Fires of Azeroth com-3

by C. J. Cherryh

  "We do not," said the elder, "admit you to our counsel."

  "Do you refuse my help?"

  There was deep silence. The elder's staff rang on the floor and echoed, the slightest tap.

  "My lords," she said. "If you do refuse my help, I willleave you. And if I leave you, you willfall."

  Merir stepped forward half a pace. Vanye held his breath, for the old lord knew, knew utterly what she meant, the destruction of the Gate which gave them power, in her passing from this world. And surely he had told the others.

  "That which you bear," said Merir, "is greater than the power of all the arrhacombined. But it was fashioned as a weapon; and that… thatis madness. It is an evil thing. It cannot be otherwise. For fifteen hundred years… we have used our power gently. To protect. To heal. You stand here, alive because of it… and tell us that if we do not bow to your demands, then you will turn that thing against us, and destroy Nehmin, and leave us naked to our enemies. But if we do as you wish-what, then? What are your terms? Let us hear them."

  There was no sound or movement after.

  But suddenly other footfalls whispered on the stones at the doorway.

  Lellin, and Sezar.

  "Grandfather," Lellin said in a hushed voice, and bowed.

  "Lady… you bade me come when the enemy had completed their crossing. They have done so. They are moving this way."

  A murmur ran the circuit of the room, swiftly dying, so that the tiniest movement could be heard.

  "You have been out doing her bidding," Merir said.

  "I told you, Grandfather, that I went to do that."

  Merir shook his head slowly, lifted his face to look on Morgaine, on all of them, on the arrhendimwho had come with Morgaine, and all but Perrin lowered their eyes, unable to meet his.

  "You have already begun to destroy us," Merir said. His voice was full of tears. "You offer your way… or nothing. We might have been able to defeat the Shiua, as we did the s irrindimwho came on us long ago. But now we have come to this, that armed force has entered this place, where arms never have come before, and some have faith in them."

  "Lellin Erirrhen has said," the elder arrhadeclared, "that lie is hers,lord Merir. And therefore he insists on coming and going at her bidding, refusing ours."

  "Else," Morgaine said in a loud voice, "the council would keep me blind and deaf. And Lellin and Sezar in their service to me have kept me from taking other action, my lords. They know what you do not. By serving me .. . they have served you."

  Merir's lips made a taut line, and Lellin looked at the old lord, bowed to him very slowly, and to Morgaine… faced his grandfather again. "Of our own choice." Lellin said. "Grandfather-the arrhendimare needed. Please. Come and look. They cover the riverside like a new forest. Come and look on this thing." He cast an anguished glance about at all the arrha."Come out of your grove and see this horde. You talk of taking it into Shathan. Of peace with it… as we found with the remnant of the sirrindim.Come and look on this thing."

  One more dangerous to us," said the elder, "is already here." And Gate-force flared, making the air taut as a drawn string. It shimmered about the elder.

  nd it grew. One and another of the arrhabegan to bring forth that power, until the arrhendimflinched back against the wall, and the whole dome sang with it.

  Liyo,"Vanye murmured, and whipped his sword from its sheath, for two of the arrhabarred the doorway, and the air between shimmered with the barrier they formed.

  Cease!" Morgaine shouted.

  he elder stamped the heel of his staff on the floor, a sound almost drowned in the taut air; his half-blind eyes were set rigidly. "Six of us have invoked the power. There are thirty-two. Surrender that which you bear."

  Liyo-"

  Morgaine slipped Changeling'sring and dropped the sword to her hip. Vanye looked about him, at the elders, at the frightened arrhendim . ..and Roh, whose face was pale, but whose hands stayed from his weapons.

  Two more," said the elder. The singing in the air grew louder, numbing hearing, and Morgaine lifted her hand.

  "You know what the result will be," she cried.

  "We are willing to die, all of us. The passage we open here may be wide enough to work ruin on the enemies of Shathan as well. But you who do not love this land… may not be willing to become part of that. One by one we shall add to the force. We do not know how many of us will be needed before the passage is complete, but we shall discover it. You cannot leave. You can try your other weapons. If you do, we will answer you with all we have. Or you can draw that sword and complete the passage beyond any doubt: its force with ours is sufficient beyond any argument. It will drink us all up, and more besides. But surrender that weapon and we shall deal well with you. Our word is good. You have nothing to fear from us."

  Gate-force keened in the air. Another joined it.

  "Liyo,"Vanye said. Very small his voice sounded in that power. "Your other weapon-"

  She said nothing. He dared not look at what was happening before her, but kept his eyes to the arrhendim,who were at her back and armed; and Roh, Lellin and Sezar were apart from the others, fear in their faces, but they stood with arms folded and had never moved.

  "My lords!" Morgaine exclaimed suddenly. "My lord arrha!We are gaining nothing by this. Only your enemies gain."

  "We have made our choice," said Merir.

  "You sat here-sat here until I should become desperate enough to try to come stir you out of it. A trap of your working, lord Merir? It is a well-devised one."

  "We are utterly willing," said Merir, "to perish. We are old. There are others. But there is no need of it, unless you value power more than your own life. If we add many more jewels to the web, lady Morgaine, it will be accomplished. You sense that. So do I." He held up his hand, with the jewel-case upon it. "Here is another mote of that power you hold. Perhaps this will complete it. It is that near. Shall I add it to the others?"

  "Enough! Enough. I see that you are capable of doing it No more."

  "Surrender the sword."

  She unhooked it and grounded it point-down before her. "My lords of the arrha!Lord Merir is right… that is an evil thing. And there is only one of it, and that itself is a great evil, and subtle. You hold your power divided into many hands; whoever takes this, that one will be more powerful than all the others. Which? Who of you seeks it?"

  None answered.

  "You have never seen a Gate opened," Morgaine said. "You have never summoned that power entire, counting that passage dangerous. You are right. Shall I show you? Damp that which you hold: I shall show you my meaning. Let me show you whyNehmin must cease to exist. You value reason, my lords; then listen to me. I have no terms. I come not to possess Nehmin by the threat of destroying it. I come to destroy it, whether or not the enemy is stopped. I do not want any power over you."

  "You are mad," said the elder.

  "Let me show you. Damp the jewels. If I do not convince you, the unveiling of only a few of them while Changelingis unsheathed will be sufficient for your purposes… and mine. You do not well reckon… that I also am willing to die for what I do."

  The elder stepped back, bewilderment in his look. Merir made a helpless gesture. "She says well," Merir said, "We can always die."

  The force ebbed, more suddenly than it had grown, jewel after jewel winking into cover. And when it was utterly gone, Morgaine eased Changelingforth, crystal is the jewels, which were only motes that human flesh itself could obscure unharmed. Opal fire flowed along Changeling'srunes, and suffused the blade, and darkness flared at the tip of it, where the wind began. Someone cried out. Its light bathed all their faces. She moved it, and the wind grew stronger, whipping at the torches, tugging at hair and robes and howling within the dome. Vanye stepped back from her side, not even aware that he moved until he found himself near Lellin.

  "Here is the passage you would form!" Morgaine shouted over the roar of the wind. "Here it is open before you. Look into it. Have you courage now to add your jewel
s to that? A few of them would suffice, and this whole dome will be elsewhere, with us in it. The shock of air will level all the trees hereabouts, and perhaps, as you say, take a good part of the enemy with us. Or more than that, if the force leaks through to this side of here and now. This is the power that your fathers' fathers' fathers trifled with. You do well to avoid it. But what will your children do? What, when someday someone less wise than yourselves takes it up again? What, if I surrender the sword to you, and someday one of your folk draws it? On it is written the knowledge of the Gates… and it cannot be destroyed, save by one who will carry it unsheathed within a Gate, into the Fires. Who of you wants to go in my place? For any man who loves this world, for any man who holds this weapon and has anything of virtue left in him-there is only one choice in the end-and that is to take it out of this world, outside this world, and to keep going from world to world, forever. Is not a calamity written in your legends? The same calamity fell everywhere that such power has been… and it will come again, and again. That power must have an end. Does one of you want the sword? Does one of you want to carry it under those conditions?"

  She held it aloft, and the void gaped and howled. Roh was at her back; Vanye saw him, never took his eyes entirely from him. Roh's face was rigid, his eyes reflecting that opal light.

  And suddenly Roh moved, fled, thrusting aside Sezar and Lellin, rushed past the arrhaguards… the two of them too dazed to react. Vanye realized his sword was still in his hand. He looked on the others, on faces pale and drawn… turned and saw Morgaine. Her arm trembled from that force which numbed body and soul. Sweat stood on her face.

  "You must seal it off," she said. "Let me take this out of your world and seal the passage forever after me. Your other choice is not one that Shathan can survive. This-this-does not love living things."

  "Put it away," Merir said hoarsely. "Put it away, now."

  "Have you seen enough? I always questioned the wisdom that made this thing. I know the evil of it. Its maker knew And perhaps that is its only virtue: that it is shaped as what it is… it is something that you can see and know exacly as it is. There is no ambiguity here, no yes and no. This thing ought not to exist. Those delicate jewels of yours… are nothing other than this. Their beauty deludes you. Their usefulness deludes you. Someday someone will gather them together and you will know that they were all aspects of this.Look. Look at it!"

  She swung it in a great arc, faster and faster, and the wind grew until it pulled at them, until the light blazed white, until the void widened and there seemed little air in the room. Cold numbed the skin, and the arrhaheld to their chairs, those standing staggered to the walls as if their own weight could not anchor them.

  "Stop it!" the elder cried.

  She did so, and returned it to sheath. The winds stopped; the howling died; the dark void and the blazing light went together, leaving the dome darkened, the light of the torches sucked out, only a shaft of daylight reaching them from the door. She grounded the sword, sheathed, before her.

  "That is the power you hold, arrha.You have but to combine your tiny jewels into one. Did you not know that? We are armed… alike. And I make you free gift of that knowledge now-for someday one will discover it, and you will have to use them that way."

  "No."

  "Can you forget what I have told you?" she asked in a low voice. "Can you forget what you have seen? Can you take the sword and keep it forever sheathed, when the sirrindimrise up with cities and threaten you, when Men increase and you are few? Some evil, qhalor Man, someday… will draw it. And unlike your jewels, which will fade when the Gate is sealed, the sword is knowledge to build more such Gates."

  There was deathly silence. Some of the arrhawept, their heads bowed into their hands.

  "Give it up," Morgaine urged them. "Or leave Nehmin, and come my road, the passage that I must take. I have told you truth. I have shown you. And while Nehmin remains open, that truth will always gape at your feet to swallow you up. Seal up the passage; seal Nehmin and the stones lose their fire and Shathan stands… unbarriered, but living. Keep Nehmin open, and you will fall to it one day. But whatever you choose, I have no choice. I must take this sword out of the world. More than Shathan is at hazard. More than your lives. More than this world alone. The evil is as wide as all the passages that ever existed. And it is most dangerous when you think it tamed and secure. Those little stones are more evil than Changeling…because you do not see them for what they are: fragments of a Gate. Joined, they will drink you in and ruin more than your own world: they will reach to others."

  The elder trembled, and looked on the others, and on Merir. Lellin wept, and Sezar, the both of them bowed to the floor; and two by two their brother arrhendimjoined them.

  "We have heard truth," Merir said. "I think we have heard the truth my grandson was quicker to hear."

  The elder nodded, his hands trembling so that the staff rattled against the floor. He looked at all the arrhaabout him. There was none to say otherwise.

  "Do as you will," he said then to Morgaine. "Pass. We will seal Nehmin behind you."

  Morgaine let go a long slow breath, and bowed her head. After a moment she gathered Changelingto her side and hooked it there, drew it to her shoulder. "We have a number of Shiua to clear from our path to Azeroth. The enemy, my lords of the arrha,is still advancing from the river. What will you do about it?"

  There was long silence. "We must hold, this place and Nehmin. Nehmin is surrounded. The enemy has already taken all the area. We can speak to the arrhawho hold Nehmin itself; and within the hold of Nehmin, they can work what you ask. You may ride from here. We can give you seven days… to reach Azeroth and pass; and then we may kill the power."

  "You would fall. Shathan would be utterly open to the Shiua horde."

  "We fought the sirrindim,"said Merir. "The arrhendwill drive these invaders back too."

  Morgaine stared at them, one after another, scanning all the company. And at last she folded her arms and looked at the floor, glanced up at Vanye. He tried to say nothing with his expression. She turned last to Merir. "Will you take my help? I would not leave you with such a gift as waits out there. Aye, Vanye and I could slip past, go another route… reach Azeroth in seven days. But what sits out there is-mine. I do not want to leave you to that."

  The elder approached her slowly, leaning on his staff. He bowed, deeply, and gazed at her when he straightened, like a man looking into the Gates themselves. "There have been– many passages for you."

  "Yes, elder. I am older than you."

  "Much so, I suspect." The frail hand reached, touched Vanye's arm, and the dim gray eyes turned to his. "Khemeisto such an arrhen…We sorrow for both of you. For both of you." He looked at Lellin, and bowed, and to Sezar and the other arrhendim;and lastly at Merir and Morgaine once more. "You are experienced in wars. We are not. We need you. If you are willing, we need you."

  "This, at least, must be on my terms. We consult together."

  "We accept that," said Merir.

  "You say that you can signal those who now hold Nehmin. Bid them expect us, and soon. You shall hold here, as you can; and they must hold Nehmin until we can reach them. My lord Merir-" she nodded to him to join her, and started to the door, unsteady suddenly; at her side, Vanye felt her lean against him, and took her arm, lending his strength. The sword took, of body and soul; he bad held it, and knew the pain of it "Roh," she said suddenly, distractedly. "Where is Roh?"

  He had that worry on him too; there were too many things random, too much slipping their grasp.

  But Roh waited outside, a huddled figure at the base of the third standing stone, arms tucked about him. He saw them coming, and rose, torment in his eyes.

  "They let you go," he said. "They let you go."

  "They agreed," Morgaine said, "to seal Nehmin themselves. That was their choice."

  The look went stricken, dazed; they walked past, and Roh followed after.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They found th
e horses still safely in the clearing, with some of the arrhawatching over them-your qhal,male and female, dressed in white, with faces which still were innocent of what had passed in the dome. The arrhaoffered neither courtesy nor resistance, but backed from them in seeming distress as they came close-perhaps there was a mark on all of them, Vanye thought, for there was a grimness about the arrhendim,the same fey desperation which had troubled him in Lellin and Sezar: he understood now that bleak, lost manner… that of men who had seen the limits of their world.

  And of all the arrhend,it rested most heavily on Merir.

  "My lord," said Morgaine to him. "The arrhendimmust be brought here. If we are to save this place-they must be brought. Can you do it?"

  The old lord nodded, turned, the reins of the white horse in his hand, and stared in the direction of the river. Even through the trees the roar of many voices could be heard, shouts raised; the horde was on the march.

  "I would see this thing," Merir said.

  It was madness. But not even Morgaine opposed it "Aye," she said. "Lellin, Sezar?"

  "The hill is still ours," Lellin said. "Or was, lately."

  Arrhastood sentinel in the woods, and farther on, in the meadow. "Do not stay here when they come," Morgaine said to the last. "You will only lose your lives. Take shelter with our elders."

  They bowed, after their silent fashion. Perhaps they would heed and perhaps not. There was no dispute with men who did not speak.

  There rose their own goal, the stony hill at the side of the meadow, and the trail which wound among the trees. The shouts of the horde sounded very near to this place, hardly beyond the screen of trees at the far side of the hill.

  They climbed the height on horseback, and rode farther, Morgaine guiding them among the trees which crowned that slope and far to the other side. Rocks were frequent here, a tumbled basalt mass which became a naked promontory, highest of all points hereabouts.