Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Shadow

THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
Suthan. Behind them came Herewiss, with Moris and Dritt and Harald about him as guard.
Very quickly, it seemed, they made the top of the Heugh and gathered there on the level ground, the Queen's riders and Freelorn's followers circling around in case any more Fyrd should attack uphill.
"No Reavers yet, and none of Cillmod's people," Eftgan said, dismounting hurriedly and raising her Rod. "That's a mercy; maybe they don't know we're here. E'kstirre na lai'tehen dndrastiw vhai!"
Eftgan cried into the wind in Nhaired, lifting her Rod. two-handed and pointing it at the roiling sky. She sighted along
the Rod's length as if along the stock of a crossbow. At the last word of her wreaking, another piercing line of blue Fire lanced upward and struck into the underbelly of the cloud above them.
The wind screamed, the cloud tore away from the ravening Fire like flesh from a wound. It tore, and tore — ripping back-ward and dissolving, revealing blue sky and afternoon sun-light. The snow stopped as the clouds retreated, until a great patch of sky the width of Bluepeak valley was clear.
Standing on that height, for the first time they could see what was happening. The Reavers and the main Darthene force were locked in battle in the pass, and the Darthenes were already well ahead of the position at which Eftgan had intended them to start. Even as they watched, the Reavers lost some ground, pushed uphill by heartened Darthenes who knew why the weather had suddenly cleared up. A sudden blot of darkness from the east — the riders who had followed Eft-gan over the fell — smote into the Reavers' uneven right flank and scattered it.
"The clearing won't last," Eftgan said, breathing hard and leaning against Scoundrel. "I have to save some Power for the binding. Lorn, the Regalia, quickly!"
Freelorn had already undone Eftgan's saddle-roll, and now unrolled it before her. It contained an odd assortment: an old knife of very plain make, black of hilt and blade, and a rough circlet of gold that looked as if it had been hammered out by an amateur. It had, Segnbora knew, for this was Dekorsir, the Queen's Gold — the crown that each Darthene ruler ham-mered out unguarded in the open marketplace, once a year, to give the people a. chance to dispose of an unfit ruler if there was need. There was also another circlet, this one of exquisite workmanship, woven as it was of strands of linked and braided silver.
Freelorn lifted the circlet up with a blaze of angry delight in his eyes. It was Laeran's Band, the crown of the kings and queens of Arlen. "Where did you get this!"
"1 had it stolen several days ago,"' Eftgan said, kneeling down beside the saddle-roll, "In the middle of last week, when. Citlmod took it out of Lionhall."
Freelorn stopped still as death and stared at Eftgan. "When he what …?" he said.
His voice failed him. No one but the members of the royal line of Arlen could set foot in Lionhall and come out alive. And Freelorn was an only child. Or had thought he was.
"It occurs to me that your father may have had a sharing-child he didn't know about," Eftgan said, setting Dek6rsir on her head. "Or one he didn't
care to legitimize. No matter right now. I'm just sorry we couldn't find Herg6tha."
Freelorn turned the supple strip of metal over in his hands. "The thought of Cillmod wearing this—"
"I couldn't stand it either. Shut up and put it on, Lorn. Herewiss can't hold the Binding by himself much longer." It was true. Herewiss had dismounted from Sunspark, una-ble to spare even the small amount of concentration needed to stay astride, and was sitting with his back against a rock. KhЈvrinen lay across his lap, clutched in both hands. He had begun to shine, growing almost translucent, as he had at Barachael, and the stones of the Heugh sang with the Power that was poured out of him. He was holding his own, but just barely. Segnbora looked around her and found that under-hearing was no longer necessary to feel the strain in the earth and the air.

Eftgan's riders and Freelorn's followers were all looking over their shoulders, hunting the source of the strange feel-ings inside them. Herewiss's will could clearly be felt battling with the One that poured Its rage into the valley. He was keeping away the ancient reality, as if he had his back braced against a closed door. But the pounding on the other side, the rhythmic throb of rage and hatred, was getting stronger—
"We are the land," Eftgan and Freelorn were saying in unison. They knelt before one another, knee to knee, holding the black knife together, Lorn wearing the strip of silver, Eftgan the circlet of gold. Their joined voices — Freelorn speaking the ritual in Arlene and Eftgan in Darthene — made an uncanny music. The hair on Segnbora*s neck rose at it, hearing in human voices an echo of the mdeikri. "Its earth is our flesh; its water our blood; its well-being our joy; its illness our pain … "
The ritual continued, speaking of mysteries particular to the royal priesthood. Many of the riders turned away, trying not to listen to a ceremony that no one of common blood had heard since the founding of the Kingdoms. Segnbora stood by with Skadhwe in her hand and listened fearlessly, in won-der, hearing once again the Goddess speaking to Herself: one Lover speaking to the Other in solemn celebration of Their eternal relationship.
She saw Lorn take the knife and cut Eftgan's upheld left wrist with it, crosswise and careful. Both of them paused a moment, trembling. At the stroke of the ritual wounding the hammering of hatred in the air grew more savage. It was almost physically perceptible. Eftgan took the knife from Freelorn and reached for his left wrist—