Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Fire

'No, it's in the original Brightwood dialect of Darthene, a few hundred years removed from Nhaired. You could render it as HarrowHeart.'
'Mmmm . . .'
'I mean, really, Lorn. Was ever heart harrowed as mine was last night?'
'If it was,' Freelorn said with a slow smile, 'I'm sure that
whoever wrote the ballad about it divorced the emotion from the reality somewhat.'

They stood smiling at one another, Herewiss's face between his hands, long and passionately.
and Freelorn reached up, took pulled it down, and kissed him

'We've been all over you all day,' he said. 'I'm going out with them so you can have some time by yourself.'
'You know,' Herewiss said, 'I think I love you.'
'And I, you,' Freelorn said, and reluctantly – with a longing backward look – hurried out after his people.
The first thing Herewiss did when he got back to the tower room was find the old spear he had carried with him on all his travels since Herelaf's death. Khavrinen made short work of it, and Herewiss threw the splintered remains out the window, chuckling all the while.
The second thing he did was to send word to Hearn about what had happened, while he rooted around in the room for the materials necessary to finish the sword. The Wardress should be in the Wood this time of month, with the full Moon just past, he thought. (Kerim!) he called, digging around in his chest for the sword– fittings he'd been saving.
(What? What? Who's that?)
(It's Herewiss, Lord Hearn's son—) (Impossible! I smell Flame!)
(Impossible?) Herewiss laughed. (I'll show you impossible!) He bound sight into the linkage between them, and held Khavrinen before his eyes, pushing Flame into it. The sword blazed like a blue noon.
(Dear Mother of Everything—)
(She is that, every bit of it,) Herewiss agreed. (Kerim, will you give my father a message?)
(Why . . . why, surely, but Herewiss, how, how . . .)
(Say to Hearn that his son sends him greetings, and bids him know that the Phoenix is risen again, though the fire is blue this time. Say also to him that the name of my focus is Khavrinen. Will you do that?)
(Certainly, but Herewiss—)
(I'll let you have a look at it when I get back to the Wood,) he said. (Be nice to your students, Kerim.)
(But-)
Herewiss cut the contact and found the sword-fittings. 'Spark,' he said, 'I'm going to need—'
He fell silent. A pillar of fire, torn, devoured, gone, and only a dark space where a bright lance of flame had defied the long night.
'Oh,' he said, very quietly. 'Ohhh . . .'
He sighed, a sigh with tears in it, and straightened up, regarding the sword-fittings. Gold though they might be, they weren't any good. Khavrinen's metal was as alive as he was, but this stuff was dead. To fasten such on to the sword would be like hanging a corpse around someone's neck. 'Khavrinen,' he said, 'if you were a bit shorter in the blade, a foot or so, there'd be enough metal along with the extra in the tang to make a respectable hilt and crosspieces—'
He pushed power into the sword again, and beneath his hands he felt metal flow, though there was no heat. Khavrinen cloaked itself in Fire, possibly self-conscious about changing form in front of him. When the light died down, Herewiss examined it again. The sword had grown itself a severely plain crosspiece, hardly more than a slim bar of steel, as well as a textured grip and a concave disc-shaped pommel, and for good measure had carved a fuller down the length of its blade. It had not, however, changed its balance. Herewiss held it in the air and smiled at it—

'But Spark, those things ate souls—!!'
(So they did. It was uncomfortable. Though I dare say I gave them a fair case of indigestion. How long have I been gone?)
'Hardly a day—'
(It seemed longer,) the elemental said, very wearily. (I had some trouble finding my way in the dark. Though I seemed to hear someone calling my Name over this way—)
Herewiss rested his head between Sunspark's ears, his cheek against the golden mane. Thank You,' he said. Thank You.'
(It was nothing,) Sunspark said absently. (How did you manage to survive, by the way?)
Herewiss straightened up, unlaced his arms from
around its neck and showed it Khavrinen, gripped in his hand.
(I see. Your focus indeed. And you're changed, too,) Sunspark said, regarding him from golden eyes. (If I ran into you in the middle of nowhere now, I would know you are a relative. You, too, are fire.)
'Well, and a few other things,' Herewiss said. 'Sun-spark, what you did last night—'
(I would do again,) it said. (You are my loved. And anyway, shall I dare less than you?)
Herewiss put his arms around Sunspark's neck again, gathered it close, and wept like a child.
Back in the hold, Freelorn and his people were sitting around the firepit, pledging one another in great drafts of Narchaerid and rr'Damas and Jaraldit wines that Sun-spark had filched for them. Herewiss, however, sat cross-legged in the dust about half a mile from the hold, looking at the Moon and stars. Khavrinen was laid across his knees.
(Hearn was right all the time,) he was saying to the night. (Always he used to tell me, 'When you're praying, don't beg the Goddess. What mother can stand hearing her children whine at her? Talk to Her, tell Her what's on your mind. You'll always get answers back. Lie to Her and you'll get lies back – but tell Her the truth and you'll find solutions.' And he was right. There is a part of each of us that is part of You – I just never really saw it until last night — and though it speaks in one's own voice, there is no mistaking the source of the answer.)
Your father is a wise man, the reply drifted back after a while. Herewiss nodded.
(Herelaf wouldn't tell me what he was for,) he said.
(There can, of course, be no deception on that last Shore –and he did tell me that he might not have been finished. Which leaves me with a conclusion that I find a little frightening. Was he trying to tell me that what he was for — was specifically to be my brother, to die on the end of my sword – and so to begin the events that ended in last night? To make me into what I am now? Was that it?)
The silence drifted around him for a long time. (It's not an answer that I like,) he said.
It is the answers we dislike the most, came the reply, that usually have the most truth to them.
(But, Mother, it isn't fair! Not to him, not to me—)
He knew what the answer was going to be. It was spoken with a little smile, a sad one. Who ever said anything was fair, son of Mine? That's My fault, and every time I hear that cry, it goes straight through Me. But next time. Next time—
He nodded, sighed. (I'm sorry. Mother, I really feel guilty about complaining. I have so very much: the Fire, my Name . . . and Yours too. That's what I'm for—to find Your Name, as much as to find mine.)
That's a start.
(You're looking too,) he said in sudden realization. (But it is through we who live that You look. And when all who live find their Names, and all the other pieces of Yours—)
Silence. A star fell.
Herewiss smiled. (My life had been so pointed toward one thing, that I guess I panicked – I was afraid there would be nothing left for me to do. Beorgan's mistake . . . But if this is true, if I am for seeking out Your Name wherever it is to be found, and freeing it, I'm going to be awfully busy. This is a big world . . .)
He ran the fingers of one hand up and down Khavrinen's blade again. (Mother, mightn't You have chosen
better for the first man to have Flame in all these years? The Fire won't lessen my flaws – they'll get bigger, if anything. And even with all this Power – and I know I have much more than the average Rodmistress – can I really change the world that much, will I really be worth it? There's so little time, so little of me—)
That, and the voice came firmly as that of a mother taking a sharp knife away from a child, that evaluation I reserve for Myself. By the common conception of it, humankind doesn't consider something 'worth if unless they get their investment back, preferably with a profit. By this criterion, most of the Universe is 'not worth it'. But I know — as do all the others who care – and the voice smiled at Herewiss – that it is often necessary to give and give and not get back in any way save the knowledge that the worlds are better for it. Freelorn is right, in that respect. Beaneth was right. Beorgan the doomed was right, so were Earn and Healhra and all the others. They knew they were doomed, but they did the right thing anyway, trying to make the world a little better.
The voice sighed. Valiant absurdity, lost causes, such things may be doomed to incompletion and failure of one kind or another, but they are none of them 'wasted'. Judge these things by whether they will prolong the Universe's life, or bring joy to what I made, and that is their worth. All things must die, but I will not scatter My poor botched creation like a child kicking over a misbuilt sandcastle. I will make it work the best I can.
Herewiss nodded.
(What shall I do now?) he asked.
You're asking Me? Herewiss could feel a grin stirring somewhere. What would I do?
He grinned back. (Share the gift. Defy the Death.) The answer was silence.
Herewiss stood up and was silent in return for a while as
he gazed up at the stars. High above him burned the Moon, chill and silver in the quiet. Down the gray length of the sword, the blue Fire flowed and rippled in the stillness.
Wordlessly, he told the stars and She Who watched his inner Name. It surged in him like fire, and made him blaze with sheer joy, just to say it.
As he did, across the western sky there burned a line of fire, slow and silent. Then another fell, but closer, and another, trails of brilliance all around him, falling stars like rain in summer – burning blue, a storm of starfire, beating on the silver desert. At the white heart of the downpour Herewiss wailed, hardly breathing, as he watched the bright rain fall.
Slowly, then, the starfall lessened, passing like a sudden shower – fewer stars and fewer falling, here and there, a single stardrop. One last one, vivid blue like Flame, and then the sky was still.
Herewiss breathed out, smiling. 'I'll keep Your secret,' he said.
He slipped Khavrinen through his belt, and went back to the hold, and Freelorn.
THE END