by Диана Дуэйн
At the Skybridge's end, between the two huge crystal doors that lay open there, a tiny figure passed into the dimness beyond and was lost to sight.
The group ahead of her slowed and came to a stop at the end of the bridge, gazing up at the chill clear grace of towers and keeps, at the awful tallness and thickness of the doors. Segnbora caught up with them, feeling their nervousness. Sai Ebassren, the place was called in Darthene: the House of No Return. What lay within, no legend told. The only certainty
was that when the three Lights were gone, the place would vanish, and anyone trapped within would never emerge.
Herewiss did not pause for long. Sending a great defiant glory of the Flame down Khavrinen's length, he walked through the doors. The twilight within swallowed him as it had Freelorn. For an instant Khavrinen flickered like a star seen through fog, and then its light vanished. Sunspark hesitated at the doors, though only for a moment. It was trembling in body, a sight that astounded Segnbora. "Firechild—"
(I'm bound,) it said in terror. (I can't burn. I can't change—)
She reached out to it in mind, perplexed, and felt Sunspark drowning in a cold more deadly than the lost gulfs between stars that Hasai had mentioned; a cold that could kill thought and motion and change of any kind. Hasai had been shielding her. (Maybe you should stay outside,) she said.
It turned hard eyes on her. (I will not let him come to harm in there,) it said, and turned away from her to walk shaking through the doors. The dimness folded around its burning inane and tail, and Sunspark vanished.
"That's done it," Lang said, genial and terrified. "Damned if I'll be outdone by a walking campfire—" He unsheathed his sword and went after, Torve close after him.
There Segnbora stood, left alone on the threshold, trem-bling nearly as hard as Sunspark had. No return.
She swore at herself and hurried in behind the others.
She was in a great hall, all walled in sheer unfigured crystal, through which Adine and the peaks beyond it showed clear. The air was thick with a blue dusk, like smoke. She barely had time to see these things, though, before the terrible thought-numbing cold she had experienced through Sunspark came crowding in close around her, ten times worse than it had been outside.
From within her came an answering flare, Hasai and the mdeihei calling up old memories of warmth and daylight to fight the cold. She regained a bit of composure, looked
around for the others. They were nowhere in sight. Deep in the twilight she could see vague forms moving far away, but somehow she knew that none of them were those with whom she had entered. Her companions were all lost in the blue-ness, with Freelorn.
(Herewiss!) she called silently. (Sunspark!) But no reply came back, and her under speech fell into a mental silence as thick as if she had shouted into a heavily curtained room. Thought was blocked here, then.
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"Herewiss!" she shouted aloud. The curling twilight soaked up the sound of her voice like a heavy fog. She set off into the blueness, hurrying.
For all her fearfulness, the sheer greatness of the wreaking that had made this place astonished her. Even at first entrance the place had seemed as big as Earneselle or the Queens' Hall in Prydon. But now, as she walked across the vast glassy floor, the walls grew remote and the ceiling seemed to become a firmament that not even a soaring Dragon could reach. Mir-rored in walls, galleries, and crystalline arches, she saw vague intimations of other rooms: up-reaching towers and balco-nies, parlors and courts, an infinity of glass reflected dimly in glass, too huge to ever search or know completely.
That terrible chill was part of the wreaking too, though here inside the castle it seemed not to be biting so viciously at the bones. It was becoming a quality of the mind: a cool lassitude, a twilight that ran in the veins and curled shadowy in the heart, smothering fear and veiling the desire to be out of there. She could feel that cold rising in her, but the presence of the mdeihei was a match for it. Ancient sunfire burned the twilight out of her blood as fast as it grew. Dragonfire, painful and bright at the bottom of her lungs, burned the sad resigna-tion away. Frightened by the constant assault, but reassured by the Dragon's presence, Segnbora headed deeper into the shadowy blue. The dead and those who had abandoned life slowly became evident around her. There' were many, but none of them were walking together. Young men and old women she passed; foreigners and countrymen, maidens and lords. Here and there she recognized a surcoat— device, but afterward she was
time to impending tears. This woman had been one of the great powers of her time: vital, powerful, quick to laugh or fight or love. She was the woman who had fought Death and won. Yet now she was like all the others here, her spirit emp-tied out on the crystal floor. "Queen," Segnbora said at last, "I'm no dream, unless I stay here too long. Have you seen a man go by here, one of the living? He was wearing the arms of Arlen."
Efmaer turned slowly, and her eyes dwelt on Segnbora's surcoat and her lioncelle passant regardant in blood and gold. "I know that charge," Efmaer said, showing for the first time a wrinkle of expression, a faint frown of lost memory. "My sister—" "Enra," Segnbora said. "I'm of her line. You are my … my aunt, Queen."
"How many generations removed?" Efmaer said, and for a second the bronze in her voice went bright.
Segnbora could not answer her. "That many,"said the Queen. "She is dust, then. She walks the Shore …"
Efmaer's voice drifted away as she started to lose herself again in the undercurrents of Glasscastle's sorrow. Segnbora gulped. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, something that would mean a great deal to this woman. If only she could remember— "Queen," Segnbora said, "if you haven't seen him, I can't wait. I have to find him."
"I could not find the one I sought, either," Efmaer said in that same half-dreaming voice. "I looked and looked for Sefeden, while the Moon went down and the Evenstar set. We must have passed one another half a hundred times, and never known it. Hear me: The Firework sustaining this place is greater than any mortal wreaking, and the place keeps its own. You will not leave …" "My friends and I will get out," Segnbora said, hoping she was speaking the truth. "Come with us—" Efmaer shook her head. "Only the living can leave this place …" "Are you dead then, Eagle's daughter?" s
For the first time, Efmaer looked straight at Segnbora. Emotion was in those eyes now, but it was an utter hopeless-ness that made Segnbora shudder. "Do I look dead? Would that I were. Not Skadhwe itself could kill me here!" "Skadhwe is here?"
"Somewhere," the Queen said. "Once the doors closed, I lost it, the way I lost everything else. Yet even while the doors were open, it did me no good." She closed her eyes, and with a great effort made another expression: pain. "I fought, but I could not kill myself, and so I am less than dead … "
Pity and horror wrung Segnbora, but she couldn't stay. "Queen, I have to go hunting."
"He will be with her," Efmaer said. "Far in, at the place where your heart breaks. But be out before moonset …" The woman didn't speak or move again. Segnbora paused only long enough to take one of those pale, pliant hands and lift it, kissing the palm in the farewell of kinsfolk of the Forty Houses. Then she turned and hurried away.
Hall after hall opened before her, all alike, huge prisms full of silence and the reflections of empty eyes. Corridor like corridor, gallery like
gallery, and nowhere any face she knew. She ran harder. Through the walls she saw the treacherous Moon hanging exactly where it had
been when she entered. Likewise the sunset appeared about to grow dimmer, but had not changed. Inside Glasscastle there was eternal
sunset, she realized. Without, who knew how much time had passed? The three Lights could be about to vanish, for all she knew.
The thought of the others still unfound, of the awful way back to the main hall, of Efmaer's ghastly placidity, all wound together in her brain
and sang suc
h horror to her that for a few seconds she went literally blind. Trying to turn a corner in that state, she missed her footing and
skidded to her knees. Desperately she tried to rise, but could not. Her leg muscles had cramped.
There Segnbora crouched, gasping, sick with shame and
rage. The awareness of the huge head bowing over her, great
wings stretching upward, was small consolation.
(Sdaha.)
(Yes, I know, just a—) (Sdaha. Here's our lost Lion—)
She pushed herself up on her hands and looked. There was Freelorn, not more than ten or fifteen feet away from her. He was kneeling on the crystal floor, very still, his head bowed. The sight flooded her with intense relief.
"Lorn," she whispered, and scrabbled back to her feet again, ignoring the protests of abused muscles. "Lorn. Thank the—"
— and she saw— " — Goddess.*' Her voice left her throat, taking her breath with it.
Her throne was wrought of crystal, like everything else in the place, but it reflected nothing from its long sheer surfaces. The one enthroned upon it seemed caught at that particular moment when adolescence first turns toward womanhood, and both woman and child live in the eyes. She was clothed in changelessness and invulnerability as with the robe of woven twilight She wore, and Her slender maiden's hands seemed able, if they chose, to sow stars like grain, or pluck the Moon like a silver flowr er. Yet very still those hands lay on the arms of the throne, and Segnbora found herself trembling with fear to see them so idle.
Her quiet, beautiful face lay half in shadow as the Lady's gaze dwelt on Freelorn. For a long while there was no motion but that of Her long braid, the color of night before the stars were made, rising and falling slightly with Her breathing. Then slowly She looked up, and met Segnbora's eyes.
"Little sister," the Maiden said, * 'you're welcome." Segnbora sank to her knees., staggered with awe and love. This was her Lady, the aspect of the Goddess she had always loved best: the Maker, the Builder, the Mistress of Fire, She Who created the worlds and creates them still, Giver of Power and glory. Not even that night in the Ferry' Tavern had she been stricken down like this, with such terror and desire. 'The Maiden gazed at her, and Segnbora had to look down, blinded by the divine splendor.
She gasped for breath and tried to think. It was hard, through the trembling, yet it was the fact that she trembled at all that disturbed her, Even as the Dark.Lady, walking the
night in Her moondark aspect, She did not inspire fear. Something was wrong. Segnbora lifted her head for another look, and was once more heartblinded by Her untempered glory. Segnbora hid her eyes as if from the Sun, and began to tremble in earnest.
Within her Hasai bent his head low, and spread his wings upward in a bow. (She's not as you showed me, within you. Nor is She like the
Immanence. Its experience, too, is always one of infinite power, but the power is tempered—)
(It's—) The words seemed impossible, a wild lie in the face of deity, but she thought them anyway. (It's not Her.)
Segnbora cut herself off. She had a suspicion of what was wrong with this Maiden. She also believed she now knew Who was maintaining the great wreaking that had built the Sky-bridge, and Who was keeping the Glasscastle-trap inviolate. Only an aspect of the Goddess could do such things. . Segnbora got up, anxious to be out of Glasscastle before she discovered whether her suspicion wr as correct — and was very surprised to find herself still kneeling where she was. With a flash of anger she met the Maiden's eyes again. They poured powr er at her, a flood of chill strength, knowledge, potency. The look went straight through Segn-bora like a blade. Once before, long ago, those hands had wrought her soul, those eyes had critically examined the Maker's handiwork. Now they did so again, a look enough to paralyze any mortal creature, as flaws and strengths together were coolly assessed by the One Who put them there. But Segnbora's soul was a little less mortal now than it had been when first created. There were Dragons among the mdei-hm who had had direct experiences of the Immanence on more than one occasion. The judgment of ultimate power didn't frighten them; they were prepared to meet the infinite eye to eye, and judge right, back,
/am what I am, Segnbora thought, reaching back toward the Dragons' strength and staring into those beautiful, daunting eyes.. She would not be judged and found wanting with her work incomplete, her Name still unknown!
Suddenly she was standing, surprised that she could. She expected to be struck with lightning for her temerity, but
nothing happened. Segnbora kept her eyes on the fair, still face, and saw, past the virulent blaze of glory, something she had missed
earlier. The Maiden's eyes had a dazzlement about them, as if She too were blinded.
"My Lady," Segnbora managed to say, "I beg Your pardon, but we have to leave."
"No one comes here," the Maiden said gently, "who wants to leave. I have ordained it so."
The terrible power of Her voice filled the air, making the words true past contradiction. Segnbora shook her head, wincing in pain at the effort of maintaining her purpose against that onslaught of will. "But Freelorn is the Lion's Child," she said. "He has things to do—" "He came here of his own free will," the Maiden said. She moved for the first time, reaching out one of Her empty hands to Freelorn. He leaned nearer with a sigh, and She stroked his hair, gazing down at him. "And now he has his heart's desire. No more flight for the Lion's Child, no more striving after an empty throne and a lost sword. Only peace, and the twilight. He has earned them."
The Maiden half-sang the words as She looked at Freelorn, and Her merciless glory grew more blinding yet. Segnbora shook her head, for something was missing. Whatever lived in those eyes, it wasn't love. And more than Her glory, it was Her love — of creating, and what she created — that Segnbora had worshiped— (Sdaha, be swift!)
(Right—) She reached out to grab Freelorn and pull him away from the Maiden's lulling touch, but as she moved, the Maiden did too — locking eyes with Segnbora, striking her still.
"You also, little sister," She said, "you have earned your peace. Here you shall stay."
"No, oh no," Segnbora whispered, struggling again to find the will to move. But, dark aspect or not, this was the God-dess, Who knew
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Segnbora's heart better than she did.
The Maiden spoke from within that heart now, with Segn-bora's own thoughts, her own voice, as the Goddess often speaks. … I'm tired, my mum and da are dead; there are months,
maybe years of travel and fighting ahead of us — and even if I bring Lorn out of here, he'll probably just be killed. Isn't this better for him than
painful death? And isn't it better for me, toof No death in ice and darkness, just peace for all eternity. Peace in the twilight, with Her. .
The song of the mdeihei seemed very far away. She couldn't hear what Hasai was saying to her, and somehow it didn't matter. The cool of
the surrounding twilight curled into her like rising water. Soon it would rise high enough to drown her life, abolish both pain and desire.
The Maiden was seated no longer. Calm as a moonrise, She stood before Segnbora, reaching out to her. "There's nothing to fear/' She
said. "Nothing fails here, nothing is lost, no hearts break or are broken. I have wrought a place outside of time and ruin—"
The gentle hands touched Segnbora's face. All through her, muscles went lax as her body yielded itself to its Creator. Her mind swelled
with a desire to be still; to forget the world and its concerns and rest in Her touch forever.
"Then it's true," she whispered as if in a dream. "There's no death here …"
"There is no death anywhere," the Maiden said, serene, utterly certain.
The relief that washed through Segnbora was indescriba-ble. The one thing that had been wrong with the world was vanquished at last. Impenmanence, loss, berea
vement. . the Universe was perfect, as it should have been from the begin-ning. There was nothing to fear anymore. .
.. though it was curious that one dim image surfaced, and would not go away. In languid curiosity she regarded it, though her indifference kept her from truly seeing it for a long time, It was a tree, and a dark field, and brightness in the field. Night smells— —smells?
There were smells that had little to do with night. Ground-damp. Mold. Wetness, where her hands turned over dirt, and jerked back in shock. Wetness, and the liqyid gleam of dulled eyes in Flameligtit. And 'the carrion smell of death— In a wash of horror, the dream broke. Segnbora knew who
she was again, and Who held her. The Maiden had made the worlds, true enough, and in the ecstasy of creation had forgot-ten about Death and let It in. But She had never denied Death's existence, or Her mistake, in any of Her aspects. Segnbora tried to move away from the hands that held her, and couldn't. Her body felt half-dead.
She settled for moving just one hand: the right one, the swordhand that had saved her so many times before. Her own horror helped her, for she realized now that she was in the presence of a legend: the One with Still Hands, that Maiden Who has stopped creating and holds all who fall into Her power in a terrible thrall. This was a dark aspect of the true Maiden, one Who had embraced forgetfulness, and Who had taken Glasscastle as Her demesne, Her prison. (Hasai!)
Struggling to raise her hand, she called him, and to her shock got no answer. Twilight had fallen in the back of her mind, and she could feel no Dragonfire there. She would have to raise her swordhand alone, even though the Maiden's cool hands on her face made it almost impossible to concen-trate.
Sweat sprang out with the effort. The hand moved an inch. She would not be left here! She would not leave her mdaha stuck in an eternity of not— doing! She would not walk past Lang and Freelorn and Herewiss a thousand times without seeing them. .! Another inch. Another. The hand felt
