Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Shadow

my ladies," he said, "a little sorcery."
It was a great deal more than that, but since no Fire showed there was no way for the audience to tell. They chuckled appreciatively when tankards and plates engaged in a slately aerial sarabande in the middle of the room. They clapped when one empty table shook itself like a sleepy dog, got up and began stumping around the room on its legs. They hooted with pleased derision when the big rough fieldstones in the fireplace all suddenly grew mouths and began talking noisily about the things they had seen in their time, some of which made for very choice gossip.
When finally all the flames in the rooms shot up suddenly, swirled together in the empty air and coalesced into a bright-feathered bird that hung upside down by one foot from the chandelier and croaked, "Tve got it! The Goddess is walking down, the street and She meets this duck. ." the storm of laughter and applause became' deafening.
Not even Eftgan's composure remained unshattered. "My Goddess," she whispered, and from clear across the room Segnbora could feel her smothering down the Flame that was trying to leap from, her Ro>d in response to the FireBow Here-wiss was letting loose. A good sorcerer would have had no trouble producing such effects by illusion; but these were actual objects moving
around, briefly alive and self-willed. Normally it would have taken two or three Rodmistresses working in consort to pro-duce even one of the transformations taking place — but there sat Herewiss all by himself, looking like a child enjoying a new toy.
The table had sneaked up behind one tall woman and was nibbling curiously at her tunic, like a browsing goat. The stones had begun singing rounds, Sunspai k had forgotten by now that it ought to have been holding onto the chandelier, and was simply suspended upside down in midair, getting laughs for jokes without punch lines attached.
(How is he doing that?!) Eftgan said, bespeaking Segnbora very quietly, so as not to distract Herewiss.
(Most of these things were alive once,) Herewiss said si-lently, not moving or looking up. (It's just a matter of remind-ing them how it was. Mistress, I can taste your Fire but I can't place you — though there's something familiar about your pat-tern. You know my loved, perhaps?)
(The pattern might be familiar prince) the small woman said, as two chairs put their arms about each other and begin dancing in a corner, muttering creaky endearments, (because you and 1 have met. At Lidika fields you jumped in front of a Reaver with a crossbow and took the quarrel for me while I was having trouble with a swordfight—)
The hearthstone snorted as if in great surprise, then settled into a bout of ratchety snoring. (Eftgan! The Queen's grace might have given me warning!)
(I didn't want to disturb your concentration, prince, though it appears I worried for nought. But pardon me if I leaveoff complimenting you for the moment. I have business here, and you're part of it, I've been told. If I rework the wreaking on the Kings' Door, can you come with me to Barachael tonight?)
(Depends on Freelorn, madam,) All the candles on tables and in sconces tied themselves in knots and kept on burning. (We're on business of our own, and 1 have oaths in hand that may even supersede the oaths of the Brightwood line to Darthen.)
(Oh, that business. I think your business and mine will go well enough together.) (Then we'll talk when I've finished.)

At that Lorn quietly left the shadow of his doorway, heading across the common room — ostensibly to get another drink— and "noticed" Eftgan in what appeared to be the fashion of one potential bed-partner noticing another. He paused be-side her, bent toward the pretty woman, and with a smile that any onlooker would have found unmistakable, said in her ear, "Since it's my throne we're talking about, madam, and my country, I'd best be there too. Don't you think?" Eftgan smiled back, the same smile. "Sir," she whispered, "that sounds good to me."
The room had become such a merry hurly-burly of laughter and clapping that saying anything and having it heard was becoming impossible. Freelorn went off for his drink, leaving Eftgan to say silently, and with some diffidence, ('Berend, have you taken a mind-hurt recently? There's a darkness down there that didn't used to be. Is there anything I can do?) (Dear heart, I don't think so,) she said silently. (I'm told the change is permanent.) (You mean She—)
(No. Well, not directly. If you want to take a look. .) (Yes.)
Across the room, their eyes caught and held, then dropped again as their minds fell together in that companionable meld that had always come so easily.
Segnbora saw and felt, in a few breaths" space, a rush of images, that were Eftgan's surface memories of the past four years. Initiation into the royal priesthood, her brother's death, and her own investiture as Queen. The hot morning spent hammering out her crown, in the great square of Dar-ttiis, alone and unguarded, wondering whether someone would come out of the gathered crowd to kill her, as was her people's right if they felt her reign would not be prosperous. Worries about Arlen and, the usurper who sat in power there, making raids on her borders. Marriage to her loved, Wyn s'Heleth. Childbirth, midnight feedings, Narnings, ceremo-nies, the rites of life, all tumbled together with the lesser and greater drudgeries of queenship: mornings in court-justice, evenings spent in the difficult wreakings that were necessary
to buy her land temporary reprieve from the hunger and death creeping toward its borders.
There was more. Border problems. Reavers gathering in ever greater numbers on the far side of the mountain passes, pouring through them almost as if in migration. The loss of communications with numerous villages in the far south— suggesting that their Rodmistresses were dead. The loss of one of her best intelligencers here in Chavi, some weeks back. The sudden, urgent true-dream that showed Eftgan plainly the reason for all the Reaver movements of late. This last discovery had been more shocking than anything the Queen had been willing to imagine.
She had been so shocked, in fact, that she had not once, but several times, opened and used the Kings* Door, the danger-ous worldgate in the Black Palace at Darthis. She had done so tonight, and so here she sat in faded woolens and patched cloak and embroidered white shirt, like any countrywoman with a pot of beer. Yet her eyes were open for trouble, and for the answers she had been promised. Her Rod was sheathed and ready at her side.
Segnbora touched lightly on all these things, meanwhile letting Eftgan do what she didn't trust the mdeihei to do: turn over her memories one by one. When they were done, Segn-bora saw Eftgan stare down inside her at a shape burning in iron and diamond. Hasai stared back up, bowed his head and lifted his wings in calm greeting, then went back about his own concerns, singing something low and solemn to the rest of the mdeikei.
When their glances rested in one another's eyes again, Segnbora and Eftgan both breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the exertion. (He's very big,) Eftgan said. (And how many others are in there?)
(Maybe a couple hundred. I tried counting and had to give up. They don't count the way we do, and I could never get our tallies to agree. Tegane, what's bringing all these Reavers down on us? You saw something—)
(I did.) Eftgan was profoundly disturbed inside, (Part of the reason is storms. Their weather Is worsening. It was never very good to begin with, and now the Reaver tribes farthest south are faced with a choice. Either they move north or freeze even at Midsummer. The tribes already
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close to us are feeling the pressure. There are more people hunting those lands than the available game can support. Thinking Fyrd are driving them too. But worse than that—)
(What could be worse!) (Cillmod is in league with them,) Eftgan said, sour-faced, (and the Shadow is directing them all.) Segnbora stared, then took a long drink to hide her nerv-ousness.
(There's worse yet to come,) the Queen said. (My Lady tells me that a great shifting and unbalancing of Powers is about to occur in the area around Barachael during the dark of the next Moon. On one hand, Reavers are gathering on the far side of the Barachael Pass, as if for a great incursion. On the other—) The Queen took a drink. (On the other, we're due for a eight of three Lights shortly. And that means that Glass-castle will appear. Now, what might, go into Glasscastle doesn't concern me. What might come out of it does. Unhu-man things, monsters, have been summoned out of there before by sorcerers of foul intent—)
(But who in the Kingdoms would do something like that? That whole area is soaked with old blood! Nine chances out of ten, a sorcery would go askew—)
(No one' in the Kingdoms would attempt such a thing,) Eftgan said. (But I have other news. The dying thought of a certain Rodrnistress managed to reach me, even though her bones had just been turned to flour inside her,) "What!" Segnbora said aloud, in utter shock. She drank again to silence herself.
(The Reavers have got sorcerers now. Apparently someone has gotten a few of them over their fear of magic. It is that individual, who surely has no knowledge or concern for sor-cerous balances, who worries me. Think what horrors he wight, call forth from Glasscastle! He could easily protect the Reaver incursion, and destroy our defense — what, then?)
Segnbora thought of Herewiss's dream, of mountains fall-ing on mountains, and blood on the Moon, and said, nothing. (I need him,) said Eftgan, catching the images, which were in agreement with those in her own true-dream. (I can't be in all the places I must be, just now. One of my other spies tells me that Cillmod and some of his mercenaries are about to attack my granaries at Orsvier. I must be there to lead the defense. But Glasscastle and Barachael also have to be pro-tected, and it will take Fire of an extraordinary level to man-age that. Up until now, I thought I was the only one in Darthen who had achieved that level. Now—) She looked over toward where Herewiss stood by the hearth, grinning at the applause he was receiving for his "sorcery." (I can't tell you how glad I am to be surpassed,) Eftgan said. (Especially at a time like this, when everything seems to be happening at once.)
(Queen,) Segnbora said, (you say that everything's happen-ing at once. . well, he's one of the reasons.)
Eftgan nodded, understanding. Then, as Herewiss stepped away from the hearth, she crossed glances with him, a "let's-talk" look.
(I'll see you later, TegЈne,) Segnbora said, putting her drink aside, and headed for the door that gave onto the back of the inn.
Lang was hurrying in as she stepped out. "You on now?" Segnbora said. "Uh-huh. Wish me luck." "You won't need it. Except maybe to keep yourself from being knocked unconscious by the money they'll throw."
Lang smiled. "Where're you headed? — Oh, my Goddess," he said. Before Segnbora could say anything about either the Queen or her own increasingly urgent need to find a friendly bush, Lang had spotted Eftgan. "She's here? After seven years, she finally tracked down poor Dritt and Moris!"
"Ssssh. Tell the two of them to keep mum; something's on the spit, I'm not sure what yet."
Lang said nothing, only touched her shoulder gently as she went past, out into the alley and the cool air.
A shiver went down her back. It was more than just a reac-tion to the coolness outside, after the heat and smoke of the inn. Cillmod in league with the Shadow? She drew up her gown to keep it off the wet ground, and went down the alley behind
the inn, looking for a drier spot to take care of her business. The alley ended in a cobbled street that led to the town's fields through an unguarded