The Door Into Fire (15 page)

“No, I don’t. Lorn, your mustache is longer, you look like a Steldene.”

“That was the idea, for a while. Look at the
arms
on you! That’s what it is. What the Dark have you been doing?”

“I’m a swordsmith,” Herewiss said. “I hammer a lot. If you want to look like this, you can, but it’ll take you a year or so. That’s how long I’ve been at it. Lorn, you twit, what’s the use of trying to look like a Steldene if you’re going to wear
that
around?” He nodded at Freelorn’s black surcoat, charged with the Arlene arms, the white Lion passant guardant uplifting its great silver blade.

“Who’s going to see it out here?”

“That’s not the point. You were wearing it in Madeil, weren’t you?”

“No—my other one got stolen out of my saddlebag. Let me tell you what happened—”

“I can imagine. For such an accomplished thief, you get stolen from awfully easily. How many times have I—oh, never mind, come on, sit down and tell me. Tell me everything. We haven’t talked since—Goddess!—since not last Opening Night, but the one before. When you came to the Wood.”

“Yeah.” They sat down by a chair-sized boulder and put their backs to it. Herewiss slid an arm around Freelorn’s shoulders. “Let’s see, let’s see—” Freelorn chewed his mustache a bit. “After we left the Wood, we went west a ways—stayed in the empty country north of Darthis until spring came. And then south. We made a big wide detour around Darthis, didn’t even cross the Darst until Hiriden or so—”

“That
is
quite a detour. Any trouble?”

“No. That was the interesting thing, though. One Darthene patrol stopped us and I was
sure
they knew who I really was. I lied splendidly about everything, though, and they let us go. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Herewiss laughed softly. “Oddly enough, I would. My father has been exchanging letters with Eftgan recently, and the queen is not happy with Cillmod his co-conspirators in Arlen. Not at all. She told Hearn in one letter that she considers the real Arlene government to be in exile. Right now she doesn’t dare openly support or recognize you; she’s too new to the throne, and the Four Hundred are still unsure of her. But because of the Oath of Lion and Eagle she feels obligated to do
something
for you. Those guards may or may not have known who you were—but if they did, they had orders to let you pass unhindered. You’re safe in Darthen, so long as you don’t make yourself so visible that they have no choice but to notice you.”

“What about public opinion?”

“That may have influenced her. Most of Darthen is in outrage over Cillmod having the gall to break Oath. Especially the country around Hadremark, where a lot of people went homeless after the burning, and all the crops were ruined. But Eftgan’s hands are tied. She can’t really move against Arlen, or she’d be breaking Oath herself. She’s strengthened the garrisons on the Arlid border, but there are ways to sneak past those. She even went so far as to ask the human Marchwarders in Darthen to talk to the Dragons, ask
their
help—but the answer is pretty likely to be the same as usual. The Dragons won’t get involved.”

“Granted.”

“So in a way, you’re her best hope. The story running in Darthen seems to be that you’re alive and traveling around to raise force so that you can get Arlen back. The people seem to approve. They want the Lion’s child back on the throne again, as much for their own welfare as for yours.”

Freelorn nodded. “‘Darthen’s House and Arlen’s Hall,’” he recited,

“‘share their feast and share their fall—

Fórlennh’s and Hergótha’s blade

are of the same metal made,

and the Oath they sealed shall bind

both their dest’nies intertwined—’”

Herewiss finished,

“‘Till the end of countries, when

Lion and Eagle come again.’

“You always did like that one.”

“I recite it nightly,” Freelorn said with a somewhat sour expression, “and hope that both our countries live through this interregnum.”

“They’ll manage, I think. But after you went south, what?”

“We went further west, nearly to the Arlene border—” Freelorn went on, telling of a close encounter with a large group of bandits, but Herewiss wasn’t really listening. He nodded and mmm-hmmed in the appropriate places, but most of his mind was too full of the sight and nearness of Freelorn—the compactness of him, the quick brilliant eyes and fiery temperament, the bright sharp voice, the ability to care about a whole country as warmly as he could about one man.

Herewiss suddenly recalled one of those long golden afternoons in Prydon castle. He had been stretched out on Freelorn’s bed, staring absently at the ceiling, and Freelorn sat by the window, picking at the strings of his lute and trying to get control of his newly changed voice. He was singing the Oath poem with a kind of quiet exultation, looking forward to the time when he would be king and help to keep it true; and the soft promising melody wound upward through the warm air. Herewiss, relaxed and drifting easily toward sleep, was deep in a daydream of his own-of a future day brightly lit by the blue sun of his own released Flame. Then suddenly he was startled awake again by a shudder of foreboding, a cold touch of prescience trailing down his spine. A brief flicker-vision of this moment, lit by a fading sunset instead of the brilliance of mid-afternoon. The same poem, but not sung; the same Freelorn, but not king; the same Herewiss, but not—

“—and left them in our dust—What’s the matter?”

Getting cold?”

“No, Lorn, it was just a shudder. The Goddess spoke my Name, most likely.”

“Yeah. So, anyway, we left the southeast and came back this way. Stopped at Madeil, and that’s where my surcoat got stolen—”

“Your good one, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I don’t seem to have much luck with them, do I? They’ve probably sold it for the silver by now. But word of whose it was got out, and evidently the Steldenes have been feeling the weight of Cillmod’s threats, since they sent all those people after us. I could hardly believe it when they came piling up outside that old keep. I said to myself then, ‘Time to call in some help.’ Which I did. Goddess, what a display that was.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you all right? I mean, that messenger, and the fireball, and the Lion—oh, the Lion! That was beautiful. Beautiful. Just the way He always looks to me.”

“Oh. You see Him regularly?”

“Shut up! You know what I mean. But are you all right?”

“Just a touch wobbly—it’ll pass in a couple of days. I never did anything on that scale before. In fact, I didn’t know I had it in me. I guess I found out…”

Freelorn laughed softly. “I guess. But listen: what have you been doing?”

Herewiss shrugged, trying to think of some way to put a cheerful face on a year’s worth of broken swords, wasted time, and pain. He couldn’t, and anyway, Freelorn would only catch him at it.

“Forging swords,” he said. “I got tired of breaking old ones. At one point Hearn offered me Fánderë—he thought that since the legend says that Earn forged it, it might be more amenable to the Power—but I just couldn’t. That sword is older than the first Woodward, and I knew I would destroy it. It was just as dead to the touch as all the others. So finally I apprenticed myself to old Darg the blacksmith. You remember Darg—”

“I certainly do. The one-eyed gent with the lovely daughter. I think you had ulterior motives.”

Herewiss laughed. “No, not really. Though Meren and I did come of age at the same time, and since we’d always been playmates, we decided to relieve one another of the Responsibility as soon as we could. She had twins—they’ll be coming to the Ward for fostering soon, since Mother left no love-children behind her. Goddess, I miss them—they’re nine now: though Halwerd never fails to remind me that he’s a quarter-hour older than Holmaern. He helps me with the forging sometimes, working the bellows. I put a forge together up in the north tower, and he watches me working the metal, and asks a thousand questions about tensile strength and temper and edge. He has a blacksmith’s heart, that one, and instead of apprenticing himself to Darg’s son when Darg retires, he’s going to have to be Lord of the Brightwood after me. I don’t think Hal’s entirely happy about it.”

“The business with swords made of griffin-bone and ivory and such—I take it that didn’t work.”

“No. What use is a sword of ivory? It seems that it has to be a working sword. Yet a real sword is an instrument of death—and to make it carry life—”

“You’ll find a way.”

“I wish I had your faith in me.”

Freelorn stretched , discomfort and concern flickering across his face. “Well, whatever—you’ll keep trying. Where are you going now? Back home?”

“I’m heading east.”

“From
here?
”

“From here.”

“But Herewiss—listen, it was a brilliant idea to head this far east to start with—even if the Steldenes had their supplies intact, they wouldn’t follow us this close to the Waste. But another fifteen miles or so will take you right up to the Stel itself—”

“I don’t intend to stop there, Lorn. On the way down here I came by some interesting information—” Briefly he told of his encounter with the innkeeper’s daughter, and what she had told him. Freelorn nodded.

“There’s an Old Place like that down by Bluepeak in Arlen, just under the mountains,” he said, “though it must not be as haunted, or whatever—the Dragons took it as a Marchward some years ago, and there are human Marchwarders there too.
This
place, though—if the Dragons won’t go near it, I don’t much like the idea of you going there. What do you want it for, anyway?”

“There are supposed to be doors, Lorn. It could be that I could use one of them to go across into a Middle Kingdom where males have Flame, and train there. Or if there’s no door that goes there already, I might be able to
make
one of them do it—”

“How?” Freelorn said, all skepticism. “Worldgates are supposed to be a Flame-related manifestation, since they’re partly alive, aren’t they? I mean, you need wreaking to open them. When Béaneth went to Rilthor, even though it was Opening Night and a Full Moon, she still needed Fire for the Morrowfane Gate. And there’s that story about the Hilarwit, and the other one about Raela Way-opener, and it’s always Flame—”

Herewiss listened patiently. He had had this argument with himself more than once. “So?”

“So I don’t think you can do it like that! You need control of Flame, and you haven’t got it—”

“You could be right.”

“And—what?”

“What you’re saying is true, Lorn, for as far as we know. According to the old stories, which usually have truth in them. But each instance is different. And if you’re going to quote examples, well, what about Béorgan? Despite her expertise and her power and all the information she had access to, she still couldn’t have had all the facts. Why else would she have bothered trying to kill the Lover’s Shadow, when He was just going to come back?”

“She was driven,” Freelorn said, “by her desire for vengeance. It blinded her.”

“Maybe. That’s not the point. The
point
is that I have to try. There’s no telling till I do. It may be that those doors are set to turn to the use of whatever mind or power comes along. And it may not. But it’s a place of the Old wreaking, which was always Flame-based, and damned if I’m not going to try tapping it.”

“Herewiss, you’re not seeing what you’re getting into—”

“Lorn, are you scared for me?”

Freelorn, who had been warming to the prospect of a good argument, opened his mouth, shut it, and scowled at Herewiss, a dark stabbing look from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Yes, dammit,” he said at last.

“Then why don’t you just
say
so.”

Freelorn made a face. “All right. But I spent a lot of time in the Archives, and I know more about Flame and its uses from my reading than most Rodmistresses do—”

“Reading about it and having it are two different things. No, Lorn, don’t start getting mad. Do you think I don’t appreciate all the research you did? But theory and practice are different, and I’m not a usual case. And look at us: half an hour together, after almost a year apart, and already we’re fighting.”

“Tension. I’m still nervous from two nights ago.”

“Fear. You’re afraid for me.”

“
Yes!
You want to go poking around in some bloody pile of stones in the middle of nowhere and nothing, a place that was there since before the Dragons came, for Goddess’s sake!—and which
they
won’t go near because it’s too dangerous. Damn right I’m afraid! How would you feel if our positions were reversed?”

Herewiss gave the thought its due, and did his best to put himself in Freelorn’s place for a moment. “Scared, I guess.”

“Petrified.”

“And how would
you
feel if our positions were reversed?”

Freelorn sighed and let his hunched-up shoulders sag. “Scared too, I suppose.”