Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Shadow

THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
(Something for Herewiss? Something to make him glad?) (Yes.) She considered her thought carefully before sharing it. (Before I tell you, consider this: When he finds out about it, will he be angry, will he be in pain? If he won't. .) She let the thought rest.
Sunspark looked down at the Reavers, considering care-fully. For all its power, it knew it had much to learn yet about being human. (What are they doing?) it said, audible to the others.
Torve looked at it as calmly as if it had been one of his own people. "Breaking the gates of the town," he said, "to get inside and kill the people, or take their belongings at least."
Sunspark didn't look up from the valley. Segnbora caught its thoughts: Herewiss doesn't care for killing, or for robbing either. He tries to prevent them whenever possible. (And when they've done that? What then?)
"They'll come here and try to kill us, so that no one can stop them from doing as they please in this part of the coun-try," Torve said. (That's done it!) Sunspark said.
Leaping from the battlement in a swift flash of fire, it sent them all staggering back. Segnbora felt her singed face to find out if her eyebrows were still there. Once certain that they were, she looked around hurriedly. Sunspark had vanished. But Harald and Dritt were pointing down at the valley and laughing.
Far down in the depths of air, the group around the batter-ing ram suddenly began to break up. One person after an-other jumped up to beat frantically at smoldering clothes, their yelps of consternation trailing tardily through the air. "Can it manage a whole army, though?" Lang asked uncer-tainly.
Then it was Segnbora's turn to point and laugh, as a bloom of light erupted before the gates, followed by the sound of screaming. The ram — a lopped monarch pine, full of pitch as monarchs are — literally exploded in red-hot splinters and clouds of burning gas. People and ponies were flung in all directions. Then from the explosion site something like a serpent of flame went pouring over the scorched ground. It lengthened and wound right around the walls of Barachael, met its tail and kept on going, coiling around, reaching up-ward. In moments the town was lost behind burning walls, and the huge head of a coiled fire-serpent wavered lazily above Barachael. The confused shrieks and yells of the routed Reavers mingled with the screaming of their ponies. People and animals ran every which way. A roar of amazed laughter and applause went up from the
walls of khas-Barachael.
In response the Reavers, who had moved away from Bara-chael town and toward the keep, raised a chorus of war shouts. But their shouts had a half-hearted sound to them, as if they had other matters in mind. Sunspark was looking down at them with innocent malice, its fiery head swaying like that of a sleepy viper deciding whether to strike.
"What the—!" someone said from a higher parapet. Segnbora glanced up and saw Eftgan and Herewiss looking over the rail at Barachael town, very surprised. "Your idea?" Eftgan said to Herewiss. "No!" he said, grinning down at Sunspark. It stretched up its flame-hooded head and blinked at him good-naturedly. (They had torches,) it said, (and might have burned the town. However, if anybody's going to do any burning around here, it's going to be me.)
Herewiss and Eftgan came down to the battlement together and leaned on the parapet with Freelorn's followers. "I wish that sealing the pass was going to be as simple," Eftgan said.
Freelorn glanced at her. "It really ran be done, then?" Herewiss nodded. "It took me a while to work out the exact method, and it'll take some hours to attune to the mountain properly. . but, yes, I can do it." "And survive?"

Herewiss's glance crossed with Freelorn's, gently mocking. "That's with Her, of course," he said, "but I have a few things to do yet before I go willingly to death's Door. I believe I'll live."
"It's risky, though," Eftgan said, as if resuming an argu-ment with herself. "The earth always moves better on a night when the Moon's full, but the next time that happens there's an eclipse. The Shadow will be very strong then—"
There was a silence. Segnbora bit her lip. In a place as bitterly contested as Barachael, where the land was soaked with centuries of blood and violent death, even the simplest wreaking could be warped by the built-up negative forces. An eclipse was no help at all. And to attempt a wreaking that involved unconsciousness of the upper mind, as this one surely would— "I'm strong too," Herewiss said.
The complete assurance in his voice made Segnbora shud-der. She had heard such assurance before, and disaster had followed. "The wreaking itself doesn't worry me; I received more than enough Power to handle it at the Morrowfane. The tricky part will be the survey of the land. That'll have to be done out-of-body, and it'll take at least a day. Moreover, it must be done today, or tomorrow at the latest, in order for me to be properly rested up for the long wreaking."
Lang raised his eyebrows. '"Survey?" Herewiss nodded and leaned on the parapet. "Can't seal the pass without checking the valley to see how its stone lies — strata, faults, underground water. Touch the wrong part of a landscape and the whole thing could be destroyed."
"This area's quite unstable," someone said, and heads turned toward Segnbora, confusing her terribly until she real-ized that it was she who had spoken. "There are two major faults under the valley," she heard herself go on in a voice that
sounded like hers but was somehow odd. "Eight minor verti-cal faults run east-west between Adine and Aulys, and one runs across the lower Eisargir Pass. One major vertical fault crosses the valley mouth from Swaleback to Aulys's southern spur—" (Mdaha? What are you—)
(If he will work with stone, here, he must learn this, sdaha!) said the great dark voice inside her. She held her peace and let him use her throat.
"Then beneath those is a lateral fault that runs down the Eisargir Pass from the foot of Mirit into the valley, past the town, and out into the plain. It's very treacherous. We made no Marchward here because of it. To touch it wrongly will cause it to discharge and fold the valley in upon itself. The mountains might come down too. Especially Adine, whose support-spurs are rooted close to the lateral." The others stared at her, particularly Herewiss. He opened his mouth, but paused a moment, unsure how to begin. "Sir—" "I greet you, Hearn's son," she said, and approximated Hasai's slight bow. "Sir, how do you know all this?"
The mdeihei were laughing indulgently, as one laughs at a child. "We are Dracon," Hasai said, very gently. "We know. Stone is our element."
"Sir," Herewiss said, "I'd like to trust what you say, it'd save me a great deal of time, but—"
"— but you don't understand," Hasai said, patient. Segn-bora was surprised to hear the overtones of his inner song, calm and measured, coming out in her own voice.
"What you ask us is a great mystery. Even we aren't sure how stone became our element. But in the world from which we came, we were born in the stone, and dwelt in it. These are the very earliest times of which we speak. When food and drink failed us, stone and starlight were all we had left. We learned to use them. Those who didn't understand stone— how it could be moved to make shelter or melted with Dra-gonfire to help one find more starlight in dim times — those didn't survive. Those of us who lived to become as we are
now, are born knowing the structure and movement of rock as we know how to use our fire to shape it. We experience stone as if it were part of us. Indeed, we are the foundations, the roots of the world."
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Herewiss and Freelorn looked at each other. No one on the parapet spoke.
From down in Barachael valley, the hot eyes of the blazing serpent that encircled the town looked up with interest. (You're good with fire, are you?) Sunspark said, its voice lazy but full of challenge.
Segnbora gulped. But Hasai turned her head and look-ed down at the elemental calmly. "We know something of fire."
Sunspark glanced at Herewiss, as if considering the agree-ments that bound it, and then back at Segnbora. "Some day," it said formally, "we'll
match our power, you and I, and see which is greater."
"Some day," Hasai said calmly, "we shall." The words made Segnbora squeeze her eyes shut against a sudden blind-ing headache, for they were in future definite tense, describ-ing something that had not yet come to pass.
When the memories passed, and the sight of common day-light came back to her, Hasai lifted her head again. "Hearn's son," he said, "do you desire our aid?"
Herewiss looked at Segnbora as if trying to see past Hasai's voice. " 'Berend, what do you say?" She coughed and cleared her throat, getting control back. "I say, if Hasai offers you aid, take it."
"In that case," Herewiss replied slowly, "I'd like to check his assessment of the faults—" He stopped, unwilling to com-plete his suggestion. " — in my mind?" she guessed. "Yes."
Segnbora considered the idea. "You're welcome to look in," she said finally. "When?" "As close as possible to the hour that we begin the wreak-ing. Tomorrow night?" "Wait a minute!" Segnbora said, panic rising. "We?" Herewiss shrugged. "I'll need ongoing information during
the wreaking itself. I could probably do it alone, but why stretch myself thin when there's assistance offered?"
Segnbora hesitated. To participale in the wreaking itself would mean becoming involved with Herewiss's Fire. And the Fire was something she had sworn she would never touch again; she had suffered too many frustrations on its account. Besides, being unable to focus, she might become a danger to the proceedings. .
Herewiss picked up her last thought. " 'Berend, you came out of the Precincts with everything they had to teach, less one," he said. "I doubt you'll foul a wreaking in progress. Goddess knows how many of them they put you through!"
Most of them, Segnbora thought sourly, for all the good it did. She had no excuse. "All right," she said. "Tomorrow night, then."
"We'll move mountains together," Hasai added in a rare show of humor. There was starlight in the cave, and behind him ran the slow quiet
laughter of the mdeikei.
Herewiss nodded to Segnbora, and then turned to Eftgan. "Madam,"he said, "we have to finish discussing the Bluepeak business." He started back up the stairs to the tower, taking them two at a time, Khavrinen bouncing at his back and trailing blue Flame. Eftgan gave Segnbora a curious look and followed.
What have I got myself into! Segnbora thought. She put her head down onto her hands and gazed across the valley at Barachael, memories of the Precincts, and her unsuccessful attempts to focus tearing at her.
Below, the fire-serpent folded its hood and looked at her with innocent wickedness. (Tell me a joke?) it said. Segnbora groaned.
The next day it began to seem as if Eftgan's glum assess-ment of the Shadow's ability to direct the Reavers was correct. It certainly seemed as if they knew the incursion route down the Eisargir Pass was threatened. They came pouring out of the valley in a disorderly but
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