And other occurrences, later ones. Being held in his father's arms, carried home half-asleep after his presentation at the Forest Altars: three years old. 'Oh,' Hearn's voice whispering to Elinadren, who walked beside them with her arm through Hearn's, moving quietly through green twilight, 'oh, Eli, he's going to be something special.'
And another one over there, watching his mother make it rain to stave off what seemed an incipient dry spell. He was six years old. Watching her stand there in the field, garlanded with meadowsweet to invoke the Mother of Rains, seeing her uplift a Rod burning with the Fire and call the rainclouds to her with Flame and poetry. He watched the sky darken into curdled contrasts, clouds violet and orange and stormgreen, watched her bring the lightning-licked water thundering down, and a great desire to control the things of the world rose up in him. He got up from the grass, soaking wet, and went to hold on to Elinadren's skirts, and said, 'Mommy, I'll do that when I grow up too.'
And yet another, when he was out camping in the grasslands east of the Wood, and he woke up and stretched in the morning to find the grass-snake coiled in the blankets with him, and heard its warning hiss: eleven years old. He knew it could kill him; and he knew he could probably kill it, for his knife was close to hand and he was fast. But he remembered Hearn saying, 'Don't ever kill unless you must!' — and he lifted up the blankets slowly and then rolled out, and from beneath them the grass-snake streaked out like a bright green lash laid over the ground, and was gone, as frightened of him as he had been of it. I guess you can do without killing, he thought. Always, from now on, I'll try—
There were thousands more moments like that, each one of which had made him part of what he was, each linked to all the moments before and all the moments after, making the bright complete framework that was his Name. And each act or decision had a shadow, a phantom link behind it — sprung from his deeds, yet independent of them somehow — another Name, shadowing itself in multiple reflections, reaching out into depths he could not fully comprehend—
Her Name. The Goddess's. Of course.
No wonder She wanted to free me. And no wonder She wanted my Name. Not power, nothing so simple. It is part of Hers. Her Name is the sound of all Names everywhere. And with the knowledge of my Name, She will win ever so slight a victory against the Death. There will be more of Her than there was; the sure knowledge of what I am at this moment in time will make me immortal in a way that will surpass and outlast even the cycles of death and rebirth, even the great Death of everything that is.
If I accept myself—
Herewiss stood there in the midst of the blazing brilliance of the weave, hearing words long forgotten as well as ones that had never been spoken, tasting joys he had ceased to allow himself and pains he had shut away, and also feeling with wonder the textures of things that hadn't happened yet, silks and thorns and winds laden with sunheat like molten silver— Whether the drug was still working in him, he wasn't sure; but futures spun out ahead of him from the base-framework of his Name, numberless probabilities. Some of them were so faint and unlikely that he could hardly perceive them at all; some were almost as clear as things that had become actuality. Some of these were dark with his death, and some almost as dark with his life; one burned blue with the Fire, and he looked closely at it, saw himself almost lost in light, rippling with Flame that streamed from him like a cloak in the wind. And that future was ready to start in the next moment, when he let time start happening again. But there was still a gap in the information, he didn't know how to get there from here—
Yes I do.
Herewiss looked forward along all the futures, and back down his past, weighing the brights and darks of them, and accepted them for his.
And knew his Name.
And knew the Name of his fear.
His Flame, of course. There it lay, dying indeed, but still the strongest thing about him, the strongest part of him. How long, now, had he been trying to control it, to use it like a hammer on the anvil of the world? The blue Flame was not something to be used in that fashion. He had been trying to keep it apart from him, where it would not be a threat to his control of himself. If he wanted it, really wanted it, he was going to have to take hold of it and merge himself with the Fire, give up the control, yield himself wholly and for ever.
It was going to hurt. The fires of the forge, of a star's core, of an elemental's heart would be nothing compared to this.
So be it. There's no more time. I've got to do it.
He had been trying to make it his.
He reached out and embraced it, and made it him.
Pain, incredible pain for which the anguished screaming of a whole dying world seemed insufficient expression. He hung on, grasped, held, was fire — and then time began to reassert itself, the pain mixing with the sound of Freelorn's scream, feeding on it, blending, changing, anger, incandescent blue anger, raging like the Goddess's wrath — hands, surely burned off, eyes transfixed by spears of blue-white fury, too much, too much power, has to go somewhere, forward, moments moving, forward, terror, rage, forward, Freelorn—!
—staggering forward, carrying the half-finished sword in his hand, and a murderous freight of rage within him, burning under his skin like the red-hot heart of a coal under its white ash. No anger he had ever summoned had been this potent, it was devouring him from within, he was fire, like Sunspark, ah, Sunspark, loved, gone, dear one! — and he sobbed, his own fires consuming him now, fury, horror, revenge, he tried to treat them as a sorcery, shaping them, directing them, scorching himself with them, weaving them—
—something stumbled into the firefield he was making, no, that he was, for it was he and he it; that's the secret, isn't it — not trying to use a tool, but being one with it — who uses their hand to do something? It does it — a something, no, not really — a not- something; it had no name, nor even any life; and it sensed his sudden incredible upsurge of life, of selfness — they sensed him, and were closing in, for such a feed as they had never had in all their centuries. Well, let them try. They are not alive, so it's all right to kill them -disassemble would be a better word, actually; see, a break here, at this linkage, and here, quite simple; I know what I'm for and they can't say as much — now the hard part, push—
If Freelorn's scream had terrified him, the ones that came now were worse, but Herewiss shut them out. He stood still, clenching hard on his sword, on himself, his eyes squeezed shut. Outside of him he perceived a terrible turbulence and upset, a maelstrom of freed forces that shook the air inside his lungs and battered at the thoughts inside his head. But he felt sure that if he looked to see what was happening, something might go wrong. He urged the anger on, feeding it with his fears, pouring it out. It pushed through his pores as if he were sweating molten metal. His skin would have melted too were it not already charred into a blackened shell. The burning had rooted itself deep in him, his bones glowed like iron in the forge. His heart raced, its rhythm staggering in pain, every beat an explosion of sparks and burnt blood. But still he pushed, fanned the fire, breathed it hotter, pushed, pushed—
The hralcins keened and screeched up to the top of the range of hearing, a multiple cry of agony and excruciating fright. The sound hurt the ears, piercing them unbearably, boring inward to the brain—
—and then it stopped.
Herewiss opened his eyes. The hall was empty, except for the hralcins' horrible smell and a faint brief echo of their last despairing cry. Slowly, Freelorn's people began to come out of the corner. Segnbora slumped down into an exhausted heap on the floor, and wept with frustration and fear. Herewiss stood where he was, holding himself straight, and Freelorn came and put his arms around him. Freelorn was shaking terribly.