Диана Дуэйн - The Door Into Fire

Warmth?

Somewhere over to the west—

(—fire in the rain—)
He went closer to it.
A horse?
It staggered toward him. A horse indeed; but a miserable sickly– looking thing, wobbling along on spindly legs. Its mane and tail were plastered to it, skin scalloped deep beneath its ribs, drawn drum-tight over its sunken belly. The horse's eyes bulged out of their sockets, staring horribly. It looked as if it had been starved and abused by a whole town full of people, one after another. It looked ready to die.
Herewiss reached out with his underhearing again, to make certain. He got the same feeling: a fire, going out, almost too tired and weak now to be afraid any more. Steam rising, flames dying – and indeed there was steam wavering about the horse's hide, as if it had been ridden hard on a cold day.
He went over to the poor stumbling thing, took its head and stopped it. It regarded him dully from glazed eyes, taking a long long moment to realize what he was. And a feeling stirred in his head. The horse was bespeaking him.
(Help . . .) it said. (dry . . .)
It collapsed to its knees.
Herewiss was utterly amazed. No-one had ever bespoken him but his mother, who had had the talent as a result of her training in the Fire; they had used it so commonly between them while she was alive that some of his more remote relatives in the Ward used to accuse him of disliking her, since when together they rarely spoke aloud. But after her death he had hardly ever used the talent again. There were no others in the Wood who had it, not even Herelaf; and after numerous disagreements with the Wardresses of the Forest Altars, Herewiss had little to say to them.
But a horse?

Then again, something in a horse's shape could very well have the bespeaking ability. Rodmistresses sometimes took beast-shapes. If that was the case, though, why the
distress – and why the strange underheard reading like none he had ever experienced?
(Dry!) the horse-thing said again, more weakly.
Herewiss bent over and grabbed the horse by the nose. Had it been in any better shape, it would certainly have bitten him; but now as he pulled at it the horse moaned pitifully and struggled to its feet again. Herewiss pulled it, step by trembling step, back toward the shrine.
(It hurts,) the creature said, bespeaking him piteously. (It hurts!)
'I know. Come on.'
This close to it, touching it, Herewiss's underhearing was coming much more fiercely alive. He could feel the creature's terror as if it were his own, and moreover he could feel its agony, for with every drop of rain that touched it the horse was seared as if by hot iron. Abruptly it collapsed in front of him, and then screamed, both out loud and within, trying to flinch away from the wet ground on which it had fallen.
Herewiss was shaken to the heart by the sound of its terror. I can't carry it or drag it—
It screamed again, thrashing helplessly on the ground.
Oh, damn, damn, dammit to Darkness! Herewiss thought. He bent down, put his arms around the barrel of its ribs just behind the forelegs, and began to pull. It was terribly heavy, but nowhere near as heavy as a real horse would have been, even one as emaciated as this creature seemed to be. It was wheezing with pain as he got its forequarters a little way clear of the wet grass and dragged it along.
Herewiss wanted desperately to drop the horse, just for a moment's rest, but he was also deadly afraid of hearing that terrible lost scream again. He kept pulling, pulling, cast a look over his shoulder. The shrine was a dark
shadow through the rain, not too far away. And another shadow was approaching with a sound of wet squishing footfalls. Dapple came up through the rain, looked at Herewiss, and then turned sideways to him, facing him with the saddlebag in which the rope was coiled.
'Thanks!' Herewiss said, reaching up with one arm to get the rope out. He uncoiled it, wound a bight around the strange horse's chest behind the legs, knotted it, and tied the other end to Dapple's saddlehorn. Dapple began backing steadily toward the shrine, and with Herewiss holding the horse partly clear of the ground, they got it to the door of the shrine quickly. There was a slight problem with getting the horse through the door – Herewiss had to drop the horse on the floor halfway in and go around to push its hind legs inside. When he had managed that, he undid the rope, coiled it, stowed it, and went back into the shrine. He dropped to his knees beside the horse's head, gasping for breath and rubbing at his outraged abdominal muscles.
'Well,' he said. 'Now what?'
The horse lay there with its sides still heaving, its breath rasping in and out, harsh with pain, as if it had been ridden to the point of foundering. Herewiss looked at it through the odd detachment that sometimes accompanies great exertion. In color the horse was a brilliant bay, almost blood-color, and its stringy, wet mane and tail were pale enough to be golden when they were dry. Under the taut-drawn skin, it had a beautiful head, fine– boned like that of a racehorse.
But racehorses don't bespeak people, Herewiss thought. And the way the rain was hurting it. Water . . . Could this be a fire elemental, then? People meet them so rarely, the stories say. But the reading I got from it—
Herewiss closed his eyes and listened again. A feeling
like fire, still, but not being rained on any more. Gathering strength, burning a little hotter, growing—
He bespoke it, making the thoughts as clear as he could. (What happened?)
(Don't shout,) it answered faintly. (Sorry. What happened?)
Its thought was weak, but had an ironic tone. (I didn't know enough to come in out of the rain. Get out of me for a little, will you?)
Herewiss did, and pushed himself over to where he could lean against the wall. The horse was still steaming slightly. He reached out a hand to touch one of its legs, and then jerked it away again, sucking in breath between his teeth. His fingers were scalded.
A fire elemental. I'm in trouble.
The legends were fairly explicit about elementals of any kind being capricious, dangerous, tricky. Some elementals were death just to see. Flame would be a protection, but a lot of good that did him. Sorcery was almost useless. Herewiss's Great-great-great– great-aunt Ferrigan was supposed to have had dealings with some of them, water and air elementals mostly, and she had survived to tell about it, but no-one was sure how . . .
Herewiss looked at the horse with apprehension. Its breathing was slowing, and it looked less emaciated than it had before. Herewiss shrugged his cloak back, and then realized that the air in the shrine was getting much warmer. And the blood-bay 'horse' seemed to be drying out as he watched. In fact, it was becoming better fleshed out. The horse lay there, growing sleek, growing whole—
(What are you called?) Herewiss asked.
It bespoke its Name to him, and Herewiss reflexively started back and shielded his eyes. The elemental showed him a terrible blazing globe of fire – the Sun close up, it
seemed to be saying – and out of that blinding disc a sudden immense fountain of flame leaped up, streamed outward like a burning veil blown in a fierce wind. Then it bent back on itself with an awful arching grace, and fell or was drawn back into the vast sphere of flame below. That single pillar of fire would have been sufficient to burn away all the forests of the world in a moment; but the creature bespoke the concept casually, as a small everyday kind of thing, not a terribly special Name. And – he shuddered – it made free with its inner Name as if it had nothing to fear from anything—
(Sunspark,) Herewiss said. (Would that be it?)
(That's fairly close.) It looked up at him from the floor. Its voice was sharp and bright, and currents of humor wafted around it as if the elemental balanced eternally on the edge of a joke. (What's your name?)
(I'm called Herewiss, Hearn's son.)
(That's not your Name,) it said, both slightly amused and slightly scornful. (That's just a calling, a use-name. What is your Name?)
(You mean my inner Name?) Herewiss said, shocked and terrified.
The elemental was confused by his fear. ('Inner'? How can a Name be 'inner' or 'outer'? You are what you are, and there's no concealing it. Don't you know what you are?)
(No . . .)
More confusion. (They told me this was a strange place! How can you be alive, and thinking, and able to talk to me, and not know?)
(How can you be so sure?) Herewiss said. (And if this is 'here', where's 'there'?)
It showed him, and he had to hold his head in his hands for fear it would burst open from the immensities it
suddenly contained. 'There', it seemed, was the totality of existence. Not the little world he had always known, bounded by mountains and the Sea; but his world and all the others that were, all of them at once, a frightful complexity of being and emptiness, and other conditions that he could not classify.
Herewiss knew that there were other planes of existence – everyone knew that – but he tended to think of them as being separated from the world of the Kingdoms by distance as well as by worldwalls, and accessible only by special doors such as the ones he was looking for. Sunspark, though, had more than an abstract conception. He had breached those walls under his own power, had made his own doors and walked among the worlds. Herewiss, seeing as if through Sunspark's mind, could actually perceive the way they were arranged.
The worlds all overlapped somehow, each of them coexisting in some impossible fashion with every other one, a myriad of planes arranged on the apparent surface of a sphere that could not possibly be real, since all of its points were coterminous with all of the others. Still, all the countless places held distinct positions in relation to one another. Each of them was a thread in the pattern – a Pattern past his understanding, or anyone's, actually, though some few by much travel might get to know small parts of it, or might come to understand the spatial relationships on a limited scale. It could be traveled, but the order and position of the worlds within it changed constantly, from moment to moment. The important thing was to know what the Pattern was going to do next.
During the brief flickering moment when Herewiss tried to perceive the thought in its entirety, he knew with miserable certainty that he stood, or sat, right then, upon an uncountable number of locked doors. If he only had the
key, he could step through and be anywhere, anywhere he could possibly imagine. Sunspark had the key.
The hope and jealousy that ran through Herewiss in that one bare moment were terrible, but they didn't last long; they dwindled and fragmented as the thought did when Sunspark finally pulled away from the contact. Herewiss found himself left with a few pallid shreds of the original concept. I'm not big enough of soul to hold so much at once, he said to himself when he could think clearly again.
(That's where you come from?) he said.
(Somewhere there. I've forgotten exactly where. I've been so many places.)
(Can you take other people into those – those places?)
(No. It's a skill that each must learn for himself.)
(Oh . . .) Herewiss sighed, shook his head. (Well. You're a fire elemental, aren't you?)
(I am fire, certainly,) it said.
(How did it happen that you got caught out in the rain?)
(I was eating,) it said, and Herewiss thought of the distant brushfire he had seen. (I was careless, perhaps –I knew the storm was coming, but I thought I could elude it just before it started to rain. However, the rain came very suddenly, and very hard, so that the shock weakened me –and then it wouldn't let up. I thought I would go mad or mindless – we do that when too much water touches us. It is a terrible thing.)
Herewiss nodded.
(You saved me,) the elemental said, almost reluctantly, and there was something in its tone that made Herewiss regard it with a sudden suspicion. (I—) It cut itself off. Herewiss's underhearing
caught a faint overtone of concealment, fear, artifice. (—thank you,) it finished, a little lamely.
The hesitation made it almost too plain. The old legends
said that elementals and creatures from other planes respected nothing in the worlds but their own ethic. That ethic, called the Pact, stated that travelers-between-worlds must help one another when need arose, and return favor for favor, lest the overwhelming strangeness and dangers of the many worlds should wipe out the worldwall-breaching ability and all its practitioners forever.
(Sunspark,) Herewiss said, doing his best to mask his slight uncertainty with a feeling of conviction. (You would have been left mad and in horrible pain if I hadn't helped you.)
It looked at him, no emotion showing it its eyes or its tone of thought. It moved its legs experimentally. (I think I could stand up now—)
(Sunspark. You owe me your well-being at this moment. Otherwise you would be out there still, in the rain.)
It shuddered all over, so that its nonchalance of thought did not quite convince him. (What of it?)
(A favor for a favor, Sunspark. Until the End.)
He held his breath, and held its eyes and mind with his, and waited to see whether the line that appeared again and again in Ferrigan's old tale would work.
Sunspark looked at him, its eyes distraught, his underhearing catching its consternation and unease, its desire to be out of there, away from this horrid narrow little creature who knew of the Pact but didn't even know what its own self was —
(Sunspark,) Herewiss said again, this time letting his thought show his disgust at the elemental's trying to slip out of an obligation by concealment. (A favor for a favor.)
It closed its eyes. (What do you want?) (You know very well!)
It sighed inwardly. (A favor for a favor,) it said. (Until the End. What do you want of me?)
Herewiss paused for a long moment. (I'm not really sure yet. Get up, if you think you can, and we'll discuss it.)
Sunspark struggled a little and then heaved itself all at once to its feet. It stood there for a moment swaying uncertainly, like a new foal. (That's better,) it said. (You know, I am likely to be a lot of trouble to you—)
Herewiss stood up too. It was distinctly unnerving to have something the size of a horse looking down on you and talking to you, especially when it wasn't really a horse. (You're trying to frighten me,) Herewiss said. (The stories are true, it seems. If you refuse to aid me, you're forsworn, outside the Pact, outside the help of any of the other peoples who walk the worlds. No traveler survives long under such conditions. You owe me a favor, a large one, and you will repay it.)
The elemental looked at him with grudging respect. (I will. You understand, though, why I did not—)
(Of course. You weren't sure whether I lay within the Pact or not, and who wants to be bound when it's not necessary? But I'm within it, by intention at least; and if that's not enough, there's ancestry.)
(Oh?) It understood him, but there was some slight confusion about some of the nuances he had applied to the thought, and Herewiss didn't know which ones.
(Yes. I am descended from Ferrigan Halmer's daughter of the Brightwood Line; she walked between the worlds, or so our traditions say. My father is presently Lord of the Brightwood—)
Sunspark stared at Herewiss, and emitted a wave of total shock and incredulity. (Your progenitor is still alive??)
(Uh – yes. My mother is dead, though—)
(Well, of course. Why two different concepts for your progenitors, though?)
Herewiss was becoming more than slightly confused himself. (One of them is a man, and the other was a woman—)
There was a brief silence. (You are a hybrid? Well, such matings aren't unheard of in parts of the Pattern—)
(Uhh – no. 'Man' and 'woman' are different forms of the same creature.)
(Oh. Like larval and pupal?)
Herewiss was shaking his head in amazement. (Well, uh, not really—)
The elemental was bewildered, but still intrigued. (This is too hard for me,) it said finally. (I cannot understand how your 'father' is still extant after union. But whatever –there are patterns within the Pattern, and no way to understand them all. No matter. Your 'father' was a master of energies, you said—)
(I did? Well, yes, you could say that, though how you mean it and how I mean it is—)
(Later. What does his mastery have to do with you?)
(Well, among other things, when he dies, I'll inherit the Wood—)
(Well, of course. How can it be otherwise, but that progeny shall take their progenitors' energy unto them?)
(Uh-right.) (I think I see. Are you seeking to bring your progenitor to his ending that you may have his energies?)
Herewiss said, too puzzled to be angry, (No. I am traveling to find a friend who is being held against his will, and to release him.) Herewiss kept the thought as simple as possible, feeling that this was no time to go into the political ramifications.
He could feel Sunspark pondering the whole thought curiously, taking it apart. (Oh. This person is your mate?)
Herewiss said, (Uh – my loved, yes.)
Sunspark looked with interest at the concept 'loved'. (Your mate. And you will unite and engender progeny? You seem a little young for it . . .)
(It, ah, it doesn't quite work that way. You see, we are both men . . .)
(Yes?) It waited politely for the explanation. Herewiss sagged against the wall, looking for the right words.
(Well – see, Sunspark, in this world, 'progeny' are –well, there are many ways to achieve union, but there is only one way to have a child. The women bear the children, always; and though men may know men in, uh, union, and women may lie with women, a child only happens if a man lies with a woman. There have been times when babies were supposed to have happened when women lay together – but it's hard to say, because men had been sleeping with the women too.) Herewiss, to his utter surprise, was becoming embarrassed. Even Halwerd at four years of age had not been as completely confused about sex as Sunspark obviously was. (My loved and I are both males and cannot have 'progeny' of our own.)
Sunspark digested this. (Yours is not a fruitful union? Yet you pursue it? Such behavior is not survival-oriented for a species.)
Herewiss laughed. (No, it isn't really. That is why the Goddess gave our kind the Responsibility. When we come of age—)
(Oh. You come into heat too? Well, there is one similarity, anyway.)
(Uh, not really, I think. But. When we come of age, or soon after, we must have union in such a manner as to reproduce ourselves at least once – one union for a man, two bearings for a woman. After that, union is our own business, and we may love whom we please.)
The roan stallion stood there and mused over this.
Sunspark was fully recovered now, and it looked truly magnificent, like the mount of a king – its hide was a true deep crimson, bright as blood, and its mane and tail glittered like wrought gold even in the subdued light from the door.
(How very strange,) it said. (Union again and again, it seems, without consummation. And even without progeny! – So your 'loved' is in durance?)
(Yes.)
(And you are going to free it?)
(Him. Yes, and then go back to my work.)
(This is definitely too much for me,) Sunspark said. (You will go to your mate – and not unite – and then go do something else?)
(Well, we may, uh, unite, but– yes.)
(What else could you possibly want to do?)
Herewiss sighed. (I have, mmm, a certain kind of Fire within me—)
(Yes: that's why I was heading in this direction, as well as because the rain felt less over here. I could feel the fire, and I thought we might be related – though I didn't understand how you could not be distressed by the water. I see that we aren't relatives, though, except in a rather superficial manner.)
(That's for sure,) Herewiss said. (At any rate, I have this Fire – but not control of it. With the Flame, one must have a tool, a focus with which to dissociate it from one's self, or it won't work. I'm looking for such a focus. It would be a shame to die of old age and never have had use of the Flame at all . . .)
(Excuse me. 'Die'?)
(Uh . . . cease to exist?) Herewiss said, and Sunspark jumped a little from the suddenness of the thought.
(That is an impossible concept.)
(. . . pass on? Go through the Door into Starlight?)
(Oh, you mean leave your present form,) Sunspark said. (I see. Why the time limit, though? Is it a game?)
Herewiss shook his head slowly, not knowing what to say. Sunspark sensed his bemusement, and fell silent.
(Where are you headed?) Herewiss asked.
(I have been roaming — like all the rest of my kind. I am condemned to restlessness. But you have bound me to you by the Pact, and I must pay back your favor in kind.)
Herewiss thought for a moment. (Well enough, then. If you'll keep company with me until you have opportunity to save my life, I'll consider the favor paid. With the things I'm going to be doing, it shouldn't be too long . . .)
(Done, and done,) Sunspark said. (Shall we match off energies to bind the agreement? It is in the nature of my kind,) Sunspark continued, (to match off energies whenever possible. The loser's energies are bound to the winner's, so that when the winners come to mate, their progeny are more powerful than the parents. I think you would probably consider it as something of a social exchange.
Like—) it slipped a little further into his mind to find an analogue – (like clasping hands?)
(With a little knuckle-work,) Herewiss said, grinning. (I hear a certain air of permanence in the thought, Sunspark. Are you looking for a way to make an end of me accidentally, and so be free of our agreement?)
(Make an end? Oh, I see, force you to change form.) Sunspark chuckled softly, with innocent savagery. (I told you I was probably going to be trouble for you,) it said.
(Yes,) Herewiss said, laughing himself. (Trouble indeed. Sunspark, I am minded to try my strength with you. I would like to engage in a social exchange with you; I'd sooner have a friend than someone whom I could never trust, and that's what you'd most likely be without this—)
It looked askance at the concept 'friend'. (You want to mate with me?) it said incredulously. (How perverse. And how very interesting—)
There was a sudden smile in its voice that made Herewiss wary. (I didn't say that,) he said. (Never mind it now, Spark, there seem to be differences in our ways of looking at things, and with a little luck we'll have leisure to discuss them later – How are these matches usually handled?)
(Best two fights out of three.)
(So be it. I have certain limitations that you haven't, though, and I will ask that you take them into consideration so that the match will be a fair one.)
(True, but it behooves us to try to make it that way,) Herewiss said. (Will you agree not to burn me up, or otherwise kill me?)
('Kill'? Oh, form-change. My, you have a lot of ways to say it. What a shame, that is one of the best ways to win a match. Why should I refrain?)
(I don't want to leave this form yet.)
(Is it that comely? You can always get another, can't you?)
(Not just like this one, certainly; the process isn't under my control at all. And besides, I would no longer be able to reach my loved if I left it.)
(That would be tragic,) Sunspark said, (but then, all union is tragic, when you come right down to it … Oh, very well. There is something here that I don't understand, and since you keep insisting, it must be important. I won't 'kill' you. Shall we begin?)
(Right here??)
(Where better?) said Sunspark, and then the change came upon him, and Herewiss had no time to think about anything.
The creature that leaped at his throat had many of the worst characteristics of Fyrd – a nadder's coily, scaled body walking on the ugly hairy legs of a bellwether, and the knife-sharp legs of a keplian at the ends of those legs. Herewiss wrestled wildly with it, trying to get some kind of decent hold, but there were too many legs, and the thing seemed to weigh as much as he did. The fact that he was braced against the wall helped him somewhat, but Sunspark had perceived that. There were legs pushing at his own, trying to knock him off-balance.
Herewiss spread his legs wider, strove to feel the balance flowing through them, the upflowing power of the earth, as Mard, his weapons instructor, had taught him. After a few straining moments the power began to come. Sunspark, though, feeling the change in the tension of its opponent's muscles, shifted its attack toward Herewiss's head. Herewiss was confused, for the form Sunspark had taken seemed to have no real head, nothing in which he in turn could attack – the top half ended in a blunt place where the serpent-like body came to an end, and talons erupted from it in a clutching rosette like some malignant flower. They grabbed and slashed at him, and it was all Herewiss could do to hold the thing at a distance.
For a long moment their respective positions did not change. Then Herewiss found a fraction more leverage than he'd thought he had, and slung the creature away from him, halfway across the room. The nadder-creature cracked into the offering table and lay still for a moment. (First fall,) said Sunspark. (Not bad. Are you ready?) He sucked in a few deep breaths. (Come ahead—) It flashed a bright, edged feeling like a sharpened smile at him, and changed again. A sudden hot wind began to fill the room as its physical form dwindled away, and Herewiss suddenly had a hunch that it would be wiser not
to breathe for the rest of this bout. He sucked in one last gulp of air before Sunspark had time to finish the change –and then found himself being pressed brutally from all sides, his muscles being painfully squeezed, his eyes smashed back in their sockets, his joints being broken open, his skull being crushed by something that clothed him all around like a stormwind turned in on itself. Herewiss held on to his lungful of air, but then it too was pressed out of him, and white lights danced behind his closed eyes as the awful pressure began crushing him down into unconsciousness—
He slapped the ground to which he had fallen, hoping that Sunspark would understand the gesture. Immediately the pressure let up, and he lay there for a few seconds, at least until the lights went away. He felt as if he had been run over by a cart.
(That one was mine, I think,) came the quiet voice. (Shall we take the third?)
(Go ahead,) Herewiss said. He dragged himself to his feet, and braced himself once more against the wall.
The air swirled, coalesced, and Sunspark stood before him in the red roan form again. But it did not move, just looked at Herewiss.