The Door Into Fire totf-1 Page 6

  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 – tho
ugh 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.

  —and then it was inside Herewiss's head, and Herewiss began to understand the elemental's statement that he was fire. The quiet, familiar confines of Herewiss's mind went up in a terrible conflagration. His brain and body burned inside, thoughts and emotions threatening to drown in heat and pain. But Herewiss held on, held part of himself away from the burning, concentrated on survival, on the help that this creature could be to him if he could bind it. He was not as afraid of fire as most people might be – fire was his companion at work, his old familiar friend. He bore the marks of his acquaintance with it all over his

  arms, pink places where blisters had been. This fire, a fire of the mind, was no different, really. He withstood the flames for a long few moments, making sure of his control. Then, (Two can play at this,) he said—

  —and thought of water: storms of it, deluges of it, cold and free– running; the shaded place in the Wood where the Darst runs through, widening out into the pool he and Lorn used to swim in during the summers. The leap out from the green bank, and the splash, first too cold, then just right, cool clear liquid softness covering all the body, sliding, surrounding—
r />   He heard Sunspark scream.

  —the Sea, the northern Darthene coast in late summer, waves crashing and spray flying cold and salty, a blue infinity of water that could swallow an elemental without even noticing—

  The contact broke. Herewiss stood there, sweating and trembling, and saw that Sunspark was doing the same. It looked at him, pleased and irritated both.

  (You have nothing to fear from me,) it said, (I am bound to your will until you see fit to release me. I should have let the Pact– oath be the term of our agreement—)

  (Maybe you should have,) Herewiss said, (but I for one have no need to keep you past the time of the original agreement.)

  (You can afford to be generous,) Sunspark said grumpily. (I've

  never lost a match before. Shows you what comes of being fair.)

  (Sometimes,) Herewiss agreed. (Come on, Sunspark, let's go; the rain's stopped.)

  They walked out of the shrine. Above them the clouds were moving eastward before a brisk wind. (One thing I will require of you,) Sunspark said, (and that is that you keep water off me.)

  (That's easily done; there are spells—)

  Dapple was grazing again; as Herewiss approached him he looked up placidly, as if to ask what would happen now.

  (Hmm. Sunspark, will you mind if I ride you?)

  (It's a binding of energies, is it not? It seems appropriate.)

  He transferred his gear to Sunspark's back, piece by piece, and finally took the bridle off Dapple and rubbed the horse's nose. 'It's a long way back home for you,' he said, 'but you can't help but find your way there. Though they might be confused to see you without me. Here—'

  He put the bridle on Sunspark and then went to rummage in the saddlebag, finally finding the little steel message-capsule from Freelorn's pigeon, along with the scrap of parchment it had contained. Inkstick and brush were further down in the bag. Herewiss wet the brush from his mouth, scrabbled it against the inkstick, and paused for a moment. Should I—? Oh, why the Dark not, he loves riddles!