The Door Into Fire totf-1 Page 4

  Herewiss breathed out in irritation. I might have known. Doesn't she know it's all illusion-spells? She can't know much about what real sorcery is, or what it does. And Goddess knows she would pick that one. She needs a lot more to be beautiful on the inside than she does on the outside. It's not going to work, of course. She's not making any passes, and she's set up no framework inside her head. Dark! I'll teach her to mess with things she doesn't understand—

  Herewiss cleared his mind and began to think of another incantation, on another page. He had long since ceased to need to draw diagrams or make passes while conjuring. Constant practice had taught him to build viable spell-structures in his head, without external aids. He built one now, a fairly simple one that he had used many times to entertain Halwerd, an illusion-spell that required minimal energy and provided surprisingly sophisticated results. It went up quickly, in large chunks, taking form and bulking huge and restless — it was one of those sorceries that has to be used quickly before it goes stale. He completed the structure, checking once to make sure that it was complete, and thought the word that set it free to work.

  The girl, intent on her reading, did not notice the air behind her thickening and growing dark. Something darker and more tenacious than smoke curled and roiled within a huge man-shaped space in the air, until at last it stood complete behind her – a little tenuous at the edges, where its stuff wisped and drifted into the still air, but dark as starless midnight at its heart. The innkeeper's daughter finished reading the spell and raised one hand to

  feel at her face. In that moment the great dark shape put out a hand and brushed the back of her neck lightly.

  She slapped absently at what she thought was an insect, and felt her hand go through something cold and damp. Her eyes went wide with startlement; she turned. She saw, and opened her mouth to scream. But Herewiss was ready. Since freeing the illusion, he had been readying another spell, and as she drew breath he said the word of control and struck her dumb and stiff. There she knelt, her mouth ridiculously open, head turned to look over her shoulder –probably a most uncomfortable position. Herewiss smiled, and got up out of the bed, praying that the backlash would hold off for a few minutes.

  'Do you always go through your guests' bags at one in the morning?' he said, bending down to take the book away from her and toss it on to the bed. 'And do all the rooms come equipped with that charming little addition under the pillow?'

  She could not even move her eyes to follow him as he went to open the window wide. 'Would you excuse us?' he said to the smoke– creature. There had always been controversy over whether illusion– creatures were alive and thinking in any sense of the words, but Herewiss, being both cautious and courteous by nature, treated his illusions as if they were both. 'And while you're out there, please take that man down there and bed him down in the stable or something. If I hear that part about the goats again, I may turn him into one.'

  The dark shape waded slowly through the air, trailing streams of black smoke behind it, and climbed over the windowsill into the night. It drifted down silently into the courtyard.

  'Would you like to be a goat?' Herewiss said, going back to look at the girl from behind, so that she could see him.

  'Or an owl might be better – you seem to like being up in the middle of the night.'

  He was bluffing outrageously, for no mere sorcery could do such things. She seemed not to know this, though. She stared at Herewiss wide-eyed, the terror frozen in her face. Outside, a voice broke off its singing. 'Boy, izh really dark out here,' it said, woozily surprised.

  'Or maybe you'd like to bed down with my friend out there,' Herewiss said, 'since you do seem to be so eager, with that love– charm and all. I should tell you, though, he is a little cold, and you might have a baby afterwards, and I couldn't guarantee what it would look like.'

  He made a small adjustment in his mind and snapped his fingers, freeing her upper half but keeping her legs bound tight. She sagged and turned her face away from him quickly. 'Tell me what you were after,' Herewiss said.

  'I—' She shuddered. 'I don't want to share with that—' 'Then start talking.'

  She stared sullenly at the floor. 'I smelled the Power,' she said. 'You have it. I want to know how. If a man can have it, then there has to be a way for me to bring mine out.' She looked up, glared at him. 'How did you do it?' she demanded bitterly. 'Who did you pact with?'

  'My my,' Herewiss said. 'You are a dabbler. Everyone has the Power, dear, didn't you know that? Men and women both, everyone born has the spark. But few have enough to do anything with. And Goddess knows there's more to it than just having enough Flame. What was the bag for, by the way?'

  She scowled at the floor again, and would not answer him.

  'A little draining to amuse yourself? I should tell you, the Bride doesn't look kindly on such things. Draining away your lovers' potency is likely to make you less of a

  woman, not more. And anyway, who taught you your Nhaired? Two of the words on the bag were misspelled, and there was too much asafetida. If you had left that there much longer, it would have started to recoil, and half the place would probably have tried to rape you. Try draining that.'

  Herewiss sighed. 'You're not being very open with me,' he said. 'I'm in a quandary as to what to do with you. Maybe you really do want to be a goat.' He went over to the bag on the floor and took out the other book, the one with the seals on it. Softly he said the word to undo the seals, and the second word that spoke the pages apart, and then went through the book slowly, looking for the right page.

  The innkeeper's daughter was beginning to worry now. 'Please!' she said, 'please, no – I'll do anything—'

  She squirmed her torso at him, and Herewiss looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head in mild amazement. 'I'm not interested in that kind of anything,' he said. 'I might consider information, though,' he said. 'Tonight at dinner some people were talking and someone mentioned a place called the "hold in the Waste", and everyone else hushed them up. What is that? Why won't they talk about it?'

  Fresh fear went across the girl's face like a shadow. 'I don't know—'

  His underhearing jabbed him hard under one rib, like the pain one gets from running too hard, and he knew she was lying. 'Then I guess I'll have to turn you into a goat,' he said, wondering how he was going to make the bluff good, and turned his attention to the page before him. 'Faslie anrastuw oi velien—'

  'No, no, wait—' She looked around fearfully. 'It's unlucky even to talk about it—'

  'Being a goat isn't unlucky?'

  'Uh – well. Out in the Waste Unclaimed, about forty miles or so into the desert, there's an Old Place – the oldest of the Old Places in all the world.' She gulped. 'It's full of the Old wreaking, and ghosts and monsters walk around there. Sometimes the desert around it – changes somehow, and becomes other places. I don't know how—'

  'I know what you mean.

  'They say that the rocks roll uphill, and water flows sideways along the hills there, or up the sides of valleys –and it rains scorpions and stones instead of water. Even the Dragons won't go near it; they say it's too dangerous. There are doors into Otherwheres—'

  'Doors?' Herewiss echoed.

  'That's all there is,' the girl said. 'It's not lucky to talk about it. It's a cursed place.'

  'No,' Herewiss said, 'just Old, I would imagine. We don't know enough about the Old people's wreaking to know their curses from their blessings. Forty miles into the desert. Near where?'

  'North of the pass above Dra'Mincarrath,' she said, 'about sixty miles or so. But it's cursed—'

  Herewiss stood there silently for a long few moments, holding the backlash away while reading the spell in the book, readying it. 'That'll do, I think,' he said. 'But one thing only.'

  She looked at him in fear. 'I don't trust any promises you might make about your future behaviour,' he said. 'So I am going to give you a conscience of sorts.'

  He spoke the last word of the spell under his br
eath, and immediately the girl groaned and doubled over, clutching at her stomach. 'The next time you sleep with a man or woman for whom you don't care, that will take you,' he said. 'Don't bother trying to rid yourself of it; if you meddle, you may find that particular avenue of pleasure

  permanently closed. And let me give you advice – don't play around with sorcery. It shortens the life.'

  Go on.'

  He cut the air with one hand in a short quick motion, and the girl staggered to her feet and lurched without another word out the

  door.

  Herewiss closed and sealed his book, fetched the other one from the bed, and put them back in his bag again. His head was aching violently, and his stomach churned, threatening to reject the steak pie.

  Suddenly a dark shape loomed at the window. It was the smoke– creature, peering in curiously.

  'Oh Dark, I forgot,' Herewiss said. He gestured at the window, the same quick cutting motion. 'Go free! And thank you.'

  The creature bent a little with a passing night breeze, and dissipated silently.

  'Ah, my head,' Herewiss groaned as he headed back to bed. 'Shortens the life indeed. I wish I were dead.'

  He pulled the covers up around him again, and laid his throbbing head down on the lumpy pillow as tenderly as he could. The darkness was almost peaceful for a few moments — until the sound of a drunken countertenor began to float up from the stable, half a tone flat, singing of what the King of Darthen did with the shepherdess and her brother.

  'Oh Goddess,' Herewiss moaned, and buried his face in the pillow. 3

  Opening Night is not so much a time of year as it is a state of mind. It can be invited, by no more difficult a measure than keeping one's eyes and heart open all the time. There are Rodmistresses who could not share in the Opening if they stood at the Heart of the World on Nineteen-Years' Night; and there are children, and the eager of heart, who can break the walls between the Worlds in broad day, and call the wonders through. Those who do not close their hearts to Possibility soon find their lives full of it.

  Reflections in the Silent Precincts, Leoth d'Elthed, ch. 7

  The next day was gray and overcast, threatening rain. Herewiss left early, having been awakened by the impending light of dawn despite the fact that there was no sunrise to be seen. He didn't stop for breakfast – partly from a desire to hurry, and partly to avoid running into the innkeeper's daughter again. He felt a little guilty for laying as restrictive a spell on her as he had. But then again, she had been messing with his private property — and her actions had hardly been intended in benevolence.

  'Aah, the Dark with it,' he said to himself as the inn receded behind him. He was heading south again; Dapple was trotting along briskly and needing little encouragement to hurry.

  Doors into Otherwheres. Such doors were legendary –they might open on to other times, like the Eorlhowe Door hidden in the mazes beneath the melted stones of the Howe in North Arlen; or other places, like the old King's Door in the Black Palace in Darthis; or other worlds entirely, as does the Morrowfane Gate beneath the waters of Lake Rilthor in southern Darthen. There were not many permanent doors, and they tended to be difficult of access and dangerous to use, because of time limits or unpredictable behavior. One of the Queens of Darthen acquired the sobriquet One– Hand when she crossed through the King's Door and it closed unexpectedly.

  Out in the Waste? Well, it would be a good place to put

  them if there are time-gates. At least the Dragons would think so – they won't let anyone but Marchwarders near the Eorlhowe Door, and the human Marchwarders won't go near it themselves for fear of changing the past.

  Herewiss sighed. He would have given almost anything to go through a time-door, or just look through one, to find out if things really happened as the histories said they had. Or to see the great days of the past happen again – to see Earn and Healhra take the Power upon Themselves at Bluepeak, to see the terrible Gnorn come tottering over the mountains and go up in a blaze of the blue

  Fire as the Lion and Eagle gave Themselves for the destruction of that last menace. Or to see the founding of the Bright-wood, or of Prydon city, or Darthis. To watch the last stone being set into the paving of the Great Road, and watch the Oath of Lion and Eagle being sworn for the first time by Earn's and Healhra's grandchildren. Maybe even to see what no man had seen, the Worldwinning, as the Dragons dropped out of the darkness and the Messenger in Her glory drove the Dark away—

  I'm getting carried away with this, he told himself severely.

  And you're enjoying it, another part of him answered him back. Well, why not? Dreaming was free. Consider this: how about going back to the day Freelorn's father died, and finding out where old Hergotha had been hidden? That would certainly make Freelorn happy. True, Freelorn had Suthan now, and that was not exactly a sword without lineage – the princes of Arlen had been carrying it since the time that Anmod had used it to kill the Coldwyrm lairing in the fords of Arlid. But it was just that, a prince's sword, and Freelorn was king, if not in name, at least by right. Herewiss didn't need his under-hearing to detect Freelorn's dissatisfaction with Suthan.

  Lorn wanted Hergotha, which was the king's sword; he lusted after it the way some people lust after others' bodies and desire to possess them.

  Hergotha, though, had gone missing after Ferrant's death – he had not been wearing it on the day his heart stopped, and it had never been found in the palace. Perhaps he had taken it with him past the Door into Starlight, and walked the shore of the final Sea with it slung over his back, the kingliest of the shadows that dwelt there. Or perhaps the Lion had taken ft back into His keeping again, maybe to return it to the rightful wielder one day, if one of the Line ever came back to claim the throne. Herewiss doubted that Freelorn would have the patience.

  To find Hergotha, bring it back to Freelorn—

  This is ridiculous, Herewiss thought. I don't know for sure that

  this place has time-doors in it – or any doors, for that matter — and if it does, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to get through them. Or even make them serve my purpose.

  He sighed. It was still nice to think about. To look back in time. To see his mother. To see Herelaf—

  Or to look forward in time, perhaps, and see how he would finally forge the sword that would work for him, then do it.

  Yes. And if those doors looked out into other worlds, mightn't there be one world somewhere much like this one, except that both men and women had the Flame? Or maybe there would be a door into that long-past time before the Catastrophe, when everyone could use the Power—

  Dapple stopped abruptly, and Herewiss looked up in confusion. About a hundred yards away, at the foot of a little hill that rose suddenly from the grassland, stood a small building.

  It was built of logs stood up on end and bound together. The roof was thatched, and there was one door, and a window on the side that faced him. It wasn't a house –there was no sign of a garden, or even a cow. A shrine, perhaps?

  His curiosity nudged him, and he pulled on Dapple's reins and rode up to the place. He dismounted before the open doorway. 'Hello—?' he called. No-one answered.

  There was a wooden plaque fastened next to the door, and though it was weathered, the runes were deeply scratched and easy to read: OF OUR LADY OF LIBERATIONS – USE, CLEAN, BLESS, AND GO SAFELY.

  Herewiss stepped in and looked around. The inner walls were plastered, and there were scenes painted on them in a primitive and vigorous style, the colors bright, the figures stylized, stark and clean. In the middle of the room was a rough offering table. Dead leaves and bits of grass were scattered about on the table and floor. Something made an irritated twitter, and Herewiss looking up, saw a sparrow's nest high in the corner, where the

  plaster had fallen away and left an opening to the outside.

  He smiled at the appropriateness of the place, for there was one aspect of his personality sorely in need of liberation. The few minutes it would take to clea
n and reconsecrate the shrine wouldn't be wasted. Besides, if the Goddess were to come to his house when he wasn't there, and if it were full of leaves and such, She would certainly clean it up.

  For a moment he grinned at the image of the Tripartite Lady busy in the Woodward with a broom. But the Goddess had never been known for standing on ceremony. On Her travels through the world She tended to leave home Her Cloak which is the night sky, and the Robe

  glorious as Moonlight, in favor of plainer and more utilitarian clothes. Even at that most sublime and beautiful of times, when She comes to share Herself in love – as She comes to every man and woman born – even then She rarely appears in any of the forms or manifestations attributed to Her by legend. Once in a lifetime, a person will know the joy of being held in the Goddess's arms. She comes as just another person, with human quirks and wrinkles; sometimes She comes in the form of someone you know – perhaps even your own loved, by way of an affectionate joke. But She never comes when or where you expect Her. As the proverb says, 'The Goddess is as likely to come in the window as through the door.'

  Herewiss found a broom in one corner, not much more than a mildewed bunch of birch twigs, and did his best to sweep up all the detritus on the floor. As he swept, he looked at the figures painted on the plaster. One wall depicted the Triad in its first form – Maiden, Mother and Wise Woman, Their hands joined to show that They were One: and then underneath that, the Maiden with Her hands full of stars, busy with creation. But her back was turned to the other Two, illustrating the Error. Behind the Three of Them hung the symbol for the Great Death, the downpointing Arrow, and only the Eldest of the Three saw it. Her hand was outstretched to Her younger self, but the Maiden ignored the Eldest and went on creating as if her works would last forever.

  In the next panel the Maiden stood in Her sorrow, Her hands covering Her face, as She realized the nature of Her error: She had forgotten about Death. And now that She had spoken the Final Word that set the Universe on its way, Death was trapped inside it. This whole Universe would have to run down and die itself before She could make it perfect. The Mother and the Wise Woman stood