Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Shadow

The austringer called the Moonsteed, and there it came in a white blaze of light, for the Moon was near to full. 'What can I do for you?' it asked. 'Though I have a feeling I know.'
" 'My wife wants to be a tax collector, and have a tax collec-tor's fine house,' the austringer said.
" 'Go home, it's done,' said the Steed. And the austringer went home and found their thatched cottage changed to a tall house of rr'Harich marble; and her wife was twenty times as rich as she had been before.
"After that things went as you might imagine. A week later the austringer's wife wanted to be mayor, and so she was. Afterward she became bailiff, and Dame, and Head of House, one after another. Her house became golden-pillared and roofed with crystal, filled with rich stuffs and things out of legend — feather-hames and charmed weapons and even the silver chair that later belonged to the Cat of Acs Aradh — but
none of it gave her joy for more than a day. Each night she sent the austringer out to ask for another boon, and the au-stringer grew sad and pale, seeing that her wife loved her possessions more than she loved her.
"And as the days passed the aspect of the Moonsteed grew darker, for the old Moon was waning. White-silver the Steed had been at first, like moonlight on snow. Now it waxed darker each night, and frightened the austringer.
"The boons grew greater and greater. Head of the Ten High Houses, the austringer's wife became; then Chief of them, then High Minister, then Priestess-Consort. And still she wanted more.
"Finally the night came of the dark of the Moon—" Segnbora broke off for a moment, fumbling for the wine cup. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. It was only three nights from Moondark now, that time when a nightmare would be strongest.
"— the dark of the Moon, and the austringer went out to the fields to call on the Moonsteed for the last time. It came, burning with awful dark splendor and wrath, and said in its gentle voice, 'What is it now? Your wife has asked, and I have granted, even to the last times when she asked to be Queen of Steldin, and then High Queen of all the Kingdoms. What more might she want?'
"The austringer trembled, and said, 'She wants to rule the Universe.'"
Segnbora lifted the cup again and finished the wine. There was silence. Freelorn glanced down expectantly at Herewiss, whose eyes were turned away, then back at Segn-bora. "So?"
"So She does. " She handed back the empty cup. "Nowyou tell one."
Suddenly Blackmane screamed. Herewiss jerked upright as if he had been kicked. All around the camp heads turned out toward the darkness.
The nightmare stood for a moment among the boulders that had fallen from the cliff, and then stepped forward deli-cately. It was small: the size of a seven-months* filly. Its silken mane and tail hung to the ground. Slim-legged and clean of
line, it seemed at first as elegant and graceful as a unicorn. But its eyes were evil: red and bottomless, full of old cruelties and insatiable hunger. From a coat the color of the rolled-up whites of a dead man's eyes, it cast a faint yellowish corpse-light that illuminated nothing. Segnbora got up, dry-mouthed again. She took a few steps forward and folded her arms, staring right into those ancient, burning eyes. "Be thou warned," she said in the formal manner reserved for the laying of dooms, "that I am well informed of thee and thy ways, of thy comings and goings, thy wreakings and undo-ings; and that it is my intent to bind thee utterly to my will, and confine thee to the dark from which thou canie'st at the birth of days. So unless thou wish to try thy strength with me, and be compelled by the binding I shall work upon thee, then get thee hence and have no more to do with me and mine."
She held very still. The nightmare now had the option to retreat. It could also answer ritually, or it could attack.
"How should I fear you?" the nightmare said, lifting its head to taunt her sweetly. The voice it used was that of Segn-bora's slain otherself, not piteous as it had been during those last moments in Glasscastle, but mocking and cruel. "Rodmis-tresses in the full of their Power have
THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
passed this way, and you see what has happened to them. You, however, have retired from sorcery, afraid of failure."'
"Silence!" Segnbora said in a voice like a whipcrack. But no power was behind the order, and the nightmare laughed at her, a sound ugly
with knowledge.
"You make a fine noise," it said, flicking its tail insolently. '"But all your years"' studies have left you with little but knowl-edge. Mere spells
and tales and sayings. You have no Power. Or rather, what Power you possess you are afraid to focus."
Burning with shame, Segnbora clenched her fists and took a step forward, then another, seeking control. (Hasai—!)
"Oh, call up your ghost," the nightmare said, stepping forward too. "You don't dare give him the Power he needs, either. You walk on water,
and complain that you can't find anything to drink! Face it, you will never find what you seek. You are too afraid. You are dead!"
Behind her Segnbora could feel Freelorn getting ready to move, and Herewiss holding him still with that same vise-grip in which he had held her at Barachael. The others were fro-zen, eyes glittering, muscles bound still. Even Sunspark's flames flowed more slowly than usual.
"Some heroine you are!" the chill voice taunted. "Dead on your feet. A rotting corpse. You are a Devourer, like me." Her head jerked in surprise.
"You don't believe me? Then look at your slug of a lover there!" The bitter eyes dwelt on Lang with vast amusement. "He no more dares open himself to you than you do to him. He knows that what you call 'love' is mere need. If permitted, you'll suck him dry of his own Power, his own love, and he knows it! Eftgan knew that too …"
Humiliation seared Segnbora, and terror. She had no prob-lem holding her peace. Her mouth refused to work.
The nightmare chuckled maliciously, enjoying her growing victory. "No wonder you're such a good storyteller. Every-thing that comes out of your mouth is a story, especially when you speak of yourself. You haven't really opened to another person since that day when you became big enough to be taken out in back of the chicken house—"
Segnbora took another slow step forward, drowning in the bitter truth, hanging onto the ritual for dear life. "I may warn thee again — get hence, lest I lay such strictures about thee that from age to age thou shall lie bound in the never-lighten-ing gulfs—" "Say the words of the sorcery," the nightmare said, baring her yellow teeth in scorn. "They'll do no good. You cannot control another aspect of the Devourer, being one yourself! Consider what lies hidden under stone in your heart. . you hate the one who plundered you, and that hate poisons every act of 'love' you attempt. You will never properly be able to employ your Power!"
She shook her head, but the awful words of truth would not go away.
"Listen to what I say; to what you know to be fact. Even your friends pity you. Freelorn, for example. He found out what happens to someone who gets closer to you than a
sword's length. You stabbed his heart with something sharper than a knife. No wonder that when you were once faced with yourself, you killed—"
Segnbora leaped at the nightmare head-on, grabbing great handfuls of its mane. Desperately, she attempted to hold its head away from her, but the nightmare plunged, reared and fastened its teeth into Segnbora's mailshirt, cracking the links like dry twigs and driving them excruciatingly through pad-ding and breastband, into the soft tissue of her breast be-neath. Jaws locked, it shook her viciously from side to side, as a dog shakes a rat.
With every jerk of its head Segnbora cried out in pain, yet she managed to hold on for some seconds. Finally, in agony, she released her right hand and grabbed the nightmare's nose, digging her thumbnail deep into the nostril. Now it was the nightmare's turn to scream — once as she let Segnbora fall, and once again as a great handful of its silken mane came away in Segnbora's hand.
Segnbora scrambled to her feet. Her pain was awesome, but she concentrated on twisting the long hank of mane into a rough cord between her hands. The opponents began to circle one another again.
"It was foolish to hold me so close for so long," she said, gasping. "I know how to bind you, child of our Mother. I know how to make an end of you, Power or not. Shortly you're going to be seeing more of the dark places than you'll like—"
She sprang again, this time for the nightmare's flank. It danced hurriedly to one side, but with a second leap Segnbora found herself astride the nightmare's back.
The nightmare bucked, kicked, and reared, leaping in the air and coming down with all four feet together, as a horse does to kill a snake. But Segnbora hung on, legs locked, hands twined in the long mane. She got one hand down over the nightmare's nose again, and stabbed it in the nostril. It screamed, and as it did she whipped the corded length of mane down and into its mouth. Quickly she brought the ends under its chin and up around its muzzle, and knotted them tight, binding its mouth closed.
The nightmare made a horrendous strangled sound that would have been a scream. It turned and raced headlong toward the jagged face of the cliff, intending to buck Segnbora off against the stone. The onlookers scattered out of the way, and Segnbora jumped from its back, rolled, and was on her feet again before it had time to realize what had happened. Turning to face her again, it reared, menacing her with its hooves. Segnbora ducked to one side and fastened her hands in its mane, pulling. The nightmare grunted and, as she had hoped, pulled away. Segnbora fell down on the ground again, but this time with her hands full of mane.
The nightmare turned and reared. By the time its hooves hit ground, Segnbora had rolled out from under them, and was afoot again. Her breath came hard, and beneath her mail-shirt her breast was bleeding freely, white-hot with pain. But her fear was gone. Nothing was left but wild anger, and the urge to destroy.
"I told you," she said, winding the length of mane between her fists like a garrote. "First the binding—"
The nightmare turned to flee, but as it turned tail Segnbora vaulted up over its rump and onto its back. Frenzied, the nightmare bucked wildly, but it was no use. This time the cord went around its throat and was pulled mercilessly tight. It plunged and slewed from side to side and tossed its head violently, trying to breathe.
Segnbora hung on, and twisted the cord tighter. The night-mare began to stagger, its eyes bulging out in anguish. Its forelegs gave way, next, so that it knelt choking and swollen-tongued on the ground. Segnbora held her seat even at that crazy angle, and pulled the cord tighter still. Finally the rear legs gave, and the nightmare fell on its side. Segnbora slipped free, never easing her stranglehold. The nightmare moved feebly a few times, then lay still.
Holding that cord tight became the whole world, more important even than the agony of her torn breast or the hot blurring of her eyes that she had thought at first was confu-sion and now proved to be tears. She blinked and gasped and hung on as Herewiss and Freelorn and the others ran up and kneeled around her.
Lang reached out to her, but Herewiss stopped the gesture. "Is it dead?"
"I don't know. Probably not." She could still feel a pulse thrumming feebly through the cord.
"Are you all right?" That was Lang with the same stupid question, as usual.
"No. Let me be." The nightmare's pulse was irregular now, leaping and struggling in its throat like a bird in a snare. How can they look at me, she wondered? It's all true. How can they bear to—
One last convulsive flutter ran through the nightmare's veins. Then there was stillness under her hands. Slowly and carefully she stood up, shrinking away from any hand that tried to help her. The pain in her breast was intense, yet she barely felt it.