(What are you called?) Herewiss asked.
It bespoke its Name to him, and Herewiss reflexively started back and shielded his eyes. The elemental showed him a terrible blazing globe of fire — the Sun close up, it seemed to be saying — and out of that blinding disc a sudden immense fountain of flame leaped up, streamed outward like a burning veil blown in a fierce wind. Then it bent back on itself with an awful arching grace, and fell or was drawn back into the vast sphere of flame below. That single pillar of fire would have been sufficient to burn away all the forests of the world in a moment; but the creature bespoke the concept casually, as a small everyday kind of thing, not a terribly special Name. And — he shuddered — it made free with its inner Name as if it had nothing to fear from anything—
(Sunspark,) Herewiss said. (Would that be it?)
(That's fairly close.) It looked up at him from the floor. Its voice was sharp and bright, and currents of humor wafted around it as if the elemental balanced eternally on the edge of a joke. (What's your name?)
(I'm called Herewiss, Hearn's son.)
(That's not your Name,) it said, both slightly amused and slightly scornful. (That's just a calling, a use-name. What is your Name?)
(You mean my inner Name?) Herewiss said, shocked and terrified.
The elemental was confused by his fear. ('Inner'? How can a Name be 'inner' or 'outer'? You are what you are, and there's no concealing it. Don't you know what you are?)
(No . . .)
More confusion. (They told me this was a strange place! How can you be alive, and thinking, and able to talk to me, and not know?)
(How can you be so sure?) Herewiss said. (And if this is 'here', where's 'there'?)
It showed him, and he had to hold his head in his hands for fear it would burst open from the immensities it suddenly contained. 'There', it seemed, was the totality of existence. Not the little world he had always known, bounded by mountains and the Sea; but his world and all the others that were, all of them at once, a frightful complexity of being and emptiness, and other conditions that he could not classify.
Herewiss knew that there were other planes of existence — everyone knew that — but he tended to think of them as being separated from the world of the Kingdoms by distance as well as by worldwalls, and accessible only by special doors such as the ones he was looking for. Sunspark, though, had more than an abstract conception. He had breached those walls under his own power, had made his own doors and walked among the worlds. Herewiss, seeing as if through Sunspark's mind, could actually perceive the way they were arranged.
The worlds all overlapped somehow, each of them coexisting in some impossible fashion with every other one, a myriad of planes arranged on the apparent surface of a sphere that could not possibly be real, since all of its points were coterminous with all of the others. Still, all the countless places held distinct positions in relation to one another. Each of them was a thread in the pattern — a Pattern past his understanding, or anyone's, actually, though some few by much travel might get to know small parts of it, or might come to understand the spatial relationships on a limited scale. It could be traveled, but the order and position of the worlds within it changed constantly, from moment to moment. The important thing was to know what the Pattern was going to do next.
During the brief flickering moment when Herewiss tried to perceive the thought in its entirety, he knew with miserable certainty that he stood, or sat, right then, upon an uncountable number of locked doors. If he only had the key, he could step through and be anywhere, anywhere he could possibly imagine. Sunspark had the key.
The hope and jealousy that ran through Herewiss in that one bare moment were terrible, but they didn't last long; they dwindled and fragmented as the thought did when Sunspark finally pulled away from the contact. Herewiss found himself left with a few pallid shreds of the original concept. I'm not big enough of soul to hold so much at once, he said to himself when he could think clearly again.
(That's where you come from?) he said.
(Somewhere there. I've forgotten exactly where. I've been so many places.)
(Can you take other people into those — those places?)
(No. It's a skill that each must learn for himself.)
(Oh . . .) Herewiss sighed, shook his head. (Well. You're a fire elemental, aren't you?)
(I am fire, certainly,) it said.
(How did it happen that you got caught out in the rain?)
(I was eating,) it said, and Herewiss thought of the distant brushfire he had seen. (I was careless, perhaps -I knew the storm was coming, but I thought I could elude it just before it started to rain. However, the rain came very suddenly, and very hard, so that the shock weakened me -and then it wouldn't let up. I thought I would go mad or mindless — we do that when too much water touches us. It is a terrible thing.)
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.)