. And since he was truly still for the first time in his life, he perceived his Name. He looked sideways down it, or along it, or into it—there were no words to properly express the spatial relationships implicit within its structure. Its strands stretched outward forever, and inward forever, flung out to eternity and yet curling back and meeting themselves again, making a whole. A scintillating, dazzling latticework of moments past and moments future, of Herewiss-that-was and Herewiss-that-would-be, all entwined, all coexisting; a timeweb, a selfweb, himself at its heart.

He looked up and down its length, and saw. Down there, root and heart and anchor-point of the weave, the night of his conception. Elinádren his mother, and Hearn his father, tangled sweetly together in the act of love. After some time of sleeping together for the sheer fun of the sharing, they were making an amazing discovery; that each of them was finding the other’s delight more joyous than his or her own—and not just while in bed. The long comfortable friendship of the Lord’s son and the Rodmistress who worked with him had come to fruition; they had become lovers; and now that they were in love indeed, their Names were beginning to match in places. He could see the two brilliant Name-weaves tangling through one another, and where they touched and met and melded, they blazed white-hot with joy. It was as if someone had cast out a net of silver and drawn in a catch of stars.

Herewiss’ soul, existing in timelessness, saw that bright network and was entranced by it; the joystars were beacons that drew him in. He wanted that kind of joy, of love, wanted to be part of it, to share the joy with someone else that way. And as he watched, Elinadren exploded in ecstatic fulfillment, and her Fire ran searing through the glittering weave, igniting the joystars into unbearable blinding brilliance, setting free for a bare few moments the spark of Hearn’s suppressed Flame, which swept down like wildfire to meet hers. Their two commingled souls burned starblue, and Herewiss, overwhelmed by an ecstasy of light and promised joy, dove inward and blazed into oneness with them as they were one; started to be born again . . . 

And other occurrences, later ones. Being held in his father’s arms, carried home half-asleep after his presentation at the Forest Altars: three years old. “Oh,” Hearn’s voice whispering to Elinádren, who walked beside them with her arm through Hearn’s, moving quietly through green twilight, “oh, Eli, he’s going to be something special.”

And another one over there, watching his mother make it rain to stave off what seemed an incipient dry spell. He was six years old. Watching her stand there in the field, garlanded with meadowsweet to invoke the Mother of Rains, seeing her uplift a Rod burning with the Fire and call the rainclouds to her with Flame and poetry. He watched the sky darken into curdled contrasts, clouds violet and orange and stormgreen, watched her bring the lightning-licked water thundering down, and a great desire to control the things of the world rose up in him. He got up from the grass, soaking wet, and went to hold on to Elinádren’s skirts, and said. “Mommy, I’ll do that when I grow up too.”

And yet another, when he was out camping in the grasslands east of the Wood, and he woke up and stretched in the morning to find the grass-snake coiled in the blankets with him, and heard its warning hiss: eleven years old. He knew it could kill him; and he knew he could probably kill it, for his knife was close to hand and he was fast. But he remembered Hearn saying, “Don’t ever kill unless you must!”—and he lifted up the blankets slowly and then rolled out, and from beneath them the grass-snake streaked out like a bright green lash laid over the ground, and was gone, as frightened of him as he had been of it. I guess you can do without killing, he thought. Always, from now on, I’ll try—

There were thousands more moments like that, each one of which had made him part of what he was, each linked to all the moments before and all the moments after, making the bright complete framework that was his Name. And each act or decision had a shadow, a phantom link behind it—sprung from his deeds, yet independent of them somehow—another Name, shadowing itself in multiple reflections, reaching out into depths he could not fully comprehend—

Her Name. The Goddess’. Of course.

No wonder She wanted to free me. And no wonder She wanted my Name. Not power, nothing so simple. It is part of Hers. Her Name is the sound of all Names everywhere. And with the knowledge of my Name, She will win ever so slight a victory against the Death. There will be more of Her than there was; the sure knowledge of what I am at this moment in time will make me immortal in a way that will surpass and outlast even the cycles of death and rebirth, even the great Death of everything that is.

If I accept myself—

Herewiss stood there in the midst of the blazing brilliance of the weave, hearing words long forgotten as well as ones that had never been spoken, tasting joys he had ceased to allow himself and pains he had shut away, and also feeling with wonder the textures of things that hadn’t happened yet, silks and thorns and winds laden with sunheat like molten silver—Whether the drug was still working in him, he wasn’t sure; but futures spun out ahead of him from the base-framework of his Name, numberless probabilities. Some of them were so faint and unlikely that he could hardly perceive them at all; some were almost as clear as things that had become actuality. Some of these were dark with his death, and some almost as dark with his life; one burned blue with the Fire, and he looked closely at it, saw himself almost lost in light, rippling with Flame that streamed from him like a cloak in the wind. And that future was ready to start in the next moment, when he let time start happening again. But there was still a gap in the information, he didn’t know how to get there from here—

Yes I do.

Herewiss looked forward along all the futures, and back down his past, weighing the brights and darks of them, and accepted them for his.

And knew his Name.

And knew the Name of his fear.

His Flame, of course. There it lay, dying indeed, but still the strongest thing about him, the strongest part of him. How long, now, had he been trying to control it, to use it like a hammer on the anvil of the world? The blue Flame was not something to be used in that fashion. He had been trying to keep it apart from him, where it would not be a threat to his control of himself. If he wanted it, really wanted it, he was going to have to take hold of it and merge himself with the Fire, give up the control, yield himself wholly and for ever.

It was going to hurt. The fires of the forge, of a star’s core, of an elemental’s heart would be nothing compared to this.

So be it. There’s no more time. I’ve got to do it.

He had been trying to make it his.

He reached out and embraced it, and made it him.

Pain, incredible pain for which the anguished screaming of a whole dying world seemed insufficient expression. He hung on, grasped, held, was fire—and then time began to reassert itself, the pain mixing with the sound of Freelorn’s scream, feeding on it, blending, changing, anger, incandescent blue anger, raging like the Goddess’ wrath—hands, surely burned off, eyes transfixed by spears of blue-white fury, too much, too much power, has to go somewhere, forward, moments moving, forward, terror, rage, forward, Freelorn—!

—staggering forward, carrying the half-finished sword in his hand, and a murderous freight of rage within him, burning under his skin like the red-hot heart of a coal under its white ash. No anger he had ever summoned had been this potent, it was devouring him from within, he was fire, like Sunspark, ah, Sunspark, loved, gone, dear one!—and he sobbed, his own fires consuming him now, fury, horror, revenge, he tried to treat them as a sorcery, shaping them, directing them, scorching himself with them, weaving them—

—something stumbled into the firefield he was making, no, that he was, for it was he and he it; that’s the secret, isn’t it—not trying to use a tool, but being one with it—who uses their hand to do something? It does it—a something, no, not really—a not-something; it had no name, nor even any life; and it sensed his sudden incredible upsurge of life, of selfness—they sensed him, and were closing in, for such a feed as they had never had in all their centuries. Well, let them try. They are not alive, so it’s all right to kill them—disassemble would be a better word, actually; see, a break here, at this linkage, and here, quite simple; I know what I’m for and they can’t say as much—now the hard part, push—

If Freelorn’s scream had terrified him, the ones that came now were worse, but Herewiss shut them out. He stood still, clenching hard on his sword, on himself, his eyes squeezed shut. Outside of him he perceived a terrible turbulence and upset, a maelstrom of freed forces that shook the air inside his lungs and battered at the thoughts inside his head. But he felt sure that if he looked to see what was happening, something might go wrong. He urged the anger on, feeding it with his fears, pouring it out. It pushed through his pores as if he were sweating molten metal. His skin would have melted too were it not already charred into a blackened shell. The burning had rooted itself deep in him, his bones glowed like iron in the forge. His heart raced, its rhythm staggering in pain, every beat an explosion of sparks and burnt blood. But still he pushed, fanned the fire, breathed it hotter, pushed, pushed—

The hralcins keened and screeched up to the top of the range of hearing, a multiple cry of agony and excruciating fright. The sound hurt the ears, piercing them unbearably, boring inward to the brain—

—and then it stopped.

Herewiss opened his eyes. The hall was empty, except for the hralcins’ horrible smell and a faint brief echo of their last despairing cry. Slowly, Freelorn’s people began to come out of the corner. Segnbora slumped down into an exhausted heap on the floor, and wept with frustration and fear. Herewiss stood where he was, holding himself straight, and Freelorn came and put his arms around him. Freelorn was shaking terribly.

“Lorn,” Herewiss said.

Freelorn held him, just held him hard for a few moments, and then reached up a trembling hand to Herewiss’ face, brushing away the tears and sweat.

Herewiss caught at that hand, bowed his head over it, pressed his lips to it. “Lorn,” he said again, his heart clenching like a fist in a last spasm of fear. “Are you all right, did it hurt you at all—”

“No, no, it just touched me.” Freelorn laughed, a weak, shaky chuckle. “You know how I am about gooey things—”

“You were justified, I think . . . ” he held Freelorn’s hand tightly against him, and swayed slightly; his voice was soft and slurred with fatigue. “Lorn, it’s awfully bright in here for Moonset . . . is Segnbora—”

“Ohh—oh, Herewiss—”

There was such a strange tone to Freelorn’s voice that Herewiss glanced down to see what he was looking at. It took a while before it registered, before he really saw the bright blue Flame that licked around him like an aura, curling down his arm and flowing through and about the blade of the half-finished sword in runnels the color of summer sky. And even then, all he could find the strength to do was to slip his free arm around his friend, as much from the need for support as from love.