by Diane Duane
(With a little knuckle-work,) Herewiss said, grinning. (I hear a certain air of permanence in the thought, Sunspark. Are you looking for a way to make an end of me accidentally, and so be free of our agreement?)
(Make an end? Oh, I see, force you to change form.) Sunspark chuckled softly, with innocent savagery. (I told you I was probably going to be trouble for you…)
(Yes,) Herewiss said, laughing himself. (Trouble indeed. Sunspark, I’m minded to try my strength with you. I’d like to engage in a social exchange with you, for I’d sooner have a friend than someone whom I could never trust, and that’s what you’d most likely be without this—)
It looked askance at the concept “friend.” (You want to mate with me?) it said, incredulous. (How perverse. And how very interesting—)
There was something about the sudden smile in its voice that made Herewiss wary. (I didn’t say that,) he said. (Never mind it now, Spark. There seem to be differences in our ways of looking at things, and with luck we’ll have leisure to discuss them later. How are these matches usually handled?)
(Best two fights out of three.)
(So be it. I have certain limitations that you haven’t, though, and I’ll ask that you take them into consideration so that the match will be a fair one.)
(Who ever said anything was fair?) said the elemental in surprise.
(True, but it behooves us to try to make it that way,) Herewiss said. (Will you agree not to burn me up, or otherwise kill me?)
(“Kill?” Oh, form-change. My, you have a lot of ways to say it. What a shame, that’s one of the best ways to win a match. Why should I refrain?)
(I don’t want to leave this form yet.)
(Is it that comely? You can always get another, can’t you?)
(Not just like this one, certainly; the process isn’t under my control. And besides, I would no longer be able to reach my loved if I lost this body.)
(That would be tragic,) Sunspark said, (but then, all union is tragic, when you come right down to it…. Oh, very well. There’s something here that I don’t understand, and since you keep insisting, it must be important. I won’t ‘kill’ you. Shall we begin?)
(Right here??)
(Where better?) said Sunspark, and then the change came upon it, and Herewiss had no time to think about anything.
The creature that leaped at his throat had many of the worst characteristics of Fyrd—a nadder’s coily, scaled body walking on the ugly hairy legs of a bellwether, and the knife-sharp legs of a keplian at the ends of those legs. Herewiss wrestled wildly with it, trying to get some kind of decent hold, but there were too many legs, and the thing seemed to weigh as much as he did. The fact that he was braced against the wall helped Herewiss somewhat, but Sunspark had perceived that. There were legs pushing at his own, trying to knock him off-balance.
Herewiss spread his legs wider, strove to feel the balance flowing through them, the upflowing power of the earth, as Mard his weapons instructor had taught him. After a few straining moments the power began to come. Sunspark, though, feeling the change in the tension of its opponent’s muscles, shifted its attack toward Herewiss’s head. Herewiss was confused, for the form Sunspark had taken seemed to have no real head, nothing which he in turn could attack—the top half ended in a blunt place where the serpentlike body came to an end, and talons erupted from it in a clutching rosette like some malignant flower. They grabbed and slashed at him, and it was all Herewiss could do to hold the thing at a distance.
For a long moment their respective positions did not change. Then Herewiss found a fraction more leverage than he’d thought he had, and slung the creature away from him, halfway across the room. The nadder-creature cracked into the offering table and lay still for a moment.
(First fall,) said Sunspark. (Not bad. Are you ready?)
He sucked in a few deep breaths. (Come ahead—)
It flashed a bright, edged feeling like a sharpened smile at him, and changed again. A sudden hot wind began to fill the room as its physical form dwindled away, and Herewiss suddenly had a hunch that it would be wiser not to breathe for the rest of this bout. He sucked in one last gulp of air before Sunspark had time to finish the change—and then found himself being pressed brutally from all sides, his muscles being painfully squeezed, his eyes smashed back in their sockets, his joints being broken open, his skull being crushed by something that clothed him all around like a stormwind turned in on itself. Herewiss held onto his lungful of air, but then it too was pressed out of him, and white lights danced behind his closed eyes as the awful pressure began crushing him down into unconsciousness…
He slapped the ground to which he had fallen, hoping that Sunspark would understand the gesture. Immediately the pressure let up, and he lay there for a few seconds, at least until the lights went away. He felt as if he had been run over by a cart.
(That one was mine, I think,) came the quiet voice. (Shall we take the third?)
(Go ahead,) Herewiss said. He dragged himself to his feet, and braced himself once more against the wall.
The air swirled, coalesced, and Sunspark stood before him in the red roan form again. But it did not move, just looked at Herewiss.
—and then it was inside Herewiss’s head, and Herewiss began to understand the elemental’s statement that it was fire. The quiet, familiar confines of Herewiss’s mind went up in a terrible conflagration. His brain and body burned inside, thoughts and emotions threatening to drown in heat and pain. But Herewiss held on, held part of himself away from the burning, concentrated on survival, on the help that this creature could be to him if he could bind it. He was not as afraid of fire as most people might be; fire was his companion at work, his old familiar friend. He bore the marks of his acquaintance with it all over his arms, pink places where blisters had been. This fire, a fire of the mind, was no different, really. Herewiss withstood the flames for a long few moments, making sure of his control. Then, (Two can play at this,) he said—
—and thought of water: storms of it, deluges of it, cold and free-running; the shaded place in the Wood where the Darst runs through, widening out into the pool he and Lorn used to swim in during the summers. The leap out from the green bank, and the splash, first too cold, then just right, cool clear liquid softness covering all the body, sliding, surrounding—
He heard Sunspark scream.
—the Sea, the northern Darthene coast in late summer, waves crashing and spray flying cold and salty, a blue infinity of water that could swallow an elemental without even noticing—
The contact broke. Herewiss stood there, sweating and trembling, and saw that Sunspark was doing the same. It looked at him, pleased and irritated both.
(You have nothing to fear from me,) it said. (I am bound to your will until you see fit to release me. I should have let the Pact-oath be the term of our agreement—)
(Maybe you should have,) Herewiss said, (but I for one have no need to keep you past the time of the original agreement.)
(You can afford to be generous,) Sunspark said grumpily. (I’ve never lost a match before. Shows you what comes of being fair.)
(Sometimes,) Herewiss agreed. (Come on, Sunspark, let’s go; the rain’s stopped.)
They walked out of the shrine. Above them the clouds were moving eastward before a brisk wind. (One thing I will require of you,) Sunspark said, (and that is that you keep water off me.)
(That’s easily done; there are spells enough to manage it.)
Dapple was grazing again; as Herewiss approached him he looked up placidly, as if to ask what would happen now.
(Hmm. Sunspark, will you mind if I ride you?)
(It’s a binding of energies, is it not? It seems appropriate.)
He transferred his gear to Sunspark’s back, piece by piece, and finally took the bridle off Dapple and rubbed the horse’s nose. “It’s a long way back home for you,” he said, “but you can’t help but find your way there. Though they might be confused to see you without me. Here—”
He
put the bridle on Sunspark and then went to rummage in the saddlebag, finally finding the little steel message-capsule from Freelorn’s pigeon, along with the scrap of parchment it had contained. Inkstick and brush were further down in the bag. Herewiss wet the brush from his mouth, scrabbled it against the inkstick, and paused for a, moment. Should I—? Oh, why the Dark not, he loves riddles!
“From Herewiss Hearn’s son to his sire,” he wrote,
“Your son’s making good on his hire—
He sends you your horse
(and regards, Lord, of course)
and the news that the prince rides with Fire.”
Then he enclosed the note in the capsule and tied it around Dapple’s neck with some cord from the saddlebag.
“Have a safe trip home,” he said. “And thanks.”
Dapple nuzzled him in the chest, turned, and trotted off.
Herewiss swung up into the saddle, intrigued to feel Sunspark’s heat seeping up through it, and hoping it wouldn’t make the leather crack. (We’re heading south,) he said. (The place where Freelorn is stuck is about five days’ ride from here—)
(For a horse,) Sunspark said with an inward smile. (We’ll go faster; I’m curious to see this ‘loved’ of yours. You’d better hold on tight.)
Several times that night and the next day, the country people of southern Darthen and northern Steldin pointed and wondered at the sudden meteor that blazed across their skies and did not strike the ground anywhere.
FOUR
“Are you a sorcerer?” Ferrigan asked.
“Dear me, no!” the Pooka said, shocked. “Who wants to be a sorcerer? You spend five days of a week recovering from one day’s spelling; and if you die in the middle of a spell, it takes three months before the headache goes away.”
“Tale of Ferrigan and the Pooka,”
from Tales of Northern Darthen, ed. s’Hearn, ch. 8
The keep, a single round-tower built of fieldstone, was old enough to have been erected in the first wave of the Kingdoms’ colonization. For outworks it had nothing more than an earthen dike, surrounded by a ditch that had once been full of sharpened stakes. They had long since rotted away, the place having been abandoned centuries before for some newer castle of hewn stone, more defensible, or built closer to the present habitations of men.
But the keep was still quite solid—thick-walled enough so that an earthquake could hardly have brought it down. There were no windows but arrow slits, the tower top was deeply crenellated, and the door was heavily bound in iron thick enough not to have rusted away in all the intervening years. Time had been relatively kind to the place. Its mortar had grown stronger with age, and only here or there was any stone shattered by frost. It was a redoubt worthy of the name, and it stood there at the center of the cuplike vale with stolid rocky patience, frowning at the surrounding hills, antique and indomitable.
Herewiss leaned wearily on Sunspark’s crupper and frowned back at the keep from where they stood, about two miles away, atop one of the long bare surrounding ridges. The keep was surrounded by a fairly large force, disposed around it for a siege in the usual Steldene fashion. The troops were about half a mile or so from the walls, separated into four large camps, each oriented to one of the compass points. Herewiss agreed with Freelorn’s estimate; there were about a thousand of them, and maybe more.
“For five people!” he said aloud, putting his head down on his folded arms. “Steldin must be awfully nervous.”
Sunspark stood beside him in the red roan form, idly switching flies with its long glittering tail. It looked at the besieging army with supreme disdain, and snorted softly. (It hardly matters. Give me half an hour and I will bring the fire down on them and leave not a one alive.)
“Sunspark, I don’t want to kill; there’s no need. Restraint is considered a virtue in these parts.”
The elemental snorted again, flicking its tail at a nonexistent fly and fetching Herewiss a stinging blow across the back.
“Behave yourself or I’ll make it rain on you again.”
(That’s no mastery, there are rain clouds coming in anyway; it’ll be pouring after nightfall. You keep me dry, now!)
“I keep my promises. You’ll be fine. Look, it’s getting on toward sundown—I want you to take a message to Freelorn for me.”
(What am I—a pigeon?)
“Spark—”
(All right, all right.)
“Get in there any way you like, so long as it’s unobtrusive. Say to Freelorn that I’m waiting for nightfall to make my move. Tell him that he should try not to be too bothered by what he sees—I’m going to try to go past the bounds of the battle-sorceries he’s seen in the past. Tell him how to find this spot—or better still, after I’m finished, go and meet them and bring them here. There are times when Lorn needs a map to find his own head.”
(Shall I tell him that too?)
“Don’t bother; I’ve told him enough times myself. When you finish with that, get back here. This place is wild enough for there to be a few Fyrd still wandering around. I don’t want to get eaten while I’m trying to concentrate on my spelling.”
(Tell Freelorn this. And tell Freelorn that. There are five people in there, oh Master mine. What does he look like?)
Herewiss sighed. “Look for a small man, about a span short of my height, with longish dark hair and a long mustache, and a sense of humor like yours. Chances are that he’ll have on a surcoat with the White Lion on it. Is that enough for you?”
(If there are only five people in there, then I think I can manage.)
“Then get going.”
Sunspark’s horse-shape wavered and turned molten, gathered itself together and swirled about with a blast of oven-heat, became a bright amorphous form that put out wings and rose against the sky, cooling and darkening. A moment later a red desert hawk spiraled up a thermal partly of its own making.
Herewiss sat down, making a face at the smell of scorched grass, and considered what he was going to do. It wasn’t going to be easy to dispose of an army this large. There weren’t too many of Steldene regulars among the forces; most of these were conscript peasantry, ununiformed and hurriedly armed. That would be a help. But the regulars and their commanders would have seen real battle-sorcery before. They would be familiar with the tricks of the trade, and unafraid of illusion. Herewiss did have some advantages: a great deal of native power, and access to references and methods about which most sorcerers knew little or nothing. Also, the lack of any army attacking them in concert with the illusions would confuse the Steldenes somewhat. By the time any of them realized what was happening and tried to mobilize a force to stop him, it would be too late…he hoped.
Still…a thousand men. Herewiss shook his head. The King of Steldin must have been worried about the possibility of the Arlene countryside rising against his people when they brought Freelorn home—or the possibility of Freelorn getting away, and the Arlene army moving into Steldene lands in retaliation. If the Oath of Lion and Eagle wasn’t protecting Darthen from Cillmod’s incursions, the King of Steldin had good reason to worry.
Sighing, Herewiss looked at the thunderheads massing on the northern horizon. The storm would make a fine cover for their escape. He disliked the prospect of leaving over ground wet enough to hold their trail. But speed, and fear, and the direction in which he would lead his friends, would confound the pursuit. Now he had to concern himself with the sorceries he would need.
Herewiss spent at least half an hour leafing through the grimoires, making sure he had properly memorized a number of pertinent passages, and wishing he weren’t so ethical. To frighten a thousand men into flight was more difficult than killing them. It would have been simplicity itself to turn Sunspark loose. The elemental’s methods were swift and brutally efficient, and its conscience would be clean afterwards, for to Sunspark death was nothing more than a change from one form to another. Or else Herewiss could himself have laid warfetter on the lot of them, leaving the whole army deaf and blind
and stripped of their other senses, fighting nothing but their own terror, and probably dying of it. But his conscience wasn’t as accommodating as Sunspark’s. The last time he had slain was one time too many, and even if that had not been the case, there was still sorcerer’s backlash to consider. To lay warfetter on so many people was to open the way for a huge cumulative backlash to strike him, one which could leave him dead or insane.
So Herewiss chose illusions as his weaponry. He would have to alter the formulae to accommodate so many people, and the backlash would still hit him proportionately; he would be unconscious for a couple of days. As he went through the book, making his final choices in the fading light, Sunspark dropped out of the sky onto his shoulder.
“Loosen up with the talons, please,” Herewiss said. “Did you find him?”
The hawk snapped its beak with impatience. (Of course. He’s waiting for you.)
“Was there a message?”
(Your friend greets you by me,) Sunspark said, (and says, ‘Get me the Dark out of here.’ He also says that you should make your preparations for six people. Evidently he has picked up a stray somewhere.)
“That’s Lorn. Sunspark, I’m going to need a good while to get ready for this. You’ll have to stand guard while I meditate. Also I’ll need your services during the sorcery.”
(As you say.) Sunspark whirled and dissolved in heat again, reappearing in the blood-bay persona.
“You really do like that shape, don’t you.”
The elemental curved its neck, looked around to admire its shining self. (It has a certain elegance, I must admit—)
“You’re vain, firechild, vain,” said Herewiss, smiling. He walked off a short distance and unlaced his fly to relieve himself before the long sorcery; Sunspark followed, regarding the process with interest.
