The Door Into Fire

Herewiss nodded slowly. 'It didn't take long for what I saw to start happening, alas. This isn't good, Spark, their negative emotions are going to fray at the binding—'

(Work on Freelorn, then,) Sunspark said. (You would anyway—)

Herewiss caught a sudden pang of jealousy, a flurry of angry, swift-moving brilliances like swords flashing in sunlight. Sunspark was trying to conceal it, and Herewiss laughed softly.

'I bet you'd like to burn him.'

The elemental flinched away in chagrin. (I would,) it admitted.

'I think I would've been a little suspicious if you hadn't wanted to. We all do as our natures dictate, Spark. I know it's hard for you to understand how I can love you both, but believe me, I can, and I love neither of you the less for loving the other more—'

(I'm not sure I understand this.) Sunspark sounded ashamed.

'Trust me, Spark. I will not give you up for him.'

(Neither will you give him up for me—)

can you hear it?)

'That's right, little one. Firechild, trust me. You haven't done wrong yet by doing so. Nor have I,' he added with a gentle smile, 'in trusting you. By rights and the Pact you could have parted company with me after you saved me from the hralcin.'

(It would seem,) Sunspark said, smiling back, (that there are some things more important than even the Pact. Do what needs to be done, loved. I'll be within call till this evening.)

It vanished. Herewiss looked over the wall at Freelorn, alone at the head of the approaching line, and went down the stairs to meet him.

At the bottom of the stairs Herewiss paused, slightly irritated by the sight of the dust lying thick all over the courtyard's polished gray paving. He was usually a tidy sort, but lately there had been too much to do — swords to be forged, doors to be looked through. And then the hralcin had come. He thought of cleaning the courtyard now, but he was too tired to want to do it by sorcery, and he didn't have a broom.

He walked across the court to where there appeared to be a solid wall, facing west. It was only a little illusion, rooted in where the wall would have liked to be, where it had been before Sunspark disposed of it. The illusion, which he'd erected earlier in the month, was a sop to his own insecurities. It made him nervous to live alone, or nearly alone, in a hold that had a great gaping hole in it. Herewiss looked up at the wall, reached out with his arms, and spoke the word that severed the connection between was- once and seems-to-be-now. The wall went away.

Freelorn and his people were very close, and Herewiss leaned against the wall and waited for them. They're all there; thank You, Goddess. I couldn't cope with one of Lorn's guilts right now, if one of them had been hurt or killed. Or my own, now that I think of it. . .

Blackmane whickered a greeting at Herewiss as Freelorn dismounted. No Lion coat? Interesting! Herewiss thought as Freelorn hurried over to him, his eyes anxious. Freelorn reached out hesitantly, took Herewiss's hands in his and gripped them hard. They stood that way for a long moment, each of them searching the other with his eyes, almost in fear.

'Well,' Freelorn said, gazing at the ground and pushing the dust around with one booted toe, 'I'm back . . .'

Herewiss reached out and drew Freelorn close, and hugged and kissed him hard.

For a few minutes they just hung on to one another, sniffling slightly. 'I, uh,' Freelorn said, his voice muffled by talking into Herewiss's tunic, 'I was — oh, Dark, loved, you know how I am when I can't get my way.'

'It's not as if I wasn't being a little stubborn myself. Or a little snide — Lorn, I'm sorry.'

'Me too.' Freelorn gave Herewiss a great bone-cruncher of a hug and then held him away, peering at him with concern. 'Are you all right? You look as if somebody smote you a good one in the head. And look at your eyes, they have circles under them.'

'Smote me—' Herewiss laughed. 'I feel like it. It's been a busy week. Come on in, I'll tell you about it later.' He looked at Freelorn, noticing something that hadn't been there before, a look of tiredness and discomfort and depression. 'Are.you all right?' he asked.

The expression on Freelorn's face partook of both relief and loathing. 'Later,' he said. 'It's been a lively month.'

Freelorn's people were leading their horses into the courtyard, and as Herewiss glanced toward them he saw Segnbora passing through the gate. Her expression was hard to make out clearly, for the late Sun was behind her; but she looked pained, and puzzled as well. Herewiss looked back at Freelorn, took him gently by the arm and began to walk back into the hold with him.

'Lorn, where did all those mules come from?' 'Osta.'

'You did go ahead, then—' 'Yes indeed.'

They passed into the coolness of the hold. 'And you made it out all right.'

'It's just as I told you, no-one knew about the secret way in from the river. We didn't even have to kill any of the guards. By the way, we brought a plains deer in with us. Didn't see any reason why we should use up your supplies.'

'You always were a considerate guest. Lorn, what are all the mules for?'

'I was getting to that. They're for the money.'

Herewiss led Freelorn into the great lower hall, and they sat down beside the firepit in chairs that Sunspark had brought in from the village to the north. 'Six mules? How much did you get?'

Freelorn made a smug, pleased face. 'Eight thousand talents of silver.'

'Eight thou— You mean you went into the Royal Treasury and stole all that money and got away again?'

'I didn't steal it,' Freelorn said with mock-righteousness. 'It's my money.'

'My Goddess, maybe I should listen to you more,' Herewiss said, reaching down for a brown earthenware bottle and the lovers'-cup. 'Lorn, you should've killed the guards. It'd be kinder than what Cillmod's probably doing to them.' He broke the seal on the bottle- stopper, opened the jug and poured.

'Maybe. But I have the money now. We can have a revolution.'

'Just like that,' Herewiss said with a laugh, and drank from the cup. 'May we be one, my loved.' He passed it on to Freelorn.

'As is She.' Freelorn drank, and his eyes widened. 'Lion's Name, this tastes like Narchaerid.'

'It is.'

'South slope, too. Mother of Everything, it's like so much red velvet. What year?'

Herewiss held up the jug to look at the bottom. 'Ninety-two, it says.'

'Dark, what am I worrying about the year for? How are you getting that out here?'

Herewiss flicked an amused glance at the fire pit. An ordinary fire appeared to be blazing there, but the pattern of the flames had repeated twice since they'd been there. 'I have my sources,' he said.

'Well, whatever. How long can a revolution take, anyway? You should hear the kind of things going on in Arlen. The people are getting sick of Cillmod. It was a bad year at harvest, there were omens and portents: sheep miscarrying and two-headed calves being born, and fruit dying on the trees before it was ripe—' Freelorn drank deeply, and his eyes over the rim of the cup were troubled. 'In a lot of the little villages we passed through, everyone was hungry a lot of the time. It's bad back home ... '

'Well, the reason is obvious—'

'Of course.'

'After all, not even Cillmod is stupid enough to go into Lionhall, and he hasn't been enacting the rites of the royal priesthood, even if he knows them—'

'That wasn't the reason I meant.'

Herewiss raised his eyebrows at Lorn.

'Me,' Freelorn said, very quietly, studying his cup. Herewiss looked at his loved.

'Me,' Lorn said, not looking up. 'Dusty, they're starving because of me, because of what I was scared to do.' He laughed just once, a sound so low and bitter that it twisted in Herewiss like a knife. 'Because I was afraid to get caught and put on a rack, afraid to spend a few days dying . . . There was a village — it was five houses and two cows, and acres and acres of stubble. It hadn't rained for months, and nothing would grow but a few radishes. The people — there were only about four of them left, all the others had starved or left — they came out and offered us hospitality. Radish soup. They were all thin as rails, and one of them, this little old man, was lying in the house on a straw pallet, dying of starvation. They had all been giving him their food, trying to keep him alive, but it was too late, he was too far gone.'