Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Shadow

soundly thatched roofs. A few, though, still had turf roofs, with here and there a scamp flower growing. Men drying their hands on dishtowels and young women with floury hands came' to the windows, attracted by the sound of hooves on, cobbles. Up at the front of the line of riders, Dritt unslung his dm— brel and began banging it earnestly, calling their wares: "Songs and stories, tall tales! Shivers and chuckles, sleepless nights, horrors and heartthrobs, deaths and delights! Mim-icry, musicry, tragedy, comedy—"
A small crowd began to gather. Dritt began juggling two knives and a lemon, breaking the rhythm occasionally by catching the lemon in his mouth, and making puckery faces when he let go of it. Harald was strumming changes on Segn-bora's lute, and angling it so the torchlight from the cressets by the inndoor would catch the mother-of-pearl inlay.
Herewiss dismounted, pulled the saddle off Sunspark, and snapped his fingers. The stallion disappeared, replaced by a great white hound of the kind that runs with the Maiden's Hunting. The fayhound danced once about Herewiss on its hind legs — bringing ooohs and aaaahs from the audience, for upright it stood two feet taller than he did — then, at his clap, it sat up most prettily and begged. At another clap it bowed to the audience, grinning with its huge jaws. At a fourth clap it changed to a tree that creaked and groaned as if a wild wind tore at it; then to a huge serpent that coiled around Herewiss and tried to squeeze the life out of him, and finally to a buck unicorn.
A delighted cheer went up from the crowd, the kerchiefed ladies and dusty-britched men applauding such illusion as they had only heard of before. Man and unicorn held their tableau, while Moris turned handsprings on the stones, and Freelorn went inside to dicker with the innkeeper for the night's room and board.
Not long afterward Lorn emerged, and gestured to the crowd for silence. He was wearing the very slight crease of frown that was all he allowed himself when disturbed in pub-lic. "Kind gentlemen, good ladies," he said, "we'll begin our evening's entertainment an hour after sunset. Please join us, one and all."
The crowd in the street, murmuring appreciations,, began to disperse. Herewiss stood up and dusted himself off. "Everything all right?" he said to Freelorn, noticing that faint crease of worry.
"Yes," Freelorn said, in the same tone of voice he would have used to say "no." "The innkeeper worries me, though." "He's stingy?"
"No. We hardly had to bargain, he gave right in. It's some-thing about his manner—" "Maybe he was busy."
Freelorn shrugged. "Could be — the place is lively inside. Come on, I want a bath before dinner."
They stabled the horses, including Sunspark, who wanted to indulge its fondness for oats but promised to follow later.
The inn itself, the "Yale and Fetlock," was a long, low, battered-looking place of fieldstone with a weedy turf roof and a rammed dirt floor. The main room was smoky and full of people, all in the linens and woolens of townsmen. Some sat eating at long rough tables starred with rushlights. Others stood eating at sideboards, sat drinking in the middle of the room, or simply milled around. All were talking at the top of their lungs. (Sweet Immanence,) Hasai said, sitting up in alarm behind Segnbora's eyes and looking out at the jostly drinkers' dance, (what's being decided here?) (What?)
A — memory now surfaced, but of a sight she had never seen. In a stony deserted vale. Dragons, a great crowd of them, moved among one another in a precise and graceful pattern. It was nn's'raihle, Convocation — sport and ceremony and family fight and celebration all. at once, the form of dis-agreement and resolution that Dragons found the most ele-gant and, delightful.
(Oh,) Segnbora said, seeing the likeness to nnYraihle in the tense movement in the room. (No 1 , mdaha, this is social. 'They'll talk about whatever's happening, but they won't be making any decisions here.)
(How can they all abrogate their responsibility like that?) Hasai said, uneasy. (You, all live here; how can you not act to nin the world?)
THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
(lib—) Segnbora stalled, watching Freelorn. He had some-how already found a mug of ale, and was shouting in an old roan's ear, "Ei, grand'ser, what's all the pother for?"
"Reavers!" the gaffer shouted back, and started telling of mcursions to the south in Was ten and Nestekhai. (Well?)
She breathed out, wondering what to say. (Uh. Hasai, most humans are empowered only to make decisions regarding themselves — or those close to them. They don't sit down, have an argument about something and then make a decision by which all humans will be bound. They would never all agree—)
(Then how do you get this world to work? How do you get anything accomplished?) Hasai said, bewildered.
Segnbora shook her head. "Done" didn't translate well; "do" and "be" seemed to be the same word in Dracon — stihl. (That will take time to explain. .)
(Never mind, then. I see that there are more important matters to be concerned with. These incursions by the Reav-ers. . are they close by, do you think?)
Segnbora made a face. (Too close. I wish we were farther north. But we dare not be; we would arouse too much curios-ity there. Excuse me, Hasai. I've got to get ready for our show—) (Certainly.)
She found the innkeeper. He was a knifeblade of a man, all grin and nervous energy. Segnbora could see that he would have made a quick business of the dickering. She got a mug of rough cider from him, and went to her bath.
Scrubbed and dressed in her worn but serviceable black gown with the tai-Enraesi crest on one shoulder, she went back to the common room and began talking to the patrons, assessing their mood, asking for requests. Just the sound of their voices gave her pleasure. They spoke in the old reassur-ing South Darthene accent that had been her mother's. It was a rich speech, slow, broad and full of archaisms. "Maistress," the slow-smiling, staid-faced townsfolk called her. "Aye, gaffer, tha'st hit it," she would drawl back, and they would laugh together.
She found Freelorn and Herewiss and the others at the best table by the central hearth, and sat down with them to a meal of aggressively garlicked lamb and buttered turnips, baked bannocks, and a soft, sharp sheep's-milk cheese to spread on them.
Freelorn, reviling the vintage of the cool white potato wine that had been brought up for them from the ice-cellar, never
theless drank off three cups one after another, and by mistake almost drank the Goddess's cup as well. Lang gave Segnbora a nudge, and they traded glances. Freelorn had been in a mood like this the night he had gotten them all chased out of Madeil, the night Segnbora ran across him.
"It's all right, I think," she whispered. Herewiss took the wineflask gently away from his loved and forestalled his protests by saying, "Who's performing first?" This started the predictable argument, punctuated with ex-clamations of, "I need more practice!"; "You are too in good voice, I heard you in the outhouse!"; "Oh, don't be a cow-ard!"; "I'm a coward, huh, then you go first!"
Segnbora groped under the table for the lute, causing more exclamations. She winked at Lang and pulled her chair over by the hearth. Behind her, as she tuned the lute's slack ela-string, the fire leaped, roaring up the chimney. There was a momentary hush close to the hearth, then intrigued whispers. The fire had acquired eyes.
"Thank you," she said, stroking the lute. "This is how it was," she said. That had been the storyteller's opening line from time immemorial. The quiet spread far back in the room. "There was a queen who would not die—"
THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
It was a relative's story, and an old favorite of hers: the tale of Efmaer d'Seldun tai-Earn6si, the first woman to be both Queen of Darthen and a Rodmistress.
In the fourth year of Efmaer's reign came an outbreak of lunglock fever. Efmaer did what she could to treat those of the royal household who were ill, but the Fire was of no avail. Soon she caught the malady herself. There was bitter mourn-ing then, for under Efmaer's rule the land had prospered as never before. When finally she fell into the unconsciousness that precedes death, her attendants stole weeping from her rooms, leaving her to die peacefully in the night.
But none of them knew their Queen's determination. It wasn't yet her time to die. When she suddenly found herself standing before the open Door into Starlight, and felt the forces at her back pushing her toward it, Efmaer rebelled. She caught at the black doorsills and hung over the starry abyss by ten straining fingers. Peace and the last Shore awaited her
at the bottom of the darkness, but Efmaer would have none of them. She hung on.
When her tearful attendants slipped into her bedchamber in the morning to prepare her body for the pyre, they found her not dead, but sleeping. She looked drawn and fever-wasted, but the sickness was broken. In her hand, clutched tight, was a long sharp splinter of darkness — a broken-off piece of the Door.
Later, when Efmaer was well again, she wrought the splin-ter into a sword. Skadhwe, it was called in Darthene, "Dark-harm." It would cut anything, stone or steel or soul, and many were Efmaer's deeds with it across the breadth of Darthen and down the length of her reign. And if anyone spoke in fear to Efmaer because she had cheated Death at its own Door, the Queen would laugh, unworried, certain the Shadow would never bother avenging so small a slight.
Whether she was right no one could surely say, for Efmaer's loved, Sefeden, killed himself, and his soul passed into Meni Auardhem, into Glasscastle, to which go suicides and those weary of life.
Then Efmaer grew frightened, for Sefeden knew her inner Name; and therefore his soul could bind her to this world when it was time to pass onward and be reborn. In haste Efmaer rode to Barachael, and climbed Mount Adine, above which Glasscastle appeared at times of sunset and crescent Moon and Evenstar.
There was at that time no way for one still in the body to cross to the castle. The souls of the dead and the minds of the mad found their way across with no need of a physical road. It would have been easy for Efmaer to attempt the crossing to Glasscastle in a bird's shape, or as a disembodied soul, but she was no fool. The terrible magics of the place would have warped her own wreaking out of shape and killed her. Yet she had to get into Glasscastle; yet she could not get into Glass-castle.
For some people this would have been a problem. But Efmaer waited for the time of three Lights, when the castle faded into being. When it was fully there, she drew Skadhwe and smote the stone of Adine with it, opening a great rent in
the mountain, like a wound. With her Fire, Efmaer brought about the chief wreaking of her lifetime, singing the moun-tain's blood out of its wound, drawing out the incomparable iron of the great Eisargir lodes, tempering it in Flame and passion, hammering it with ruthless song into a blue-steel bridge that arched up to the Castle, fit road for a mortal's feet.
When had she wrought the bridge, she climbed it. She came to the crystal doors of Glasscastle and passed them, searching for Sefeden to get her Name back from him. But she did not come out. And at nightfall Glasscastle vanished into its eternal twilight, until the next time of three Lights in the world. .
"And from that day to this," she said at last, unnerved to feel the tears coming, "no one has been so bold as to say they have seen Efmaer d'Seldun among the living or the dead. With her, Skadhwe passed out of life and into legend; and in the years since the Queen's disappearance, cheating Death has gone out of style. . "
THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
The applause embarrassed her, as usual. She was glad to get out of what was now a very hot chair, and give place to Dritt and Moris and their juggling. Someone pushed a cup of cold wine into her hand. She took it gratefully and made her way to the back of the room, wiping her eyes as surreptitiously as she could. "Smoke," she said to Lang as she came up beside him. "Mmm-hmm."
Together they held up the wall awhile, leaning on one another's shoulder and watching Moris and Dritt juggle ob-jects the audience gave them: beerpots, platters, clay pipes, truncheons, rushlight holders. Nothing fell, nothing at all. "I can't believe it!" Lang whispered. "Did all that practicing actually pay off?"
"Not a chance," Segnbora whispered back. "I smell Fire. Herewiss threw a wreaking over them. I doubt they'll be able to drop even a hint until it breaks."
Freelorn came toward them through the crowd, with an-other cup of wine in his hand. "Lorn," Segnbora said softly as he joined them, "just you watch it. Don't get sozzled."
"Yes, mother."
Segnbora settled back against the wall again and went back to watching the jugglers, particularly poor Moris, who had just been handed a full winejug to add to the other objects being juggled. He was giving it a look such as the King gave the Maiden when he had come to beg one of the hares She was herding. Glancing back at Lorn to see his reaction, Segn-bora saw that he wasn't paying attention. He was watching someone off to one side, out of the hearthlight, eyes wide with admiration.
A blocky man moved and Segnbora could see over his shoulder. Past him, there, a small figure slipped out of her cloak, accepted a cup from the passing barmaid and raised it to her lip, looking over the rim in Freelorn's direction. She was a short woman with close-cropped hair of a very fair blonde, small bright eyes like a bird's, a mouth that quirked up at one corner—
Segnbora froze for a breath, two breaths, watching the light from a wall-cresset catch in the butter-blonde hair, giving its owner a halo. (Teg&ne,) she said silently, fighting hard to keep her delight off her face. Her loved from those long-ago days at the Precincts — here! (You're a long way from home: is Wyn keeping supper hot for you?)
("Berendf Are you here!) The face across the room didn't change a bit, but Segnbora heard the old familiar laughter, sounding all the more real for being silent. (Now I see! 'Be-rend, you—.')
(Me what? What are you doing here?) She bowed her head over her cup, needing the darkness to hide the smile that wouldn't stay in.
(I was told to come. I dreamed true last night. She told me, *I know r your troubles and your questions. Go quickly to Chavi and you'll find answers.' I used the Kings' Door, and a mile away I smelled so much Fire that — oh 'Berend, I'm so glad for you!) {Not me, Tegane.) She flicked a mind-glance at Freelom. (It's this one's loved.)
(You mean—) Eftgan's emotions swung rapidly from em-barrassment to incredulity. (Then that uproar in the Power we
all felt last week was someone donating to the Fane! And that story I got from the Bright wood people about a man focus-ing—) (It's true,) Segnbora said, and leaned back against the wall, weak from the backwash of Eftgan's excitement. Moris and Drill finished their juggling, amid much ap-plause. There was no opportunity to go to Eftgan, however, for at that moment Herewiss walked in through the door from the stabieyard and took his place by the hearth. The room quieted.
Herewiss didn't bother with the lengthy introduction that some sorcerers used to assure that their illusions would take root in the spectators' minds. Nor did he bother with spells. He just sat back in the chair, one arm leaning casually on his long sheathed sword. "My gentlemen,