The Door Into Fire (32 page)

“What?” Herewiss said.

“You don’t speak Dracon?” asked Segnbora.

“I could never find anyone to teach me.”

“Well, she greets you by me, and says that something is trying to happen, and you should beware of it.”

“That’s what I thought,” Herewiss said. “But to beware of it? …I don’t understand.”

“Neither does she. She says to look to your sword.”

“But I don’t have a…well, I suppose I do…”

“I don’t think much more will fit in there,” Segnbora said to the first ouzel, which had come back with a piece of kelp nearly twice its size. It was trying valiantly to stuff it in the crevice, and failing. Herewiss felt suddenly that there was no more to be found or shared in this dream. He bowed again to the Dragon, and waved to Segnbora, and came forth.

Herewiss stood up, wondering, and went over to where Freelorn lay, curled up in a ball as usual. He spent a moment or two just looking at his loved. Sleep was the only time when Lorn lost his eternal look of calculation, and Herewiss loved to watch him sleeping, even when he snored.

Herewiss sat down beside him, the sweet sorrow of the moment passing through him like the pain of imminent tears. This could very well be the last time in this life—and if the hralcin got him, as seemed likely, in any life at all.
Mother,
he said softly,
I give You this night, as You gave me one of Yours. Whatever else happened or didn’t happen in this life, Lorn loved me—loves me; and that’s as great a blessing as the Fire would be, and possibly more than I deserve. Take this night, Mother, and remember me. You understood me—better than most.

He reached out to touch Freelorn’s cheek, brushed it gently.
I’m going to try to give you all the parts of me I never dared to,
he said.
I hope I can give you all the joy you deserve.

Herewiss entered in.

There were clouds of haze, lit by a light as indefinite as dawn on a cloudy day, and vague soft sounds wove through them. He found Freelorn moving quietly through the mists, looking for something. Herewiss fell in beside him, and they paced together through the haze.

“Where are we, Lorn?”

“A long time ago,” Freelorn said softly, “I used to come here alone. I was really young, and I would come talk to the Lion and ask Him for help with my lessons. I mean, I didn’t know that you’re not supposed to ask God for help with things like that. So I just asked. And it always seemed that I got help. Maybe I can get some here.”

The mist was clearing. All around them was a stately hall with walls of plain white marble. Tall deep windows were cut into those walls, and lamps burned golden in the fists of iron arms that struck outward from the walls at intervals. There was no furniture in the hall of any kind.

At the end of the room was a flight of steps, three of them, and atop the steps a huge pedestal, and on the pedestal a statue of a mighty white Lion couchant, regal and beautiful. Herewiss knew where they were. This was Lionhall, in Prydon; the holiest place in Arlen, where none but the kings and their children might walk without mishap befalling them. Though Herewiss had never seen it before, in Freelorn’s dream the place was part of his longed-for home, one which he had never thought to see again. And the Lion was not merely another aspect of the Goddess’s Lover, but the founder of Freelorn’s ancient line, and so family. Herewiss and Freelorn walked to the steps together, and stopped there, and felt welcomed.

“Lord,” Freelorn said, “I promised I would come back, and here I am. Where is my father?”

It was strange to see them facing each other: Freelorn, small and uncertain, but with a great dignity about him, and the Lion, terrible and venerable, but with a serene joy in His eyes. “He’s gone on,” the Lion said. “He’s one of Mine now.”

“But where is he? I can’t find his sword, and it’s supposed to be mine, and I must have it. I can’t be king without his sword.”

“He’s gone on,” the Lion said, and He smiled on them out of His golden eyes. “You must go after him if you want Hergótha.”

“I’ll do that,” Freelorn said. “Uh, Lord—”

“Ask on.”

“You are my Father, and the head of our Line?”

“You are My child,” the Lion said, bending His head in assent. “Make no doubt of it.”

“Lord, I need a miracle.”

The Lion stretched, a long comfortable cat-gesture, and the terrible steel-silver talons winked on His paws for a second’s space. “I don’t do miracles much any more, son. You’re as much the Lion as I am.
You
do it.”

“It’s not for me, Héalhra my Father; it’s for Herewiss here.”

Herewiss looked up, meeting the gaze of the golden eyes and feeling a tremor of recognition, remembering how his illusion had looked at him even after it was gone from the field at Madeil. “Son of Mine,” the Lion said then, shifting his eyes back to Freelorn, “his Father the Eagle and I managed Our own miracles for the most part. I have faith in you, and in him.”

Freelorn nodded.

“Go down to the Arlid, then,” the Lion said, “and follow it till it comes to the Sea. Your father is in the place to which his desire has taken him, but to get there you’ll have to go down to the Shore first. Your friend will go with you.”

The bowed down, together, and were suddenly out by the river Arlid, which flowed through the palace grounds. It was night, and the water flowed silverly by under a westering Moon.

“The Sea is a long way off,” Herewiss said. Even as he said it, he perceived something wrong with him. He was being swept away with this dream, losing control.
Too much drug!
something in him cried, thrilling with horror. But the fearful voice was faint, and though it cried again,
Down by the Sea is the land of the dead!,
still he walked with Freelorn by the riverbank, through the green reeds, toward the seashore.

“It’s not that far,” Freelorn said. “Only a hundred miles or so.”

“It’s a long way to walk,” Herewiss insisted.

“So we’ll let the water take us. Come on.”

Together they stepped down through the sedges on the bank and onto the surface of the water. The Arlid was a placid river, smooth-flowing, and bore their weight without complaint. Its current hurried them past little clusters of houses, and moss-grown docks, and flocks of grazing sheep, at a speed which would normally have surprised them but which they both now accepted unquestioningly. Once or twice they walked a little, to help things along, but mostly they stood in silence and let the river flow.

“You really think your father has the sword?” Herewiss said.

“He has to.” Freelorn’s voice was fierce. “They never found it after he died. He must have taken Hergótha with him.”

Herewiss looked at Freelorn and was sad for him, driven as he was even while dreaming. “It takes more than a sword to make a king,” he said, and then was shocked at the words that had fallen out of his mouth.

Freelorn looked back at him, and his eyes were sad too. “That’s usually true,” he said, “but it’s going to take at least Hergótha to make a king out of me, I’m afraid. I’m not enough myself yet to do it alone.”

For a while neither of them spoke. The river was branching out now, the marshes of the Arlid delta reaching out northward before them, toward the Sea. Freelorn and Herewiss picked their way from stream to stream as along a winding path, stepping carefully so as not to upset the fish.

“I’ve never been this way before,” Herewiss said, very quietly. He felt afraid.

“Maybe it’s time,” Freelorn said. “I was here once, when I was very young. Don’t be scared. I won’t leave you alone.”

The river bottom was getting shallower and sandier. The stream that bore them turned a bend, past a spinney of stunted willow trees, and suddenly there it was, the Shore.

Herewiss looked out past the beach and was so torn between terror and awe that he could hardly think. Under the suddenly dark sky the Sea stretched away forever, and it was a sea of light, not water. It was as liquidly dazzling as the noon Sun seen through some clear mountain cataract. But there was no Sun, no Moon, no stars even; only the long vista of pure brilliant light, brighter than any other light that ever was. Herewiss began to understand how the Starlight could only be a faint intimation of this last Sea, for stars are mortal, and bound with the laws and ties of materiality. This was a place that time would never touch, and mere matter was too fragile, too ephemeral, to survive it.

The waves of white fire came curling in, their troughs as bright as their crests, and broke in foaming radiance on the silver beach, and were drawn in sheets of light back into the Sea. But all silently. There was no sound of combers crashing and tumbling, no hiss of exhausted waves climbing far up the sand: nothing at all. Along the shore there walked or stood many vague forms, shadows passing by in as deep a silence as the waves. Herewiss was very afraid. The fear held his chest in its hand and squeezed, so that the breath couldn’t come in. He thought suddenly of the choking darkness behind the door in the hold, where the hralcin waited and hungered for him, and the fear squeezed harder. But Freelorn stepped from the water, and held out his hand; and Herewiss took that hand and went with him.

They went down the Shore together, slowly, looking at each of the shadows they passed, but recognizing none. There were men and women of every age, and many young children walking around or playing quietly in the sand. There were couples, some of them young lovers, and some of them old, and some couples where one person ravaged by time walked with one hardly touched by it, but walked all the same with interlaced arms and gentle looks. Freelorn would stop every now and then and question one or another of the people they passed. They always answered quietly, with grave, kindly words, but also with an air of preoccupation.

Herewiss was not paying attention to either questions or answers. His fear was too much with him. All he perceived with any clarity was the rise and fall of the quiet voices, which arose from the silence and slipped back to become part of it again when the speakers were finished. He began to feel that if he spoke again, the words and the thoughts behind them would be lost forever in that silence, a part of himself gone irretrievably. But no one asked him to speak, and Freelorn led him down the sand as if he had a sure idea of which way they were headed.

“Are we going the right way?” Herewiss said finally, watching carefully to see if the thought behind the question became lost.

“I think so. This place will come around on itself, if we give it enough time.”

They walked, and their feet made no sound on the sand. They passed more people than Herewiss had ever seen or known, some of them looking out over the gently moving brilliance of the Sea, or standing rapt in contemplation of the sand, or of something less obvious. When someone turned to watch them pass, it was with a look of mild, unhurried wonder, a wonder which soon slipped away again. The fear was beginning to ebb out of Herewiss, little by little, when suddenly he saw someone making straight for them across the strand, not quickly, but with purpose.

He could hear his heart begin hammering in his ears again. “Your father?” he said.

Freelorn shook his head. “My father was a bigger man—is.”

Herewiss stopped, still holding Freelorn’s hand. He knew that shadowed form, knew the way it walked, the loose, easy stride. “Oh Goddess,” he whispered into the eternal silence. “Goddess
no
.”

Freelorn looked at him with compassion, and said nothing.

Herewiss stood there, frozen in the extremity of terror. The world was about to end in ice and bitterness, and he would welcome it. He deserved no better. He waited for it to happen.

And out of the darkness and fixity to which he thought he had completely surrendered himself, a voice spoke: his own voice, not angry or defiant, but matter-of-fact and calm, speaking a truth.
If this is the worst thing in the world about to happen, we won’t just stand here and wait. We’ll go meet it.

He stepped forward, pulling Freelorn with him, and the strain of taking the first step shook him straight through, like a convulsion. His bones, his flesh rebelled. But he kept going. The shadowy form approached them steadily, and they walked to meet it. Fear battered Herewiss like a stormwind. He wanted to flee, to hide, anything, but he pushed himself into the teeth of the wind, into the face of his fear. He had been struggling against it, walking into it head down. Now he raised his head, and opened his eyes again. The wind smote tears into his eyes, and he looked up at his brother.

He was as he had been the day he died. Tall and dark-haired, like most of the Brightwood line, with the droopy eyes that ran in Herewiss’s family, he came and stood before them. His eyes smiled, and his face smiled, and the blood welled softly from the place where Herewiss’s sword had struck him through, an eternity ago.

“Hello, Herelaf,” Freelorn said.

Herewiss let go of Freelorn’s hand and sank down to his knees in the sand, trembling with terror and grief. He hid his face in his hands, and began to weep. All the things he had wanted to say to his brother after he died, all the apologies, all the guilt, everything that he had decided to say when they met after his own death, now froze in his throat. And the worst of it was that he felt quite willing to let the tears take him. Anything was better than trying to deal with the person who stood before him.