Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Fire

'What?' Herewiss was more interested in her cloak. 'Soulflight.'
He stared at her, amazed, and forgot about the cloak. 'How – where did you get it?'
'I have my sources,' she said, with a tiny twist of smile. She was watching him intently, studying his reactions, and for the moment Herewiss didn't care whether she was seeing what she wanted to or not.
'Are you a seeress?' he asked.
She shrugged at him. 'In a way. But I don't use the drug. It fell into my hands, and I've been looking for someone to whom I might responsibly give it.'
For a bare second Herewiss's mind reeled and soared, dreaming of what he could do with a dose of the Soulflight drug. Walk the past and the future, pass through men's minds and understand their innermost thoughts, walk between worlds, command the Powers and Potentialities and speak to the dead—
But it was a dream, and though dreams are free, real things have their price. 'How much do you have?'
'A little bottle, about half a pint.'
Herewiss laughed at her. 'I would have to sell you the Brightwood whole and entire with all its people for that much Soulflight,' he said. 'I'm only the Lord's son, not the Queen of Darthen, madam.' 'I'm not asking for money,' she said.
'What then? How many times do I have to sleep with you?'
She broke out laughing, and after a moment he joined her. 'Now that,' she said, 'is a gallant idea, but unless you have the talisman of the prince who shared himself with the thousand virgins, I doubt you could manage it. Not to mention that I'd be furrowed like the fields in March, and I wouldn't be able to walk for a month. How would I run the place?'
Herewiss, smiling, looked again at her cloak. The fire had died down somewhat, and he could see the stars more clearly – countless brilliantly blazing fires, burning silver-cold. He also perceived more clearly that there was a tremendous depth to the cloak, endless reaches of cool darkness going back away from him forever, though the cloak plainly ended at the back of the chair where the lady leaned on it.
He looked at her, dark hair, green eyes like the shadowed places about the Forest Altars, wearing the night. He knew with certainty who She was. Awe stirred in him, and joy as well.
'What's the price, madam?' he said, opening himself to the surges building inside him.
'I'll give you the drug,' she said, 'if you will swear to me that, when you find out your inner Name, you'll tell it to me.'
Herewiss considered the woman stretched out in the old tattered chair. 'Why do you want to know it?'
She eased herself a little downward, looking into the fire again, and smiled. After a little silence she said, 'I guess you could call me a patroness of sorts. Wouldn't it be to my everlasting glory to have helped bring the first male in all these empty years into his Power? And as all good deeds come back to the doer eventually, sooner or later, I'd reap reward for it.'
Herewiss laughed softly. 'That's not all you're thinking of.'
'No, it's not, I suppose,' said the innkeeper. 'Look, Herewiss; power, in all its forms, is a strange thing. Most of the power that exists is bound up, trapped, and though it tries to be free, usually it can't manage it by itself. The world is full of potential Power of all kinds, yes?'
He nodded.
'But at the same time, loss of power, the death of things, is a process that not even the Goddess can stop. Eventually even the worlds will die.'
'So they say.'
Her face was profoundly sorrowful, her eyes shadowed as if with guilt. 'The death is inevitable. But we have one power, all men and beasts and creatures of other planes. We can slow down the Death, we can die hard, and help
all the worlds die hard. To that purpose it behooves us to let loose all the power we can. To live with vigor, to love powerfully and without caring whether we're loved back, to let loose building and teaching and healing and all the arts that try to slow down the great Death. Especially joy, just joy itself. A joy flares bright and goes out like the stars that fall, but the little flare it makes slows down the great Death ever so slightly. That's a triumph, that it can be slowed down at all, and by such a simple thing.'
'And you want to let me loose.' 'Don't you want to be loose?'
'Of course! But, madam, forgive me, I still don't understand. What's in it for you?'
The lady smiled ruefully, as if she had been caught in an omission, but still admired Herewiss for catching her. 'If I were the Goddess,' she said, 'and I am, for all of us are, whether we admit it to ourselves or not – if I were She, I would look at you as She looks at all men, who are all Her lovers at one time or another. And I would say to Myself, "If I raise up that Power, free the Fire in him, then when the time comes at last that we share ourselves with one another, in life or after it, I will draw that strength of his into Me, and the Worlds and I will be the greater for it." And certainly it would be a great thing to know the Name of the first male to come into his Power, lending power in turn to me, so that I would be so much the greater for it . . .'
Herewiss sat and looked for a moment at the remote white fires of the stars within the cloak. They seemed to gaze back at him, unblinking, uncompromising, as relentlessly themselves as the lady seemed to be.
'How do I know that you won't use my Name against me if I ever do find it out?' he said, still playing the game.
The lady smiled at him gently. 'It's simple enough to
guard against, Herewiss,' she said. 'You have only to use the drug to find out Mine.'
The look of incalculable power and utter vulnerability that dwelt in her eyes in that moment struck straight through him, inflicting both amazement and pain upon him. Tears started suddenly to his eyes, and he blinked them back with great difficulty. Full of sorrow, he reached out and took her hand.
'None of us have any protection against that last Death, have we,' he said.
'None of us,' said the innkeeper. 'Not even She. Her pain is greatest; She must survive it, and watch all Her creation die.'
Herewiss held her hand in his, and shared the pain, and at last managed to smile through it.
'If I find my Name, I will tell you,' he said. 'I swear life by the Altars, and by Earn my Father, and by my breath and life, I'll pay the price.'
She smiled at him. 'That's good,' she said. 'I'll give you the drug to take with you tomorrow morning.'
A silence rested between them for a few minutes; they rested within it.
'And if I should in my travels come across your Name,' Herewiss said, 'well, it'll be my secret.'
'I never doubted it,' she said, still smiling. 'Thank you.'
For a while more they sat in silence, and both of them gazed into the fire, relaxed. Finally the lady stretched a bit, arching her back against the chair. The shimmer of starlight moved with her as she did so, endless silent volumes of stars shifting with her slight motion. She looked over at Herewiss with an expression that was speculative, and a little shy. He looked back at her, almost stealing the glance, feeling terribly young and adventurous, and nervous too.
'Let's pretend,' he said, very softly, 'that you're the Goddess—' '—and you're My Lover—?' 'Why not?'
'Why not indeed? After all, You are—' '—and You are—' —and for a long time, They were.
Something awoke Herewiss in the middle night. He turned softly over on his side, reaching out an arm, and found only a warm place on the bed where She had been. Slowly and a little sadly he moved his face to where Hers had lain on the pillow, and breathed in the faint fragrance he found there. It was sweet and musky, woman– scent with a little sharpness to it; a subtle note of green things growing in some patterned place of running waters, sun-dappled beneath birdsong. He closed his eyes and savored the moment through his loneliness; felt the warmth beneath the covers, heard the soft pop of a cooling ember, breathed out a long tired sigh of surrender to the sweet exhaustion of having filled another with himself. And despite the empty place beneath his arm, that She in turn had filled so completely with Herself, still he smiled, and loved Her. With all the men and women in the world to love, both living and yet unborn, She could hardly spend much time in one place, or seem to.
He got up, then, moving slowly and carefully with half-closed eyes so as not to break the pleasant half-sleep, half-waking state he was experiencing. Herewiss wrapped a sheet around himself, went out of the room and padded ghost-silent down the hall to listen at the next door down. Nothing. He pushed the door gently open, went in, closed it behind him. Lorn was snoring faintly beneath the covers.
Herewiss eased into the bed behind Freelorn, snuggled up against his back, slipped an arm around his chest; Freelorn roused slightly, just enough to hug Herewiss's arm to him, and then started snoring again.
Herewiss closed his eyes and sank very quickly into sleep, dreaming of the shadowed places in the Bright-wood, and of serene eyes that watched eternally through the leaves.
When Herewiss came down to breakfast, Freelorn was there before him, putting away eggs and hot sugared apples and guzzling hot minted honey-water as if he had been up for hours. This was moderately unusual, since Freelorn almost never ate breakfast at all. More unusual, though, was the fact that he was up early, and looked cheerful – he was usually a later riser, and grumpy until lunch time.
Herewiss sat down next to him, and Freelorn grunted by way of saying hello. 'Nice day,' he said a few seconds later, around a mouthful of food.
'It is that.' Herewiss looked up to see Dritt and Moris come in together. Dritt was humming through his beard, though still out of tune, and Moris, usually so noisy in the mornings, went into the kitchen silently, with a look on his face that made Herewiss think of a cat with more cream in his bowl than he could possibly finish.
Herewiss reached over to steal Freelorn's mug, and a gulp's worth of honey-water. 'Is she making more?'
Freelorn nodded. 'Be out in a minute, she said.'
Segnbora came down the stairs, pulled out the chair next to Herewiss, and sat down with a thump. She looked a little tired, but she smiled so radiantly at Herewiss that he decided not to ask her how it had been.
'Did you give her our best?' Freelorn asked, cleaning his plate. 'It was mutual, I think.'
Freelorn chuckled. 'I dare say. Where are Lang and Harald?'
'They'll be down – they were washing up a few minutes ago.'
'Good. We should get an early start – if we're going to find this place of yours, I want to hurry up about it. And I would much rather see it in daylight.'
'Lorn, I doubt it's any worse at night.'
'Everything is worse at night. With one exception.'
'Is that all you ever think about?'
'Well, there is something else, actually. But it's easier to make love than it is to make kings.'
Lang came thumping down the stairs and sat down across from Segnbora. 'How was it?'
'Oh please! It was fine.'
'This hold,' Lang said, 'will we be seeing it tomorrow?' 'If the directions I got are right.'
(They are,) Sunspark said from the stable. (Tomorrow easily. I can feel the place from here.)
'Before nightfall?'
'I think so.'
'Good.'
'I wish you people wouldn't worry so much,' Herewiss said. 'It's not haunted, as far as I can tell.'
'—which can't be far. Nobody will go near the place! Morning, Harald.'
'Morning,' Harald sat down across from Herewiss. 'How was she, then?'
Segnbora sighed at the ceiling. 'She was fine. Twice more and I can stop repeating myself . . .'
'Can you blame us for being curious? I mean, a lady like
that—' But as Lang said it, the smile on his face caught Herewiss's eye. A little reflective, that smile, and a little reminiscent, almost wistful . . .
The kitchen door swung open, and Dritt and Moris and the innkeeper came out laden with trays; more eggs, more steaming honey-water and hot apples, with a huge bowl of wheat porridge and a pile of steamed crabs from the river. They put the things down, and as the grabbing and passing commenced, Herewiss looked over the heads of Freelorn's people to catch the lady's eye.
She was back in her work-day garb, the plain homespun shirt and breeches, the boots, the worn gray apron; her hair was braided again into a crown of coiled plaits. Though she was no less beautiful, she seemed to have doffed her power, and Herewiss began to wonder whether much of their night encounter mightn't have been a dream provoked by good wine. But she returned his glance, and smiled, winking at him and patting one of her pockets, which bulged conspicuously. Then back she went into the kitchen.
Herewiss reached for a mug of honey-water, and a plate to put eggs on.
'How was it?' Dritt said to Segnbora.
Segnbora smiled grimly and put a fried egg down his shirt.
When it was time to go, they gathered outside the door that faced the ferry, and the innkeeper brought out their horses. First Lang's and Dritt's, then Harald's and Moris's, and then Segnbora's and Freelorn's. Herewiss watched as the lady spoke a word or two in Segnbora's ear, and when Segnbora smiled back at her, shyly, with affection, Herewiss felt something odd run through him. A pang, a small pain under the breastbone. He laughed at
himself, a breath of ruefulness and amusement. Why am I feeling this way? Am I so selfish that I can't stand the thought of someone else sharing Her the same night I did? What silliness. After last night, I'm full in places I didn't even know were empty. Such joy – to know that the Goddess Who made the world and everything in it is holding you and telling you that She loves you, all of you, even the parts that need changing –I should rejoice with Segnbora, for from the look on her face this morning, she has known the joy too . . .
The lady brought out Sunspark last of all. To judge by the arch of his neck and the light grace of his walk, he was in remarkably good temper. When Herewiss took the reins, the lady bent her head close to his.
'It's in the saddlebag,' she said. 'Remember me.' 'I will.'
'I'll remember you. You understand me — somewhat better than most.' And she smiled at him; a little reflective, that smile, a little reminiscent, almost wistful …
Herewiss swung up on to Sunspark's back; the others were already ahorse, awaiting him.
'Good luck to you all,' said the innkeeper, 'and whatever your business is in the Waste, I hope you come back safe.'
They bade her farewell in a ragged but enthusiastic chorus, and rode off to the ferry. There was not much talk among them until they crossed the river; though Sunspark bespoke Herewiss smugly as they waited for the second group to make the crossing.
(The lady is likely to lose her guests' horses, the way she keeps her stable,) it said.
(Oh?)
(She left my stall open. Did you know there are wild horses hereabouts?)
(It wouldn't surprise me.) (And what horses! Look.)
Herewiss closed his eyes and slipped a little way into Sunspark's mind. It was twilight there, and the plain to the west was softly limned and shadowed by the rising Moon. And standing atop a rise like a statue of ivory and silver, motionless but for the wind in the white mane and the softly glimmering tail, there was a horse. A mare.
(How beautiful,) Herewiss said. (So?) (It was an interesting evening.)
(I thought you didn't understand that kind of union,) Herewiss said.
(The body has its own instincts, it would seem,) Sunspark answered, with a slow inward smile. (It will be interesting to try on a human body and see what happens . . .)
Herewiss withdrew, with just a faint touch of unease. He wasn't sure he wanted to be involved in the experiment that Sunspark was proposing.
(But there was something more to it all than that,) Sunspark went on, sounding pleased and puzzled both at once. (When first I saw . . . her … I thought she was of my own kind, for she was fire as well. And I was afraid, for I am not yet ready for that union which ends in glory, in the dissolution of selves and the emergence of progeny. Yet . . . there was union . . . and a glory even surpassing that of which I have been told. And I am still one . . .)
(What happened to the mare?)
(Oh, she lived,) Sunspark said with a flick of its golden tail. (By your standards or by mine?)
(Yours. Even had things not gone as they did, I would have been far too interested to have consumed her.)
(I'm glad to hear it . . .)
Herewiss opened his eyes to watch Segnbora, Dritt, and Freelorn approach, pulling on the ferry-rope. Dritt was facing back toward the opposite bank, looking at the lone figure that stood and watched them. Experimentally, Herewiss reached out with his underhearing. He caught a faint wash of sorrow from Dritt, overlaid and made bearable by an odd sheen of bright memory. Then the perception was gone.
Something was strange. When the group was assembled again and once
more riding eastward into the rocky flats, Herewiss rode up to Freelorn's side and beckoned him apart.
'A personal question, Lorn—' he said softly.
'Yes, I did.'
'Did what?'
'Sleep with her last night.' He said it a little guiltily, shooting a glance at Segnbora out of the corner of his eye. 'Before she did, I guess. And let me tell you, she was—'
'Please, Lorn.'
'Listen, I didn't –I mean—'
'Lorn, how long has it been since something like that mattered with us? You love me. I know that. I have no fears.'
'Yes, well . . .'
'Besides,' Herewiss said, grinning wickedly, 'so did I.' Freelorn laughed. 'She gets around, doesn't she?' 'It looks that way.'
'Just out of curiosity – what time was it when you—'
'About Moonrise – yes, I remember the Moon coming up. I had a lot of wine, but that much is – Lorn, what's wrong?'
Freelorn was shaking his head and frowning. 'Couldn't have been.' 'Couldn't have been what?'
'Moonrise. Because she was with me at Moonrise.'
Herewiss sat there and felt it again – that odd hot thrill of
excitement, of anticipation. But different, somehow sharper in the daylight than it had been in the twilight.
'Segnbora,' he called.
She reined Steelsheen back and joined them. 'What, then?' 'This is a little personal, granted—' 'And I didn't save any eggs. Oh, well.'
'No, no. I was just wondering. What time was it when you and the lady were together?'
'Now it's funny you should mention that—' 'Oh?'
'—because I just overheard Dritt discussing that same subject with Harald. And he was saying that the lady had visited him about the time the Moon came up, and I was . . . thinking . . .'
She looked at them for a long few seconds, and Freelorn blushed suddenly and became very interested in Black-mane's withers. Herewiss watched Segnbora. She stared for a few seconds at the reins she held, and then looked over at him again.
'It was the Bride, then.'
He nodded.
When she spoke again, the sound of her voice startled Herewiss. Her words went gentle with awe, and Herewiss had heard women take the Oath to the Queen of Silence with less reverence, less love. 'You didn't ask,' she said, 'and I will tell you. No sharing I have ever known was like last night. Oh, give as you will, there's only so much that can be shared in one evening, or one day, before the body gives out, gets sore, gets tired. There's always some one place left uncherished, some corner of the heart not touched, or not enough – and you shrug and say, "Oh, well, next time." And next time that one place may be caressed to satisfaction, but others are missed. You make your peace with it, eventually, and give all you can so that your own ignored places feel warmer for the giving. But last night – oh, last night. All, all of me, all the depths, the corners, the little fantasies I never dared to – the sheer delight, to open up and know that there's no harm in the sharing anywhere, only love—' She turned her face away; Herewiss could feel her filling up with tears. 'To have Her slide into bed behind me,' Segnbora said quietly, 'and put Her arms around me, and hold my breasts in Her warm hands, and then slip down a little and kiss the lonely place between my shoulderblades that always wanted a kiss, and never got one. And without asking . . .'
She smiled, and let the tears fall.
Freelorn looked up at Herewiss again, and he was smiling too. 'It was like that,' he said. 'Funny, though, I wasn't expecting it so soon.'
'She never comes to share Herself when you expect Her,' Herewiss said. 'That's half the joy right there.'
Freelorn nodded.
'How She must love us,' Herewiss said. 'To share with us all, to give us so very much –I can't understand it. Just for my own part, even. What incredible thing have I done, or will I do, to earn — to deserve such, such blessing, so much love . . .'
'You're reason enough,' Freelorn said, very quietly. 'And, besides, She cherishes what's returned. What could we possibly give the Mother that She couldn't make better Herself, except love? She could make us love Her — but it wouldn't be the same.'
Herewiss reached out and took Freelorn's hand. 'I was thinking mostly in terms of you, Lorn.'
Freelorn chuckled, squeezed Herewiss's hand hard.
'And anyway,' he added after a moment, 'She can afford to be generous. They say that most of the time She drives a hard bargain.'
Herewiss looked down at his front saddlebag, and at the slight bulge in it.
'That's what I hear,' he said. 7
Memory is a mirror – but even the clearest mirror reverses right to left.
Gnomics, 418
When frogs fell all around them out of the clear hot sky, smacking into the dust and sand with understandable grunts and squeaks, the party was surprised, but not too much so. When it hailed real stones, instead of ice, they covered their heads with helms or shields and made small jokes about the quality of the weather in this part of the Waste. When, while climbing a rise, they noticed that the rocks dislodged by their horses' hooves were rolling up the hill after them, they shrugged and kept on riding.
There it is,' Herewiss said. He pointed through the blown dustclouds at a low gray shape on the horizon.
'Are you sure it's there?' Freelorn said. 'Look how it wobbles.'
'That's heat, and this damn dust. We'll be there in an hour or so, I would say.'
'What are those?' Lang muttered, shielding his eyes. 'Towers?'
'Hard to tell from here. We'll see when we get closer.'
They cantered on across the desert. Herewiss was in high good spirits, expectant as a little boy at Opening Night waiting for
the fireworks to start. To some extent it was infectious. Most of Freelorn's people were joking and straining their eyes ahead in anticipation; Segnbora was rigidly upright in the saddle, her sword loose in its sheath.
Sunspark was requiring constant reminders to maintain contact with the ground. But Freelorn was frowning, resolutely refusing to get excited.
'Well,' he said, 'we haven't been eaten alive yet. But I reserve judgement until we leave.'
'We? Lorn, if the place is safe, I'm staying.' 'Not for long, surely.' 'For as long as I have to.'
'You don't mean you're planning to live there for any length of time!'
'Uh-huh.'
'You,' Freelorn said with frank irritation, 'are a crazy person.'
'You know us Brightwood people,' Herewiss said, 'the only sure thing about us—'
'Is that you're all nuts,' Freelorn said, refusing to finish the quote. 'Let's see what the place is like before you make up your mind.'
'Who's that?' Harald yelled. His eyesight was better than anyone else's, and for a moment they all squinted through the dust at the faint figure ahead of them.
'No horse,' Segnbora said. 'No tent, nothing—' 'No-one lives out here!' Moris said.
'Not for long, anyway, without a horse or a water supply,' Herewiss said. 'Let's see who it is – could be they need help—'
(He's not there.)
Sunspark's thought was so sudden and shaken that Herewiss gulped involuntarily.
(He's not there. Or – he appears to be, but he's not an illusion; he's real. And yet he's not—)
(Make sense, Spark! Is this something you've encountered before?)
(No. It's as if he were not wholly present, somehow –
his thoughts are bent on us, but his body isn't here enough for his soul to be—)
(Where's his soul, then?)
(Ahead—)
They rode closer. The figure stood there with its arms folded, watching them approach. It didn't move.
'He looks familiar,' Moris said, rising up in the stirrups to stare ahead.
'Yeah—' Freelorn squinted. 'Damn this dust anyway—'
They approached the waiting man, came close enough to see his face—
Freelorn's mouth fell open. Herewiss was struck still as stone, and Sunspark danced backward a few paces in amazement. Segnbora spoke softly in Nhaired, drawing a sign in the air.
Dritt sat on his horse, his eyes wide, and looked at himself; the same elaborately tooled boots, the same dark tunic and light breeches, the same long silver-hiked sword, the same sandy hair—
Dritt stood there in the dust and looked at himself. He put out a hand to one side, as if to steady himself against something. 'Sweet Goddess,' he said, just loudly enough for them to hear, 'oh no!'
And he turned away, and was gone—