The Door Into Fire

by Diane Duane

  Beside Herewiss, Freelorn moved softly, as if afraid to break a dream. “What is it?” he whispered. “Is it real?”

  “Somewhere it is.”

  “Is it really what it looks like, a city? How did they build it? Or did it grow? And is that all glass? How did they make it that way—?”

  Herewiss shook his head, and out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Segnbora moving slowly and silently toward the door, like one entranced. He reached out and caught her by the arm, and she pulled at him, wanting to be let go.

  “No,” he said. “Segnbora—look at the view. The door opens out onto somewhere very high. There may be ground under it, but there may not be. You could step out onto nothing. And it would be a short flight for someone who doesn’t have wings.”

  She stared out the doorway with longing, the colors of the softening sunset catching in her eyes. “It might be worth it,” she said.

  “Come on—”

  The next doorway was dark, but not as the one Herewiss had seen. In the endless depths of its darkness, stars were suspended. Not the remote cold stars of night in the desert, but great flaming swarms of them, hot and beautiful, cast carelessly across the boundless black reaches of eternity. And close, so close you could surely put your hand out and pluck one like an apple. They spun outward from a blazing common core, burning like the sudden fiery realization of joy—

  Freelorn took a step toward the doorway. “This is the real Door,” he said, very softly, “the last Door—”

  Alarm stirred in Herewiss, drowning his appreciation of the beauty in sudden concern for Freelorn. “Not the Door into Starlight, no,” he said. “You can’t see that until you’re dead, Lorn, or have the Flame—and you’re in neither condition.”

  “But my father—”

  “That’s not where he is.” Herewiss took Freelorn by his shoulders, as much from compassion as from fear that he might cast himself through. “Your father is past that other Door—down by that Sea of which the Starlight is a faint intimation. They’re lovely, but these are just stars. Not the final Sea.”

  Freelorn turned away, but Herewiss was troubled: there had been no feeling of release, of giving up the vision, no feeling of Freelorn accepting what was. “Lorn—”

  “Let me be.” Freelorn walked away from him, walked down the stairs, oblivious to the wondering comments of his people as they peered through one door or another.

  Herewiss stared after him, worrying. He was distracted after a moment by a touch on his arm; Segnbora looked up at him. There was concern in her eyes. “Are we staying the night?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  She turned to look through the starry door, and sighed. “That’s been much on his mind lately,” she said.

  “It’s always on his mind,” Herewiss said sadly. “As you’ll find when you’ve known him as long as I have.”

  Segnbora nodded and went off to look through another door.

  Damn, Herewiss thought, there’s going to be crying tonight…

  •

  That night they camped in the great hall around the firepit. There was no need to gather firewood, for Sunspark decided to inhabit the deep-set hearth, and burned there the night long. Freelorn and his people made much of it, and Sunspark flamed in unlikely shapes and colors for quite a while, showing off. But Herewiss was vaguely uneasy about something, and found himself bothered by the occasional perception of bright eyes in the fire, watching him with an odd considering look.

  They ate hugely that night, and went to sleep early. Dritt and Harald went off to investigate one of another of the doors before they slept. After being gone for not more than a few minutes Dritt came down the stairs again, looking slightly dazed.

  Freelorn and Herewiss were sitting with their backs to the firepit, working at a skin of Brightwood that Freelorn had liberated from the Ferry Tavern; the lovers’-cup was halfway through its fifth refill, and both of them looked up at Dritt with slightly addled concern as he went by.

  “It was me,” he said. “May I?” He gestured at the cup.

  “Sure,” Freelorn said.

  Dritt reached down and took a long, long drink. “This morning,” he said, “that was me, just now. I went upstairs, and it was daytime in one of the doors, and there were people coming—the first people that any door showed—and I got excited and walked through it to have a look.”

  “What was it like,” Herewiss said, “going through?”

  “Like nothing. Like going through a door.” Dritt put the cup down. “Thanks. So I waited there for a while— and of course, it was us. Of course. It shook me at the time, and I stepped back, and then I couldn’t see me any more—”

  “Which of you couldn’t see you?”

  “Hell,” Dritt said, bemused, “I’m not feeling terribly picky about the details right now. I’m going to bed.”

  “G’night.”

  “Yeah, good night…”

  Dritt wandered away toward Moris’s bedroll, and Herewiss picked up the cup and finished it. “How much more of this is there?” he said.

  “There’s another skin.”

  “Lorn, you amaze me. What else did you take out of there that wasn’t nailed down?”

  “No, no, I was a good boy. Only took the wine. I knew you’d like it, and I don’t think the lady minded.”

  “No,” Herewiss said. He chuckled then. “Lorn, this has been some month for me…”

  “How?”

  “Just the strange things happening—and then seeing you again. It’s good to have you close.” He put an arm around Lorn, hugged him tight.

  “Yeah, it’s good to be with you too…. Listen, what are you going to do now?”

  “Stay here.”

  Freelorn was quiet for a long moment.

  “Lorn, I have to. I need this place. You saw the doors, you know what they can do. I have to try to find one that’ll do what I want it to.” Herewiss put out his hand to the lovers’-cup and played with it, turning it around and around. Please, he was thinking. Please, Lorn, don’t start this—not now—

  “I wish you wouldn’t stay,” Freelorn said.

  Herewiss didn’t answer.

  “If you cared,” Freelorn said. “If you did care, about how I feel, the way you say you do, you wouldn’t worry me by staying here. This place isn’t natural—”

  “Neither am I, Lorn.” Damn, I know that phrasing. We’re both going to wind up in tears. And afterwards he’ll get what he wants out of me he wants to, just like he always does—

  “But you’ll be all alone here—”

  “Sunspark will be here. You saw what it did to the outer wall. I don’t have much to be afraid of with a watchdog like that.”

  “Herewiss. Listen to me.” Freelorn looked at him, earnestly, his face full of pain and hard-held restraint and the need to make Herewiss understand. Herewiss’s insides went wrench at the sound of the pain and fear in Freelorn’s voice. “This place—there’s too much power here for other forces not to have taken notice of it. What is it you told me once, that as soon as you came into your Power, or started to, that would be the time to watch out, because new Powers are always noticed? And as soon as they come into being, the old Powers come to challenge them, to test them and see where they fit into the overall pattern?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “—and here’s this place, there must be incredible power bottled up in it to make it do the things it does. And you’ll sit here, merrily forging swords, and getting stronger and stronger, and Sunspark staying with you, a Power in its own right certainly—you think you won’t attract notice? Doors open both ways, you know. Things can come in those doors as well as go out. If you needed proof, Dritt just gave it to you. Suppose something comes in while your back is turned?”

  “Lorn—” Listen to him fighting for control. Oh, Goddess, how can I refuse him? I don’t want to hurt him but I have to stay here—

  “—listen, you could stay here a few days, a week, two maybe; we�
�d stay with you. And then you could come with us when we raid the Treasury at Osta, and get the money we need to hire mercenaries— ”

  “Lorn, the more I think about it, the more I feel that the whole Osta idea is a bad one. And I really don’t think mercenaries are going to be the right way to handle this. If at all possible, I’d prefer to avoid shedding blood.”

  “You’re awfully careful with other people’s blood,” Freelorn said, a touch of anger beginning to creep into his voice now. “And not enough with your own. But maybe that’s it. Have you decided down deep that since Herelaf died by your sword, you should too? Something out of Goddess-knows-where should come up on you while you’re busy working on the one sword that will redeem you, and kill you then? Atonement? Blood shed for blood shed? There is a certain poetic justice to it—”

  “Lorn, stop it.” He’s goading me on purpose, now. He must be so very afraid. But I never thought he would hurt me like this— Is he so afraid that he can’t give in a little, let me have my own way? The danger isn’t that great—

  “If you die under conditions like that,” Freelorn said, his anger growing, “your death will mean nothing. Herelaf would shake his head at you, and he’d say, ‘Dad was right, your head is made of wood, just like everything else in this place—’”

  I won’t yell at him. I won’t. He’s my loved— “Lorn, I never thought that you—”

  “—but you’re determined to die before you forge that sword and reach your Power, because success would mean giving up your guilt—and you haven’t really worked on anything else since Herelaf died. It’s sharper than any sword, by now. You stick it into yourself every chance you get, and bleed a little more of your life and your power away, so that every time there’s a little less of you left to pursue the search, a little less chance that you’ll succeed. Now, though, you’re getting close to success, and so you have to risk your life even more wildly by messing with places like this alone—”

  “Lorn, shut up! Who brought me this journey, anyway? I would likely never have heard about this place if I hadn’t been coming to get you out of that damn keep. And as for nursing guilts, how about you? Maybe it is easier to make love than to make kings, but it’s also easier to talk about being a king than it is to be one! You’ve never forgiven yourself for being out of the country when your father died, instead of by his side to do the whole heroic last-stand thing that you always wanted; and you were too damn guilty about it to go back and try to take his throne, because you didn’t think you deserved it! Idiot! Or coward! Which? You could have gone back and tried to make a stand, tried to take the Stave. Maybe you would have died! But is this life? Living in exile, mooching off poor Bort until he died? At least you had the sense to get out of Darthen until Eftgan’s reign was settled, and she remembers the favor; she likes you as much as Bort did, it seems. Lucky for you—otherwise it’d have been all over with you by now. Lately you couldn’t lie your way out of an open field—”

  “Dammit, Herewiss—!”

  He almost never calls me by name. Sweet Goddess, he’s mad. But so am I— “Shut up, Lorn! And don’t come mouthing to me about deathguilt, because yours has nothing on mine, and even if it did, it’s fairly obvious that you wouldn’t be handling it any better. At least I’m trying to deal with mine—”

  Freelorn’s mouth worked, and nothing came out. Herewiss stopped, his satisfaction at Freelorn’s anger suddenly draining out of him. This is a thing I never knew about us, he thought in shock. We resent each other. My Goddess. Can love and resentment like this live in the same person at the same time and not kill each other?

  “What are you going to do?” Freelorn said, his voice tight.

  “I’m going to stay here.” Herewiss made his voice noncommittal, unemotional. He was trembling.

  “Then I’m going to Osta. And I’ll see you when I see you. Good night.” Freelorn got up and went to the corner where his bedroll was laid out; he wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down with his face to the wall and his back to Herewiss.

  Oh, Dark, Herewiss thought, we’ve had fights before… But he couldn’t stop shaking, and something inside him told him that this had been no normal fight. “Died by your sword,” Freelorn’s voice said, again and again, echoing like the cold howls of the Shadow’s Hunting through midwinter skies. He never said anything like that to me before. Never—

  He sat there a long time, unmoving, staring at Freelorn’s turned back, or at the lovers’-cup, half-full of wine, sitting on the floor beside him. Sunspark burned low at his back, watching in silence.

  (Spark—) he said.

  (Do you do that often?) it said very softly.

  (Uh—no. Not really.)

  (It is a considerable discharge of energies.)

  (It, ah, it is that.)

  (Such random discharges,) the elemental said, (usually preclude the possibility of union—)

  (Yes,) Herewiss said. (They do.)

  (He is—no longer your mate?)

  The elemental’s thought made it plain that such an occurrence was quite nearly the end of the world; and Herewiss, beginning to sink downward into his pain, was inclined to agree. (I don’t know,) he said. (Oh, I don’t—No, I really don’t know…)

  He got up, went over to where Freelorn lay, reached down and touched him. “Lorn—”

  Nothing. He might as well have touched the gray stone of the hold and asked it for an answer.

  He lay down, wrapping himself up in his cloak too and stretching out beside Freelorn. But he did not need his underhearing to perceive the wall of hostility that lay between them like a sword thrown in the middle of the bedroll. There was a stranger on the other side of the wall, a stranger who wanted fiercely to be left alone, who would strike out if bothered—

  It was like trying to lie still on hot coals. Herewiss got up and went away, back to the firepit. He sat on the edge of it and stared into the shifting flames. Bright eyes looked out at him.

  (He doesn’t want to talk to me. Maybe he will in the morning. Sleep heals a great many ills, including unfinished quarrels, sometimes—)

  (I would not know. I don’t sleep.)

  (Tonight, I doubt if I will, either.) Herewiss sighed. (I’m going outside for a bit, Spark.)

  It flickered acquiescence at him and cuddled down into the pit, pulling a sheet of fire over itself.

  Herewiss paused, looking over his shoulder at Freelorn. His loved lay still unmoving, but Herewiss could feel the space around him prickling with anger and frustration.

  Oh, Dark, he told himself. Let be. You know how Lorn is. He does a two-day sulk and then everything’s all right again.

  But we’ve never fought like this—

  He walked to the front doorway of the hold and looked out. The gray walls of the courtyard were walls of shadow now, hardly to be seen at all except where their tops occluded the sky. Herewiss leaned against the doorsill, sighed again, folded his arms and gazed up at the stars. His brain was jangling like windchimes in a storm of fears and fragmented thoughts; it took him a long few moments to calm down and greet the blazing desert stars, the Mother’s sky, as it deserved to be greeted. It took him a few minutes more to realize that the constellations with which he was familiar were nowhere to be seen.

  Uhh—wait a moment—!

  Very quietly, so as not to disturb Lorn or anyone else who might have been trying to sleep, Herewiss stepped across the courtyard, past the dozing horses, to the doorway which Sunspark had opened. As he passed through it, the sound of the solano, the relentless spring wind of the Waste, reasserted itself; somewhere to his left he heard the squeaks and chirrups of a colony of bounce-mice going about their nightly business. He looked up at the cold-burning sky. Dragon, Spearman, Maiden, Crown, all the constellations of spring shone unperturbed high in the clear air.

  How about that, Herewiss thought. He went back into the courtyard, and looked up. Within the walls, the sky glittered again with alien stars, strange eyes looking down on him from a nameless nigh
t.

  This is definitely where I need to be, he thought as he headed back toward the hall. He sighed again. Part of him was indulging itself in a delicious shivering excitement at the prospect of where he was. The rest of him was weighed down with the aching feeling of the angry, untouchable presence on the other side of the bedroll.

  He slowed down. I don’t really want to go back in there—

  —oh, Goddess, yes, I do—

  —but—

  He stopped still in his indecision, and as he listened to the odd silence that prevailed within the walls, he heard something more. Someone was outside, playing a lute. The individual notes stitched through the quiet like needles through dark velvet, bright, precise; but the pattern they were embroidering was random. There was a pause as Herewiss listened; and then a chord strung itself in silvery lines across the still air, and another after it, gently mournful, though in a major key. When a voice joined the chords, singing in a light contralto, Herewiss was able to localize the sounds better. Whoever it was was somewhere to the left, around the corner of the building.

  The tone of the singing, though he could not make out words, had touched Herewiss at the heart of his mood—night-ridden, melancholy. He went quietly over to the corner of the hall, leaned against the warm gray stone, peered around. Segnbora was there; sitting on the smooth paving with her back against the wall, her cloak folded behind her to lean on, a wineskin by her side. Her head was tilted back against the stone, relaxed, and the lute rested easily on her lap. If she noticed Herewiss, she gave no sign of it, but kept on serenading night and stars like a lover beneath some dark window.