The Door Into Fire

1

Herewiss sat cross-legged on the parquet floor, his back braced against the wall, his eyes closed, and concentrated.

Part of the problem was that he couldn't stop thinking of the thing resting across his upturned hands as a sword; a noisy feeling of weaponness trickled through him from it. It knew that it was a sword — that was the problem. It was good Darthene steel, folded on itself in its forging the required sixty times, and sealed with the Mastersmith's hallmark down on the rough tang of the metal. It knew that it was destined to be a killing weapon, an elegant, finely polished thing, soft of back, hard of edge, with the Mastersmith's distinctive forging-pattern embedded like waves in water within its silver blade. It knew what it was for — woundings and death, the abrupt soft parting of flesh beneath its stroke, the sudden crunch into cloven bone. The taste of pain, like wine. It lay there across his hands, and waited to be presented with slayings as a banqueter waits eagerly for the first course.

No, dammit, Herewiss said to himself, and pulled away from the perception. Sometimes I wish I weren't so sensitive. How the Dark can something dead know so well what it's for?— This is ridiculous. I should be able to impose my will on a piece of steel, for Goddess's sake. Maybe this way . . .

He took a moment to clear his mind out, and then concentrated on seeing the thing in his hands, not as a sword, but as a great number of particles of metal that just toward the dancing sparks of steel, into them, through them, and out again, and back in — winding the soul-stuff through the structure, beckoning it in and around, luring in onward with promises of Power about to be achieved. The Flame followed after, hopeful. Herewiss tangled the bit of himself like a bright cord, weaving it through itself again and again, drawing it finer and finer, silver wire thinning out to silver web, and always followed by that faint blue flow of Fire. Finally the steeldust glitter could hardly be seen at all for the sorcerer's weave stranded through it.

Herewiss stood back a little, then cut the web's attachment to him with one sharp word.

It hurt. He had expected it to, but he had no time now to deal with the ache. The entangled soul would start undoing itself almost immediately if he didn't bind it. He spoke in his mind the word that would activate the binding sorcery, and it heard him and responded on the instant, the hard dark links of restrainment drawing in close around the shining bar, snicking in cold and tight like a sudden scabbard, prisoning the soul-stuff within.

He stepped back to make sure that the sorcery would hold without his immediate supervision. It did. He poked at it once, experimentally; it resisted him.

Satisfied, he broke trance and opened his eyes.

He had to blink for a few moments; his eyes watered with the seeming brightness of the tower room. It was full of smith's furnishings: the middle of the room was taken up by the forge, a wide brick pit with a downhanging bellows, and there was a pedal- powered grindstone in one corner. Anvils, ingots, and scraps of metal were everywhere. A number of blanks of the Darthene steel were leaned up in a row against one wall, like so many barrel- staves.

The fire in the forge was out, and the tools were racked up on the walls. Halwerd, his son, was also sitting on the floor, over against the other paneled wall beside the window; he had taken off his apron, and was doing an elaborate cat's cradle with a piece of string. Herewiss never tired of the joys of having a smaller version of himself around, and spent a few minutes just watching the child. Halwerd sat there in his greasy green tunic, all dark curly hair and fierce concentration. He flipped his hands, and the cat's cradle turned suddenly into a mess. 'Dark!' he said.

'You're too young to be swearing,' Herewiss said with affection.

'I'm nine,' Halwerd said, as if that should have been enough. 'Did it work?'

'Yes.'

'It doesn't look any different.' The boy gazed across the room, and Herewiss looked down at the piece of metal he held.

'No, it doesn't. Well, we'll see if it holds up tonight. It's Full Moon; this is a good day for it. Though I could wait for the Maiden's Day Moon. What do you think?'

Halwerd considered gravely. 'Do it tonight.'

'All right.'

Herewiss got up, wobbling a little from the backlash of the sorcery. 'Oh my,' he said. 'I must be getting better at this, the backlash is hitting me faster than it used to.'

'How many swords is this now?' Halwerd asked, starting the cat's cradle over again.

'Twenty-three. No, twenty-four. Cheer up, Hal, maybe this'll be the last one.' Herewiss tossed the sword blank clanging on to the worktable and looked around him as he stretched. He was a tall, slender man, lean and lithe and dark-haired, with a finely featured face and a mouth that smiled a great deal. His arms and shoulders were slightly overmuscled from much work at the forge; but the effect was not unpleasant. At first glance he gave an impression of spare, restrained power, the taut strength of youth. But his deep blue eyes were beginning to look weary, and his face was gradually acquiring frown lines. 'Be nice to turn this back into a bedroom,' he said, 'and get all this mess out of here, Dark eat it—'

'Grampa would say,' Halwerd said, '"you're not a good example. Watch your mouth."'

'So he would. Listen, Hal—'

A pigeon landed on the windowsill with a clapping of wings. It strutted there, fluffing its gray-and-white feathers and looking confused. Herewiss looked at it, momentarily startled, and then unease began to trickle coldly down his back. It was one of the homing pigeons that he had given Freelorn for use in emergencies.

'Hold still, Hal.' He walked smoothly around the forge to the window. In one quick motion he grabbed the pigeon before it had a chance to shy away. Stripping off the steel message-case, he threw the bird out the window, and fumbled at the little capsule with suddenly sweaty hands.

The stiff hinge cracked open, and the expected roll of parchment fell out on the floor. Herewiss picked it up, unrolling it, and the throbbing in his head quickened pace. The message said:

'"High Lord of all Lords of Arlen", my—! You know, I am a bad example, Hal. Listen, did you see where your grandfather was?'

'He was down in the writing room a while ago,' Halwerd said. 'What happened?'

'Your Uncle Freelorn may be back for a visit in a month or so,' Herewiss said, heading for the door, 'but I have to go and get him first. Forget it, Hal, go get yourself some nunch.'

'All right.'

Herewiss loped down the long paneled stairway that curled around the inner wall of the tower, and hit the bottom of the stairs running. He went down the south corridor at full speed, ignoring the surprised looks of household people and relatives, and ducked into the sixth room to his left. It was a bright place and warm, full of rich carving work, typical of the Woodward. The fireplace was framed in the wings of carven sphinxes, and two-bodied dogs guarded the corners where the moldings met. Over one closet was carven in slightly frantic figures the history of the sixteenth Lord of the Brightwood, who had married a mermaid. The sunlight gleamed from the woodwork, and from the great brassbound table which stood on eagle-claw feet in the middle of the room; but its surface was bare, and no-one had been working there for some time.

I hope he didn't go out, Herewiss thought. Damn! He ran out of the room again, turned left and headed to the end of the south corridor. A stair led down from it to the central hall of the Woodward, where the Rooftree grew. He had no patience for the stairs, but hopped up on to the central banister, which had been polished smooth first by its craftsmen and then by the backsides of generations of the children of the Ward. At the bottom of the stairs he took a bare moment to nod courtesy to the Tree before he loped off across the tapestried hall, and out into the sunlight of the outer courtyard.

His father was there, kneeling in a newly dug flowerbed and setting in seedlings. Hearn Halmer's son was an average-looking man, a little on the lean side, dark-haired except for the places where he was going gray on the sides. He had the usual lazy, sleepy expression of the males of the Brightwood ruling line, the usual blue eyes, and the large hands that could be so very delicate. Those hands had been mighty in war, so that Hearn had come through two battles with the Reavers and one border skirmish with only a cut or two. This had prompted some to suggest that he had pacted with the Shadow, and had brought his relieved family to refer to him as 'Old Ironass'. Now, though, he no longer rode to the wars, and it was often hard for visitors to the Woodward to reconcile the conquering Lord of the Brightwood with the quiet, gentle man who could usually be found training ivy up the Ward's outer wall.

'Father,' Herewiss yelled, 'he's doing it again!'

Hearn sat back on his heels in the loose dirt, brushing off his hands, and looked over at his son.

'Who?'

'Here,' said Herewiss, coming up and holding out the parchment, 'read it!'

'My hands are dirty,' Hearn said as Herewiss knelt down beside him. 'Hold it for me.'

'Dirty? It hardly matters if it gets dirty—' But Herewiss held it out. His father rested hands quietly on his knees and read it through. After a moment he snorted. 'As't'raid Arleni, my ass!'

That's what I said.'

'Not in front of Hal, I hope.'

'Father, please.' 'So,' Hearn said, 'you're surprised?"

Herewiss laughed, a short rueful sound. 'No, not really.'

'And so you're going riding off to get him out of whatever he's gotten himself into.'

'May I?'

'You're asking me?' 'You're the Lord.'

Hearn chuckled and took a seedling out of the cup of water beside him. Herewiss noted with amusement that it was one of the ceremonial cups for Opening Night, the rubies flaring in the sunlight and making bright dots of reflection in the mud. 'Could I stop you? Could the Queen of Darthen stop you? Could our Father the Eagle stop you if He showed up? Go on. But when you see the idiot, tell him from me that he'd better not sign himself as King of Arlen unless he's willing to do something about it.'

'I had that in mind.'

'You'd never say it, though, you're too damn kind. You tell him 7 said it. Will you be needing men?'

'I'm sorcerer enough to handle this myself, I think. And the less people involved, the better. If Cillmod hears that Brightwood people were involved, it could be excuse enough for him to break the Oath again and move in on Darthen.'

Hearn planted the seed. 'There speaks my wise son,' he said.

'And besides — I don't want any Wood people getting killed because of this. And neither do you — but you'd never say it — because you're too damn kind.'

Hearn laughed softly. 'My wise son. But don't let it stop you from bringing him back here if he needs a place to stay. No-one will hear about it from us.'

Herewiss nodded and stood up.

'Take what you need,' Hearn said. 'Take Dapple, if you think he'd help. And Herewiss—'

Hearn turned back to his work, his strong hands moving the soil. 'Be careful. I'm short of sons.'

Herewiss stood there looking at his father's back for a moment, and then turned and headed back into the Woodward to start preparing for a journey.

The Brightwood is the oldest and most honored of the principalities of Darthen. It was the first of the new settlements established after the Worldwinning, by people who came down out of the eastern Highpeaks and found the quiet woodlands to their liking after their long travels. It took them many years to free the Wood and its environs from the Fyrd that infested it, but while many other peoples were still living in caves in the mountains, the Brightwood people were already building the Woodward in the great clearing at its center.

Though the Woodward is held by outsiders to be at the Wood's heart, the Brightwood people know that its real heart — or hearts, for there are several — lie elsewhere: the Silent Precincts, secret, holy places where few people not born in the Wood or trained to the usages of the Power have ever walked. There, upon the Forest Altars hidden within the Precincts, the Goddess was first worshipped again as She used to be before the Catastrophe — invoked in Her three forms as Maiden and Mother and Wise Woman. There too Her Lovers are worshipped, those parts of Herself which rise and fall in Her favor, eternally replacing one another as Her consorts. Even the Lovers' Shadow is worshipped there, though with cautious and propitiatory rites enacted at the dark of the Moon. Other places of the worship of the Pentad there may be, but there are none older or more revered except the Morrowfane, which is the Heart of the World and so takes precedence.

Night with its stars spread over the Wood, and the pure silver moonlight made vague and doubtful patterns on the grass as it shone through the branches. Spring was well underway; the night was full of the smell of growing things, and the chill wind laced itself through the new leaves with a hissing sound.

In the center of the little clearing, before the slab of moon white marble set into the ground, Herewiss knelt and shivered a little. The indefinite blackwork filigree of moonshine and shadow shifted and blurred on his bare body and gleamed dully from the sword he held before him. It was beaten flatter than it had been that morning, and had some pretense of an edge on it; but it was not finished yet. Herewiss had learned better than to waste time putting hilts and finishing on these swords before he tried them with this final testing.

The dappled horse tethered at the edge of the clearing stamped and snorted softly, indignant over having to be up at this ridiculous hour. But right now Herewiss had no sympathy for it, and he shut the sound out of his mind as he prayed desperately. It had to work. It had to. He had done a good day's spelling, a good piece of work, though he had paid dear for it, both in backlash and in the pain cutting away part of his self had cost him. But it might work. No, it had to. This was the Great Altar, the Altar of the Flame, the one most amenable to what he was doing, the one with the most bound-up power. And this sword felt better than any of the others he had tried; more alive. Maybe he had managed to fool the steel into thinking it lived. And if he had fooled it, then it would conduct the Power. His focus, his focus at last—

O Three, he said within himself, for no word may be spoken in those places, Virgin and Mother and Mistress of Power, oh let this be the last time. Goddess, You're never cruel without a reason. You wouldn't give me the seed of Flame and then let it die unused. Let the Power of this place enter into me and stir the spark into Fire. And let that Fire flow down through this my sword as it would through a Rod, were I a woman. Oh, please, my Goddess, my Mother, my Bride, please. Let it work. In Your name, Who are our beginnings and our endings—

He bowed his head, and then looked up again, shuddering with cold and anxiety, and also with weakness left over from that morning's sorcery. If only it would work. It would be marvelous to go riding off to Freelorn's rescue with a sword ablaze with the blue Fire. To strike the whole besieging army stiff and helpless with the Flame, and break the walls of the keep in the fulness of his Power, and bring Freelorn out of there. To strike terror into the army just by being what he was — the first man to bear Flame since the days of Lion and Eagle! And the look in Freelorn's eyes. It would be so—

Herewiss sighed. I never learn, do I. Let's see what happens.

Delicately, carefully, he set the sword's point on the white stone of the altar, and took hold of the rough hilt with both hands. There was a change — a stirring — something in the air around him moved, waited expectantly; he could catch the feeling ever so faintly in his underhearing, that inner sensitivity that anyone experienced in sorcery develops. The Power of the place was alive, moving around him, surrounding him, watching. His own Power rose up in him, a cold restless burning all through his body, demanding to be let out.

He lifted the sword away from the stone, and held it straight up before him, point upward, watching moonlight and shadow tremble along the length of the blade with the trembling of his hands. And he reached down inside him, where the Flame was running hot now, molten, seething like silver in the crucible, and he channeled it up through his chest and down through his arms and out through his hands—

The sound was terrible, a thunderous silent shout of frustration and screaming anger as the blue Fire, the essence of life, smote against something that had never lived, had never even been fooled into thinking that it lived. A silly idea, Herewiss thought in the terribly attenuated moment between the awful unsound and the sword's destruction. As if plain sorcery could ever mix successfully with the Flame. Stupid idea.

And the sword blew apart. Fragments and flying splinters shot up and out with frightening force, gleamed sporadically as they flew through light and shadow, ripping leaves off branches, burying themselves in the grass. One of them struck itself into Herewiss's upper arm, and another into his leg just above the knee, though not too deeply. A third went by his ear like the whisper of death. He held in his cry of terror, remembering where he was, and dropped the shattered sword hilt in the grass.

He plucked the metal fragment out of his arm and threw it into the grass, grimacing. For a long while Herewiss knelt there, bent over, hugging himself as much against the bitter disappointment as against the cold. I was so sure-it would work this time. So sure .

Finally he regained some of his composure, and finished picking the splinters out of himself, and turned to make farewell obeisance to the Altar. It seemed to crouch there against the ground, cold white stone, ignoring him. He forgot about the obeisance. He went straight over to Dapple and got dressed, and rode away from there.

It was several minutes before he passed the marker that indicated the end of the Silent Precincts. Just the other side of it he paused, looking up through the leaves at the starlit sky. 'Dammit,' he yelled at the top of his lungs, 'what am I doing wrong? Why won't You tell me? What am I doing wrong?'

The stars looked down at him, cold-eyed and uncaring, and the wind laughed at him.

He kicked Dapple harder than necessary, and rode out of the Wood to Freelorn's rescue.