The Door Into Shadow totf-2

by Диана Дуэйн

  They watered and fed the horses while Herewiss stood gazing around with a wary look, as if expecting trouble. Segn-bora went away feeling thoughtful herself, and led Steelsheen to the most distant of the ash spinneys. This place has a bad feeling about it, she thought, and then realized why.

  The trees were warped and bent, as if by the wind. But the real cause was something less healthy, a something snarled among the ashes' branches. She threw the reins over Steel-sheen's head so that the mare would stand, and pulled some of the stuff out. The long strands were white and soft as spun silk, though as unbreakably strong as any rope when she pulled it between her hands—

  From behind her, Herewiss reached in and pulled down the main mass of the material. As the white stuff came away from the tree, a whole mort of things came tumbling out to thump or clatter to the ground.

  "Look at that,"he said conversationally, bending down to poke with Khavrinen at something jutting from the white swathing. "The point-shard of a sword. Darthene Master-forge steel, see, Lorn? Look at the lines in the metal."

  "It takes a lot to break a sword like that," Freelorn said from beside his loved, but sounding nowhere near as com-posed.

  Why now? Why now! Segnbora thought, as Herewiss bent to pick something else out of the whiteness. He came up holding a piece of pale wood,

  badly warped: It was smoothly rounded

  at one end, broken off jaggedly at the other. "A Rod," Here-wiss said. "Or it used to be."

  Dritt and Moris had come up and were staring nervously at this spectacle. "I thought the only thing that could break a Rod was the Rodmistress's death." Moris said.

  Without looking up, Herewiss nodded. He used Khav-rinen's point to turn over other oddments tangled in the haphazard white weave: bits of broken jewelry, tatters of what might have been brocade. A bone from a human forearm poked out of the mass, ivory-yellow and scored by tooth-marks. It had been cracked for the marrow, and sucked clean.

  "Mare's nest," Herewiss sad, turning to the others and glancing at them one after another. "And recent. We're prob-ably right at the heart of her territory." "Then this is no place for us," Freelorn said. He turned to go take the hobbles off Blackmane, but Herewiss didn't follow him. Freelorn looked back over his shoulder, confused.

  "Lorn, it's sunset," Herewiss said. "We'd never make it past her boundaries before nightfall without giving away our position to the Shadow with our noise."

  Freelorn stared at Herewiss as if he had taken leave of his senses. "Loved, that's a busted Rod there! Fire obviously doesn't do much good against a nightmare!"

  "There are other defenses," Herewiss said absently. It was as if he were reading about the problem from a book rather than seeing it in front of him. He looked up at Segnbora. "How about it?"

  THE DOOR INTO SHADOW

  Segnbora walked around to the other side of the spinney as if to examine the whole nest, waiting until the tree hid her before she swallowed, hard. Nightmares — minor demonic as-pects of the Goddess's dark side — typically nested in barren places like this. They fell upon travellers, sucked them dry of the spark of Power they possessed, then fed the dead flesh to their fledgling nightfoals. Since they were Shadowbred, Fire was food and drink to them. A Rodmistress's Rod was thus useless against them. They could only be killed with bare hands, and then only if those hands were a woman's.

  Segnbora walked around to face the others. "It's getting toward Midsummer," she said, amazed at how calmly her

  voice came out. "Her brood will be gone now, and she'll have eaten the nightstallion—" Freelorn's face twisted. "They — eat their—!" "They are the Devourer," Segnbora said, very low. "That aspect of the Dark One trusts nothing She hasn't consumed." She glanced over at Herewiss, forbidding herself to tremble. "Well, I broke Steelsteen with my bare hands. I think I can manage this."

  Behind Herewiss, Lang's face was white with shock. She refused to watch it after that first glance. "I'll make a circle," Herewiss said. "You'll have warning. What else will you want?"

  Last rites, probably. "A fire," she said. Herewiss smiled slightly. "I think 1 know where to get some. Sunspark!" Segnbora walked toward the sudden campfire, wishing there were such a thing as luck, so she could curse it.

  For once, night came down too suddenly for her taste. Segnbora sat with the others beside Sun-spark's blazing self, looking out toward the stony darkness. Here and there, at a hundred yards' distance, a flicker of Herewiss*s Fire showed blue between the boulders, indicating the ward-circle he had laid down. Firelight danced on the face of the cliff. Under a gnarled little rowan bush Segnbora sat and tended to herself in the huge silence, which even the horses, hobbled and teth-ered inside the circle, didn't break.

  Segnbora was running out of things to do in order to get ready. She had gone through all the small personal bindings that a sorcerer would perform to further the larger binding she intended. Her swordbelt's hanging end was tucked in. Her hair, too short to braid, she had tied with a thong into a stubby tail and bound close to her head. Her sleeves were rolled up. The buckles on her boots and her mailshirt were tight. She would have tied Skadhwe into its sheath, but it had no peace-strings as Charriselm had had, and all her attempts to bind the shadowblade with cord had been useless. It cut them ail. Finally she had just taken it out of the scabbard and stuck it into a handy rock.

  Now she thought of one more binding to add. Rummaging around in her belt-pouch for a bit of thread, she bound it around her left thumb nine times, thus forming a soul-cord that would keep her soul within her body until a pyre's blaze freed it. She tied the ninefold knot and glanced up as she bit it off. Freelorn was holding a cup for her. It was of light wood, with a design of leaves carved around it below the lip. She recognized it: his and Herewiss's lovers'-cup.

  "Hot wine," Lorn said, sitting down. Wanned by the ges-ture, she took it and drank, hoping the shaking of her hands wouldn't show too much.

  "It shows. Forget it," Herewiss said, sitting down beside Freelorn. She extended the cup to him, leaning back against the knobby little rowan as Herewiss drank in turn. Afterward, he poured some wine into the fire, which had acquired eyes, and then passed the cup back to Freelorn.

  Lorn leaned back against a rock, and Herewiss leaned back too, resting his head against Lorn's chest. "You sure there's nothing you can do?" Freelorn said, sounding sorrowful.

  Herewiss glanced yp at him. "Swords don't bite on night-mares, loved. I'm sorry."

  Freelorn nodded, still looking uneasy. "This business of the Lady's "dark side,' " he said, "I've never really understood how She can have a dark side. .,"

  "It is this way," Segnbora started, mostly out of reflex, and then stopped herself. Embarrassed, she took the cup back and drank again.

  "No, go ahead," Herewiss said, with a wry look. "If you're going to become something's dinner tonight, we might as well get one more story out of you. Tell it as they tell it at Nhaire'di. I've never heard their version."

  She sighed, suddenly amused by the surroundings. This was no cozy inn or palace hall, for once, but rather a huge night in waste country. Who'd have thought she'd ever play to an audience of kings-by-couitesy, part-time princes, and outlaws?

  *'It is this way,*' she said. "Because the Goddess bound Herself at the Making into everything She had made, the great Death became bound into Her too, and She into It. Though

  She had brought It life, the Shadow still hated Her and did Her all the harm It could, causing each of Her fair aspects to cast a dark shadow of its own. Therefore the Devourer exists, and the One with Still Hands. ." She shivered.". . and the Pale Winnower. Their Power is terrible, and the Goddess cannot banish them; in this Making, They are part of Her.

  "But in the south of Steldin, people explain our Lady's dark side differently. They tell how, on the plain north of Mincar, there lived an austringer and her wife. The austringer was a placid woman, easily pleased and as calm as one of her hawks after a feeding. The austringer's wife, on the other hand, was never content with an
ything, and sharpened her tongue con-tinually on her spouse. "There came a day when the austringer took a good catch of pheasant and barwing. The next morning she set out for Mincar market to sell the game.

  "Now, while on her way to the market, passing through the wealthy part of town, the austringer saw a sight that was stranger and more lovely than any she had ever seen.Tied to the reining-post was a great, tall silver-white steed, shining in the morning. When she drew near to it, it turned its head to gaze at her with eyes as dark as the missing half of the Moon. It was tethered with a bridle of woven silver. "She recognized it then. It was one of the Moonsteeds, aspects of the Maiden that mirror the Moon in its changes, and which cannot be caught by any means except with a bridle that is wrought of noon-forged silver in such a fashion as to have no beginning and no end. Some lord or lady had caused the bridle to be made, and had managed to catch the Steed. And as the austringer stood there and pitied the poor crea-ture, once free from time's beginning and now bound, it lowered its head and said to her, 'Free me, and I'll do you a good turn when I may.'

  "So she cut the bridle with her knife, and the Moonsteed reared and pawed the air and said, 'If you want for anything, go out into the fields and call me and I will be with you.' And it vanished.

  "The austringer thought it well to vanish from the area herself. She went to market and sold her birds, and then went

  home in a hurry in order to tell her wife what she had seen. That was a mistake. 'Surely,' her wife said, 'the Steed will grant you anything

  you want. Go out and ask it to make us

  rich.'

  "She nagged the austringer unmercifully until at last she gave in and went out into the night, under the first-quarter Moon, to call the Steed.

  It came, saying 'What can I do for

  you?'

  " 'My wife wants to be rich. Wants us to be rich, rather,'said the austringer. 'The first was closer to the truth, I think,' the Steed said, 'but go home, it has happened already.' And the austringer went home to find her wife happily running her fingers through bags of Moon-white silver, chuckling to her-self about the fine robes and elegant food she would soon have in place of her brown homespun and coarse bread. "For about a week things went well. But folk nearby began to ask questions, and then the tax collectors arrived, leaving with more silver than pleased the austringer's wife. 'This isn't working,' she said to the austringer. 'Go ask the Steed to make me the tax collector. And I want a house befitting my station.'

  " 'No one will talk to us anymore!' the austringer objected. Her wife gave her no peace, however, and sent her off to the fields at nightfall.

  The austringer called the Moonsteed, and there it came in a white blaze of light, for the Moon was near to full. 'What can I do for you?' it asked. 'Though I have a feeling I know.'

  " 'My wife wants to be a tax collector, and have a tax collec-tor's fine house,' the austringer said.

  " 'Go home, it's done,' said the Steed. And the austringer went home and found their thatched cottage changed to a tall house of rr'Harich marble; and her wife was twenty times as rich as she had been before.

  "After that things went as you might imagine. A week later the austringer's wife wanted to be mayor, and so she was. Afterward she became bailiff, and Dame, and Head of House, one after another. Her house became golden-pillared and roofed with crystal, filled with rich stuffs and things out of legend — feather-hames and charmed weapons and even the silver chair that later belonged to the Cat of Acs Aradh — but

  none of it gave her joy for more than a day. Each night she sent the austringer out to ask for another boon, and the au-stringer grew sad and pale, seeing that her wife loved her possessions more than she loved her.

  "And as the days passed the aspect of the Moonsteed grew darker, for the old Moon was waning. White-silver the Steed had been at first, like moonlight on snow. Now it waxed darker each night, and frightened the austringer.

  "The boons grew greater and greater. Head of the Ten High Houses, the austringer's wife became; then Chief of them, then High Minister, then Priestess-Consort. And still she wanted more.

  "Finally the night came of the dark of the Moon—" Segnbora broke off for a moment, fumbling for the wine cup. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. It was only three nights from Moondark now, that time when a nightmare would be strongest.

  "— the dark of the Moon, and the austringer went out to the fields to call on the Moonsteed for the last time. It came, burning with awful dark splendor and wrath, and said in its gentle voice, 'What is it now? Your wife has asked, and I have granted, even to the last times when she asked to be Queen of Steldin, and then High Queen of all the Kingdoms. What more might she want?'

  "The austringer trembled, and said, 'She wants to rule the Universe.'"

  Segnbora lifted the cup again and finished the wine. There was silence. Freelorn glanced down expectantly at Herewiss, whose eyes were turned away, then back at Segn-bora. "So?"

  "So She does. " She handed back the empty cup. "Nowyou tell one."

  Suddenly Blackmane screamed. Herewiss jerked upright as if he had been kicked. All around the camp heads turned out toward the darkness.

  The nightmare stood for a moment among the boulders that had fallen from the cliff, and then stepped forward deli-cately. It was small: the size of a seven-months* filly. Its silken mane and tail hung to the ground. Slim-legged and clean of

  line, it seemed at first as elegant and graceful as a unicorn. But its eyes were evil: red and bottomless, full of old cruelties and insatiable hunger. From a coat the color of the rolled-up whites of a dead man's eyes, it cast a faint yellowish corpse-light that illuminated nothing. Segnbora got up, dry-mouthed again. She took a few steps forward and folded her arms, staring right into those ancient, burning eyes. "Be thou warned," she said in the formal manner reserved for the laying of dooms, "that I am well informed of thee and thy ways, of thy comings and goings, thy wreakings and undo-ings; and that it is my intent to bind thee utterly to my will, and confine thee to the dark from which thou canie'st at the birth of days. So unless thou wish to try thy strength with me, and be compelled by the binding I shall work upon thee, then get thee hence and have no more to do with me and mine."

  She held very still. The nightmare now had the option to retreat. It could also answer ritually, or it could attack.

  "How should I fear you?" the nightmare said, lifting its head to taunt her sweetly. The voice it used was that of Segn-bora's slain otherself, not piteous as it had been during those last moments in Glasscastle, but mocking and cruel. "Rodmis-tresses in the full of their Power have

  THE DOOR INTO SHADOW

  passed this way, and you see what has happened to them. You, however, have retired from sorcery, afraid of failure."'

  "Silence!" Segnbora said in a voice like a whipcrack. But no power was behind the order, and the nightmare laughed at her, a sound ugly

  with knowledge.

  "You make a fine noise," it said, flicking its tail insolently. '"But all your years"' studies have left you with little but knowl-edge. Mere spells

  and tales and sayings. You have no Power. Or rather, what Power you possess you are afraid to focus."

  Burning with shame, Segnbora clenched her fists and took a step forward, then another, seeking control. (Hasai—!)

  "Oh, call up your ghost," the nightmare said, stepping forward too. "You don't dare give him the Power he needs, either. You walk on water,

  and complain that you can't find anything to drink! Face it, you will never find what you seek. You are too afraid. You are dead!"

  Behind her Segnbora could feel Freelorn getting ready to move, and Herewiss holding him still with that same vise-grip in which he had held her at Barachael. The others were fro-zen, eyes glittering, muscles bound still. Even Sunspark's flames flowed more slowly than usual.

  "Some heroine you are!" the chill voice taunted. "Dead on your feet. A rotting corpse. You are a Devourer, like me." Her head jerked in surprise.

 
; "You don't believe me? Then look at your slug of a lover there!" The bitter eyes dwelt on Lang with vast amusement. "He no more dares open himself to you than you do to him. He knows that what you call 'love' is mere need. If permitted, you'll suck him dry of his own Power, his own love, and he knows it! Eftgan knew that too …"

  Humiliation seared Segnbora, and terror. She had no prob-lem holding her peace. Her mouth refused to work.

  The nightmare chuckled maliciously, enjoying her growing victory. "No wonder you're such a good storyteller. Every-thing that comes out of your mouth is a story, especially when you speak of yourself. You haven't really opened to another person since that day when you became big enough to be taken out in back of the chicken house—"

  Segnbora took another slow step forward, drowning in the bitter truth, hanging onto the ritual for dear life. "I may warn thee again — get hence, lest I lay such strictures about thee that from age to age thou shall lie bound in the never-lighten-ing gulfs—" "Say the words of the sorcery," the nightmare said, baring her yellow teeth in scorn. "They'll do no good. You cannot control another aspect of the Devourer, being one yourself! Consider what lies hidden under stone in your heart. . you hate the one who plundered you, and that hate poisons every act of 'love' you attempt. You will never properly be able to employ your Power!"

  She shook her head, but the awful words of truth would not go away.

  "Listen to what I say; to what you know to be fact. Even your friends pity you. Freelorn, for example. He found out what happens to someone who gets closer to you than a

  sword's length. You stabbed his heart with something sharper than a knife. No wonder that when you were once faced with yourself, you killed—"

  Segnbora leaped at the nightmare head-on, grabbing great handfuls of its mane. Desperately, she attempted to hold its head away from her, but the nightmare plunged, reared and fastened its teeth into Segnbora's mailshirt, cracking the links like dry twigs and driving them excruciatingly through pad-ding and breastband, into the soft tissue of her breast be-neath. Jaws locked, it shook her viciously from side to side, as a dog shakes a rat.