The Door Into Fire (9 page)

“Are you a sorcerer?” Ferrigan asked.

“Dear me, no!” the Pooka said, shocked. “Who wants to be a sorcerer? You spend five days of a week recovering from one day’s spelling; and if you die in the middle of a spell, it takes three months before the headache goes away.”

“Tale of Ferrigan and the Pooka,”

from
Tales of Northern Darthen
, ed. s’Hearn, ch. 8

The keep, a single round-tower built of fieldstone, was old enough to have been erected in the first wave of the Kingdoms’ colonization. For outworks it had nothing more than an earthen dike, surrounded by a ditch that had once been full of sharpened stakes. They had long since rotted away, the place having been abandoned centuries before for some newer castle of hewn stone, more defensible, or built closer to the present habitations of men.

But the keep was still quite solid—thick-walled enough so that an earthquake could hardly have brought it down. There were no windows but arrow slits, the tower top was deeply crenellated, and the door was heavily bound in iron thick enough not to have rusted away in all the intervening years. Time had been relatively kind to the place. Its mortar had grown stronger with age, and only here or there was any stone shattered by frost. It was a redoubt worthy of the name, and it stood there at the center of the cuplike vale with stolid rocky patience, frowning at the surrounding hills, antique and indomitable.

Herewiss leaned wearily on Sunspark’s crupper and frowned back at the keep from where they stood, about two miles away, atop one of the long bare surrounding ridges. The keep was surrounded by a fairly large force, disposed around it for a siege in the usual Steldene fashion. The troops were about half a mile or so from the walls, separated into four large camps, each oriented to one of the compass points. Herewiss agreed with Freelorn’s estimate; there were about a thousand of them, and maybe more.

“For five people!” he said aloud, putting his head down on his folded arms. “Steldin must be awfully nervous.”

Sunspark stood beside him in the red roan form, idly switching flies with its long glittering tail. It looked at the besieging army with supreme disdain, and snorted softly. (It hardly matters. Give me half an hour and I will bring the fire down on them and leave not a one alive.)

“Sunspark, I don’t want to kill; there’s no need. Restraint is considered a virtue in these parts.”

The elemental snorted again, flicking its tail at a nonexistent fly and fetching Herewiss a stinging blow across the back.

“Behave yourself or I’ll make it rain on you again.”

(That’s no mastery, there are rain clouds coming in anyway; it’ll be pouring after nightfall. You keep me dry, now!)

“I keep my promises. You’ll be fine. Look, it’s getting on toward sundown—I want you to take a message to Freelorn for me.”

(What am I—a pigeon?)

“Spark—”

(All right, all right.)

“Get in there any way you like, so long as it’s unobtrusive. Say to Freelorn that I’m waiting for nightfall to make my move. Tell him that he should try not to be too bothered by what he sees—I’m going to try to go past the bounds of the battle-sorceries he’s seen in the past. Tell him how to find this spot—or better still, after I’m finished, go and meet them and bring them here. There are times when Lorn needs a map to find his own head.”

(Shall I tell him that too?)

“Don’t bother; I’ve told him enough times myself. When you finish with that, get back here. This place is wild enough for there to be a few Fyrd still wandering around. I don’t want to get eaten while I’m trying to concentrate on my spelling.”

(Tell Freelorn this. And tell Freelorn that. There are five people in there, oh Master mine. What does he
look
like?)

Herewiss sighed. “Look for a small man, about a span short of my height, with longish dark hair and a long mustache, and a sense of humor like yours. Chances are that he’ll have on a surcoat with the White Lion on it. Is that enough for you?”

(If there are only five people in there, then I think I can manage.)

“Then get going.”

Sunspark’s horse-shape wavered and turned molten, gathered itself together and swirled about with a blast of oven-heat, became a bright amorphous form that put out wings and rose against the sky, cooling and darkening. A moment later a red desert hawk spiraled up a thermal partly of its own making.

Herewiss sat down, making a face at the smell of scorched grass, and considered what he was going to do. It wasn’t going to be easy to dispose of an army this large. There weren’t too many of Steldene regulars among the forces; most of these were conscript peasantry, ununiformed and hurriedly armed. That would be a help. But the regulars and their commanders would have seen real battle-sorcery before. They would be familiar with the tricks of the trade, and unafraid of illusion. Herewiss did have some advantages: a great deal of native power, and access to references and methods about which most sorcerers knew little or nothing. Also, the lack of any army attacking them in concert with the illusions would confuse the Steldenes somewhat. By the time any of them realized what was happening and tried to mobilize a force to stop him, it would be too late…he hoped.

Still…a thousand men.
Herewiss shook his head. The King of Steldin must have been worried about the possibility of the Arlene countryside rising against his people when they brought Freelorn home—or the possibility of Freelorn getting away, and the Arlene army moving into Steldene lands in retaliation. If the Oath of Lion and Eagle wasn’t protecting Darthen from Cillmod’s incursions, the King of Steldin had good reason to worry.

Sighing, Herewiss looked at the thunderheads massing on the northern horizon. The storm would make a fine cover for their escape. He disliked the prospect of leaving over ground wet enough to hold their trail. But speed, and fear, and the direction in which he would lead his friends, would confound the pursuit. Now he had to concern himself with the sorceries he would need.

Herewiss spent at least half an hour leafing through the grimoires, making sure he had properly memorized a number of pertinent passages, and wishing he weren’t so ethical. To frighten a thousand men into flight was more difficult than killing them. It would have been simplicity itself to turn Sunspark loose. The elemental’s methods were swift and brutally efficient, and its conscience would be clean afterwards, for to Sunspark death was nothing more than a change from one form to another. Or else Herewiss could himself have laid warfetter on the lot of them, leaving the whole army deaf and blind and stripped of their other senses, fighting nothing but their own terror, and probably dying of it. But his conscience wasn’t as accommodating as Sunspark’s. The last time he had slain was one time too many, and even if that had not been the case, there was still sorcerer’s backlash to consider. To lay warfetter on so many people was to open the way for a huge cumulative backlash to strike
him
, one which could leave him dead or insane.

So Herewiss chose illusions as his weaponry. He would have to alter the formulae to accommodate so many people, and the backlash would still hit him proportionately; he would be unconscious for a couple of days. As he went through the book, making his final choices in the fading light, Sunspark dropped out of the sky onto his shoulder.

“Loosen up with the talons, please,” Herewiss said. “Did you find him?”

The hawk snapped its beak with impatience. (Of course. He’s waiting for you.)

“Was there a message?”

(Your friend greets you by me,) Sunspark said, (and says, ‘Get me the Dark out of here.’ He also says that you should make your preparations for
six
people. Evidently he has picked up a stray somewhere.)

“That’s Lorn. Sunspark, I’m going to need a good while to get ready for this. You’ll have to stand guard while I meditate. Also I’ll need your services during the sorcery.”

(As you say.) Sunspark whirled and dissolved in heat again, reappearing in the blood-bay persona.

“You really do like that shape, don’t you.”

The elemental curved its neck, looked around to admire its shining self. (It has a certain elegance, I must admit—)

“You’re vain, firechild, vain,” said Herewiss, smiling. He walked off a short distance and unlaced his fly to relieve himself before the long sorcery; Sunspark followed, regarding the process with interest.

(You are
really
strange,) it said. (Why bother drinking water if you’re just going to throw it away again? And what is this ‘vain’ business? I’m gorgeous, you’ve said so. I don’t understand why you can tell me that I’m beautiful, but
I
can’t tell myself—)

“Spark, shut up, please.”

Sunspark strolled away a few paces and began cropping the grass in silence, leaving little scorched places where it had bitten through. Herewiss settled himself comfortably on the ground and began to compose himself for the evening’s work.

Sorcery, like all the other arts, is primarily involved with the satisfaction of one’s own needs. Though a sorcerer may mend a pot or raise a storm or set a king on his throne with someone else’s benefit in mind, still he is first serving his own needs, his own joys or fears or sorrows. To work successful sorcery one must first know with great certainty what he wants, and why. Otherwise the dark secretive depths of his mind may take the unleashed forces and use them for something rather different than what he thinks he wants.

In addition, sorcery is affected by how completely the sorcerer’s needs are filled before he begins—whether he’s hungry or tired, secure in his place in life, whether he is loved or has someone to love. It’s easy for a hungry sorcerer to find food by his art, since the need fuels his skill. But it’s much harder for that same starving sorcerer to, say, open death’s Door and sojourn in the places past it. And only the mightiest of sorcerers could manage to conjure powers or potentialities if he hadn’t eaten for a week, or felt his life was in danger for some reason. Sorcery is ridiculously easy to sabotage. Beat your sorcerer, frighten him, deprive him of food, ruin his love life—destroy one of his fulfillments, and he’ll be lucky to be able to dowse for water.

So Herewiss sat there in the grass, as the Sun went down and the thunderclouds rolled in, and strove to shut out all external things and evaluate his inner self. A brief flicker of thought went across his mind like lightning, a white line of discomfort and irritation:
If I had the Flame, I wouldn’t need to go through this rigmarole. Will alone is enough to fuel the blue Fire, you think a thing and it’s done.
But he put the thought aside. Freelorn was waiting for him.

Herewiss sounded himself. He was well-fed, not thirsty or cold or tired. He was the Lord’s son of the Brightwood, had a home and family and people that he could call his own. Love—there was his father, and Freelorn of course, and the knowledge of their feelings for him was a warm steady support at the back of his mind.

Then after a moment Herewiss reached out and took hold of the thought he would have liked to banish, the lack of Flame, the lack of completion. Oh, he was so empty in that one place inside of him. It should have been full of blue Fire and prowess and shouting joy. Instead it ached with emptiness, as parts of him sometimes did after lovemaking. It was a vast stony cavern that echoed coldly when he walked there. Nothing but a faint flicker illuminated it, a single tongue of blue.

Herewiss turned wholly inward, walked in the still, dry air of that place, listened to the sound of his passage as it bounced back from the walls, a distant, hollow step. He went toward the little blue tongue of Fire, crouched down beside it where it sprang from a crack in the bare rough rock. Though there was no wind passing through the darkness, the Flame trembled. It was a sad fire, afraid of dying before it was unleashed to burn through the rest of him, terrified of going out forever. Herewiss was surprised, and pierced with sorrow. He had never really pictured the Flame as anything but a possession of his, no more emotional than an arm or leg. Yet here it was, frightened of endings as he himself was, lonely in the dark.

He spent a little time there, trying to comfort it with his presence, and finally stood up again and gazed down at the tiny tongue of cold fire. If it would die some day, then that was the Goddess’s will. It was better to have treasured the wonder this long than never to have had it in him at all.

Finally Herewiss got up, turned his back on the Flame, and went out of that dark place, looking for Freelorn’s image inside him. Besides need, sorcery was also fueled by emotion. He would summon up his emotion as a smith might beat out iron, slowly, with care and skill and calculated brutality. Then he would turn it loose, take it in hand like the weapon it was and scatter an army with it.

He didn’t have to walk far. The path to where Freelorn dwelt was a wide one, one that Herewiss traveled often when his friend was gone. It was a bright place. A lot of the memory looked like the halls of Kynall castle in Prydon, where they had lived together for a while, all white marble and sunlit colonnades— very different from the dark, carven walls of the Woodward. Some of it looked like Freelorn’s old room in the castle, cream-colored walls veined in green, Freelorn’s old teak four-poster bed with the hack-marks in it from Súthan , armor and clothes scattered around in adolescent disorder. They had had good times there together, lounging around and tossing off horns full of red Archantid as they talked about the things that the future might hold.