by Diane Duane
And suddenly was not there any more.
The light faded. The gravel all around the circles that Segnbora and Herewiss had made, had scorched away like sawdust. The five of them stood on two round pedestals of stone; everywhere else in what remained of the courtyard, except for the stables-area behind them that had been shielded by Hasai’s wings, the stone of the hill had burnt away. Some feet down, what was left of it bubbled uneasily. Sunspark was looking around it with an approving expression, its tail twitching thoughtfully. Segnbora breathed out, and then froze—something was missing, something inside her. She glanced up and around. “Mdaha?”
He was nowhere to be seen.
“You’re solid again,” Lorn said to her.
Segnbora glanced down at the hand holding Skádhwë. “Yes,” she said. But somehow she wasn’t relieved.
“Where did he go?”
She listened briefly to the back of her mind. “He’s not inside. The mdeihei are there, but they’re not saying anything. Which is the first time that’s happened,” Segnbora said, and smiled slightly, despite herself.
“It might be wise,” Herewiss said, “to get out of here.”
“Can you gate?” Dritt said.
Herewiss shook his head. “No, that’s still with us, I’m afraid.”
“But the force that was oppressing me is gone,” Sunspark said. It lashed its tail, fire swirled about it; a moment later, it was standing in horse-form. “I can bring you where you need to go.”
“Good. Just don’t stream fire all over the place the way you like to do. We need to be inconspicuous. ‘Berend, let Harald know we’re coming. Where is he?”
“North side of the square,” Segnbora said, “about two streets up and one over to the right—I don’t know the name of it. You know, Lorn—the one that has the fish stall right next to the tavern with the bay window.”
“Drover’s Entry,” Lorn said to Herewiss.
“Spark, see it in my mind? Right. Let’s go.”
*
Five minutes later they all stood in the alley, glancing around them in concern that they weren’t inconspicuous enough. We might have saved our time, Segnbora thought, tempted to laugh. Everyone in this part of town heard the racket Hasai just made, and no one wants to come out for fear of finding out what it is….
One sound was audible: someone pounding down the stairs in the tavern with the bay window. A bolt was heard being pushed back, thrown, and Harald came out the door—which was then slammed behind him and hastily rebolted. “You’re late!” he said to Freelorn.
“Too damn nearly,” Lorn said. “You ready?”
“For some years now,” said Harald.
They headed down the street. No one was to be seen anywhere, not even at the windows, many of which were shuttered… odd, for one of the pleasantest times of day. Herewiss, pausing at the corner, looked around it and said, “All right. I can’t gate away the guards that will be around the place. I can hold some of them frozen in place, and so can Segnbora, but I doubt we can hold all of them. We’re just going to have to kill any of them who resist. How did Hasai say the guards were dressed?” he said to Segnbora.
“They’re regulars.”
“They would be. All right: shoot anything in Arlene livery that moves, until Lorn gets inside the Hall proper. Or burn it,” Herewiss said to Sunspark, “and don’t let them suffer. All we have to do after that is keep the Arlenes out of the place until Lorn’s finished.”
“Then break out again, and get out of the city, through the Arlene lines, and out to the Darthene army,” Dritt said. “Nothing to it.”
There were rueful smiles all around. “Lorn, how long are you planning to take?” Harald said. Freelorn shook his head. “No way to tell. The stories say that some queens and kings have taken about an hour… but some have taken all night.”
“I knew I should have eaten a bigger nunch,” Dritt muttered.
Herewiss said nothing. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. Segnbora could feel him hunting about in mind for the bodies of the Arlene regulars around Lionhall. She slipped into communion with him. Which ones for me? she said.
How many can you handle?
I’ve still got about twice the reach I ought to have. Give me those twenty there, the group strung around the east side.
Herewiss agreed, marking the ones he would take. Those ten. Maybe a few more of the group around the back. It’s the archers I want to make sure are helpless.
She nodded. That left mostly the soldiers around the front of Lionhall, on the side facing the square. “About fifteen people in front,” she said to Lorn and Dritt and Harald. “Half of them are nearer the door: the others are spread out toward the sides, a few out in the square. The ones on the sides, we can hold. The ones in back and on the far side of the wall won’t be a problem until we’re inside and more defensible.”
Herewiss opened his eyes. “Sunspark,” he said, “straight into the front of the Hall with you. Anyone in there, clean them out. Be quick. Afterwards, when we’re in, head out again and burn any weapons you find.”
“Not the arrows!” Dritt said. “Can you collect those?”
If you want them, certainly.
“Ready?” Herewiss said. “Fine. Right around the corner, next left, and you’re out in the square.”
And he went around the corner, taking his time, while he set up the wreaking that would freeze the soldiers he had chosen in their tracks. The others followed, Segnbora last, while she felt about in her own soldiers’ minds for the spot in the bottom of each one’s brain through which voluntary motion channeled—the connection to the “striped” muscles rather than the “pale” ones that managed breath and other visceral matters. In each one she found it and made sure of her hold, though there was no avoiding brushing past the people’s thoughts in the process: could really use a drink… —old bugger, why doesn’t he… —half an hour, then we can go off duty and… —eat something tonight, maybe…. Segnbora swallowed in sympathy: that soldier was pregnant, and suffering badly from morning sickness. She touched the child’s tiny, slumbering mind in greeting, made sure her intervention would do it no harm, and had a word with the one nerve connection to the stomach that was frequently at fault in such cases—
Sunspark shot past her in a blaze of fire as she turned the corner. Now, she thought, and all the “striped” muscles of the people whose minds she held simply stopped working. Those who were best braced, stood still or toppled: the others slumped. Herewiss had already gone around the corner ahead of her: Lorn and Dritt went after him, their bows strung and arrows nocked on string. Harald slipped behind her to cover her back as she walked, for a person fueling a wreaking was likely to be distracted. They were out in the square, now, where there were dark-clad people lying around on the paving, and others moving. Not for long. Lorn wasn’t fast with a bow, but as for Dritt and Harald, they had kept Lorn’s group supplied with game for months on end while they were all in exile. The ten or eleven people who had still been moving when they first came into the square, were now no more than three.
She concentrated on her walking. It was tricky, managing your own body while doing it for twenty-two other people as well, minding their breathing, having to deal with the screaming horror of their thoughts, and also trying to stay alert for the hiss of an arrow aimed at you. Across the square, inside the open front hall where the Lion’s statue stood, a yellow blaze of fire painted all the window-edges with gold from inside. One scream went up, no more. Herewiss was striding ahead of her, Khávrinen flaming blue. That was when she felt it, like an unexpected thorn in the finger—the structure of the spell, all knives and edges, and almost built, wanting only a word or two. One of those words she heard, or rather felt, spoken. Segnbora knew the shape of the spell, and the rage that burst up in her almost ruined her control over the twenty-two. The managing mind of the sorcery was not close, though, and was not minding its own protection nearly as carefully as it should have. As the last word wa
s pronounced, and the warfetter came loose of its spell- structure like a poisonous cloud and began to descend into the square, Segnbora found the sorcerer’s mind, up in one of the neighboring buildings. One of her soldiers came loose of her grip, and began to struggle to his feet: but the sorcerer, up in her room overlooking Lionhall from the other side of the square, fell over sideways, and it was not just her striped muscles that had stopped working. No sorcery works unless the sorcerer’s immediate needs are fulfilled, and of them all, breath is the most immediate. The spell crashed in fragments, the warfetter dissipated. Segnbora kept walking.
It had grown quiet in the square. Herewiss was already into the front of Lionhall: Lorn followed, and Dritt. Sunspark plunged out past her, burning, radiating pleasure and anger. Segnbora concentrated on breathing, on walking, toward that great open door. The light shining through the door and windows now was blue, and a webwork of blue light filled every opening but the door, proof against arrows and other sorts of physical incursion. Next to her, at a cry from behind, Harald whirled, drew, let fly, fell against her. She just managed to grab him and pull him in through the door with her. That blue webwork filled it as she followed his weight down, controlling his fall and leaning him carefully against the corner of the pedestal of the Lion’s statue. The arrow had taken him through the bottom of the left lung, possibly into the liver. That would be a problem. Segnbora struck one last bolt of annoyance down hard into all the minds she had been holding: they might get up again in a while, but not too soon, and their muscles would ache as if they’d all given birth the day before. Then she slipped into Harald’s mind, which fortunately was numb with shock already, killed his consciousness and his muscular control, and began talking the arrow out the other side of the wound, and the wound closed.
Off at the back of the hall, behind the statue, she could just see Freelorn standing in front of the great bronze door. There was no lock on it: it needed none. Herewiss stood there too, facing Freelorn, and all the strain and fear he had been trying to conceal was showing in his face now. Khávrinen blazed like a firebrand with his fear. Lorn fumbled at his sleeve for a moment, then handed Herewiss the One Knife of the Regalia, his only weapon: and drew Herewiss close, and held him. They stood that way for some breaths.
Shouting came from out in the square. Freelorn hurriedly let go of Herewiss, and turned away to the door: pushed it open, and passed through into the darkness. Then it shut behind him, a deep hollow sound, like a knell.
Take care of him, she said to the Goddess, all she had time for at the moment. The barb of the arrow had come in at the wrong angle to do the liver any damage, but it had cut the lower great artery of the lung as it hit Harald, and punctured the airway. She hurried the sides of the airway into growing together, while gradually vanishing the wood of the arrow, then set to doing the same for the artery—Herewiss knelt down beside her. Segnbora breathed out in relief as the arrowhead fell out of Harald’s back, tink, onto the stone floor, and the other end of it—black-fletched, Arlene army issue—dropped away from the bloodstain on his shirt. Under it, she felt the wound finish knitting itself closed. “He didn’t lose too much blood,” she said, and sat back on her heels, looking over at Herewiss. His eyes were haunted, and there were tears on his face.
Her heart turned over with pity for him. “I know,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. Let’s see what we can do about making this place more defensible, so that when he comes out Initiate, we can keep him alive long enough to see him King as well.”
Segnbora gave Harald’s mind his muscles back, and nudged it toward consciousness. After a moment he opened his eyes. “What the Dark—”
“You always miss the point,” Herewiss said, dropping the arrowhead into Harald’s hand. “Pity it doesn’t miss you! Come on. I could use a lookout.”
Between them they got Harald to his feet again, and he Herewiss headed off for the easterly-facing windows. Segnbora stood there a moment, looking up at the statue of the Lion. Blue light lay across it from the protective wreakings in the windows and doorway, and firelight flickered on it from the wildly veering torches out in the square, and from Sunspark, going about its business. But the eyes of the image stayed shadowy and unrevealing as their gaze rested on her.
Bright eyes, not these dark ones, were on her mind. Au bvh’Hasai, bhv-dei’sithesssch! she called silently. But no answer came, any more than from this cool, unmoved stone; and the mdeihei were still silent.
Segnbora sighed, and went to see what she could do to help Herewiss.
THIRTEEN
No woman or man finds anything in Lionhall that
they themselves have not brought there. But
some do not bring enough: and their stories
are silence.
d’Kalien, Asteismics
It was utterly dark. Freelorn stood still, after he pushed the door shut, and just listened.
There was no slightest spark of light. I should have brought a lamp, he thought; but at the same time it occurred to him that it was probably forbidden. All he had were guesses, though, as far as the inside of this place was concerned. His father had never spoken about it when he was alive.
Lorn took a hesitant step forward. No echo came, which was strange, for the sealed part of the Hall was some thirty yards on a side. As he moved, he felt the power rising in him—and understood perfectly why the rulers of Arlen performed the Royal Magics here by preference. There was nowhere else where their royalty was so strong: this was the heart of it, this place founded on Héalhra’s own power. The sensitivities that had been building in Freelorn all the way across Arlen, and getting stronger as he came closer to Prydon, were at their strongest here. In fact they almost blotted out the inner powersense. You would have to have been out in the country for a while to still be able to feel it, Lorn thought—and then realized that he had not been fostered out to the middle of nowhere just for the fulfilment of social conventions.
But strength would not be the whole story of this place. This was also where the Lion’s children were at their most vulnerable. Many of them had died here…
“Your father is dead,” someone said.
He whirled, for the voice was Herewiss’s. But the door was shut. All the same—”Dusty?” he whispered.
“He just fell over sideways in the Throne, they said,” the voice said. How many years ago, now?—for it sounded raw and frightened, a much younger Herewiss. And at the same time, very sorry for Freelorn. “I didn’t linger… there might have been trouble for me if I did. They know who I am.” A pause. “What are we going to do?”
On one side, the “we” was completely understandable. They were each the other’s loved. But on the other—
The warm presence was beside him, the shoulder touching his: he could feel the look of the eyes dwelling on him, concerned, gentle, even though there was no light. The presence waited.
“I don’t think I’d better go back just now,” Freelorn said, as he had said it then.
“Well,” Herewiss’s voice said, “I guess here’s what we do, then…. ” There was no guessing about it. He had plainly seen this coming for a long time, had had his plans ready.
His plans.
How did he know what was going to happen?
How did he know how I was going to react?
Is it just me… or does he sound pleased?
About that last, there was no telling for sure… it was all too long ago. Herewiss spoke on, getting warmer and solider beside him all the time: the hand found his, grasped it in reassurance. Freelorn thought, He might have tried to talk me out of not coming back to Arlen after Father died. Certainly later on, when he lost control—how rarely!—he rated me for not standing up for myself. But what would have happened if I had?…
“—and then we’ll get you back into Arlen somehow. We need Darthen on your side first, though: Cillmod wouldn’t dare—”
He held the hand that held his, and was astonished by how his own shook, and how t
ightly it held Herewiss’s. It was not affection in the fierceness of the grip, but anger. Why does he automatically assume that he knows best? More, why don’t I disabuse him of the idea? The problem was that just about all of Herewiss’s ideas had been good. Freelorn had not been blind to how he was letting himself be managed: for lack of better ideas on his own part, he had thought. And as a result, there had always been in the back of his mind a sort of realization that Herewiss was, for him, the One With Whom Hands Are Joined, and would be when Freelorn finally made his way into Lionhall—the focus and catalyst of this particular conflict. But the conflict between the Two, at least, was meant to have no winner. Lorn had not realized his own anger, had not realized that after seven years of being led around, he meant to beat Herewiss down once and for all in that conflict, run things himself from now on, be truly King and Lord: the master, in his strength, and not the pitied client.
And on top of it all came the resentment at being “run”, at being pushed through one’s own reluctance and fear: even though the other was doing the right thing, the thing you wanted, even asked him to do. The feeling of aggrievement, anger, resentment, grew and flowered as it had had no leisure to for a long time. It was supposed to happen at my own speed. Not frightened all the time, running everywhere, Herewiss running everything—
But had it happened at my own speed, it would probably never have happened at all. Freelorn could clearly feel something bearing down on his mind, and not with kindly intent: it made these old familiar feelings rise to the surface more easily than they had for months. Suspecting what dark Source it came from, he resisted that pressure, though the path down into the old “grievances” was easy. I’ve been afraid of what he’s been becoming for a long time. I would never have done anything on my own.
Yes—and what is he becoming? Suddenly Freelorn found himself seeing clearly what would happen when Herewiss found out what the Goddess really intended for the first man with the Fire. A long goodbye, like the long hellos: but inexorable. You know how he gets when his mind is set on something. And after that, nothing for Freelorn but the long days of rule—oh yes, work, a lot of it. But no joy. And nothing but empty nights at the end of those days: the arms that held you gone forever— All that comes when you achieve the kingship at last. Surely, if you loved him, wanted him, it would be safer to simply sabotage the whole business, make sure it never happens—thus making certain that that final, horrible testing point, where he renounces you and goes off about the Goddess’s business, is never reached. Better to fail than to succeed and see the whole purpose of one’s life go riding away after a work that will never be ended—