by Diane Duane
The food did justice to the festive dress. Dinner was cold eggs deviled with pepper and marigold leaves, roast goose in a sour sauce of lemons and sorrel, potatoes roasted in butter, and winter apples in thickened cream. Moris made a lot of noise about the eggs and the goose, claiming that the powerful spices and sours of Steldene cooking gave him heartburn; but this did not seem to affect the speed with which he ate. There also seemed to be an endless supply of wine, which the company didn’t let go to waste.
Once the food was served, the innkeeper took off her apron, sat down at the head of the table, and ate with them. In some ways she seemed a rather private person; she still had not told them her name. This was common enough practice in the Kingdoms, and her guests respected her privacy. But when she spoke it became obvious that she was a fine conversationalist, possessed of a dry wit of which Herewiss found himself in envy.
She seemed most interested in hearing her guests talk, though, and was eager for news of the Kingdoms. One by one they gave her all the news they could remember: how the new queen was doing in Arlen, the border problem with Cillmod, the great convocation of Dragons and Marchwarders at the Eorlhowe in North Arlen, the postponement of the Opening Night feast in Britfell fields…
“Opening Night,” the innkeeper said, sitting back in her chair with her winecup in hand. “Four months ago, that would have been. And the Queen would have held the feast all by herself, without any Arlene heir in attendance, as her father did while he was still alive?”
“Evidently,” Freelorn said. Herewiss glanced at Lorn, watching him take a long, long swig of wine. There was nervousness in the gesture.
“Yet they say that the Lion’s Child is still abroad somewhere,” said the lady. “It’s strange, surely, that he never came forward in all that time to partake of the Feast, even secretly. It’s one of the most important parts of the royal bindings that keep the Shadow at bay, and the Two Lands from famine.”
“I hear he did show up at the Feast once,” Freelorn said. “Three years ago, I think. He just barely got away with his life.”
Herewiss had all he could do to hold still. So that’s where he was that winter—! And that’s where he got that swordcut that took so long to heal! ‘Robbers,’ indeed—
“—Cillmod had slipped some spies in among the Darthene regulars that went south with the king,” Freelorn was saying. “The king and the Lion’s Child had just gotten to the part of the Feast where royal blood is shed, when they both almost had all their blood shed for them. The king’s bodyguards killed the attackers—but Darthen was wounded, and as for Arlen—” Freelorn shrugged. “Once burned, twice shy. No one has seen him at a Feast since. Nor did the king ask again. Evidently, Goddess rest him, he wanted to live out the year or so left him in peace, without bringing Arlen’s assassins down on his own head. What the new queen will do—” And Freelorn took another long drink.
“If she can’t find the Lion’s Child,” said the innkeeper, “what she’ll do is moot. Now that she’s becoming secure on her throne, he might want to send her some certain word concerning his future participation in the Feast and the other bindings. Seven years is too long for the Two Lands to go without the royal magics being properly enacted. Disaster is just over the mountain, unless something’s done.”
“She can’t do anything anyway,” Lorn said disconsolately. “Any move on her part to support the Lion’s Child could antagonize the conservative factions in the Forty Houses. Their people are in an uproar over the poor harvests lately, and all they want is to avoid war with Arlen, or anyone else. If the Queen of Darthen gives Arlen’s heir asylum or supports him in any way, war is what she’ll have. Then she’ll go out into the Palace Square on Midsummer Morning next year, to hammer out her crown, and some hireling of the conservative Houses will put an arrow through her, and that’ll be the end of it—”
“A queen, like a king, is made for fame, not for long living,” the innkeeper said quietly.
Freelorn’s head snapped up. The suspicion that had been growing in Herewiss for some minutes now flowered into fear. She knows, she knows who he is! Oh, Lorn, why can’t you keep your mouth shut—!
“It’s possible,” Lorn said, so quietly that Herewiss could hardly hear him, “that the Lion’s Child isn’t too excited about dying in an ambush, or in someone’s torture-chamber. He may be able to do more good alive, even if he’s a long way from home.”
“That’s between him and the Goddess,” the innkeeper said. “But as for the other, royalty is not about comfort or safety. Painful death, torture, many a king or queen of both the Lands have known them. It’s not so many centuries since the days when any king’s lifeblood might be poured out in the furrows any autumn, to make sure that a poor harvest wouldn’t happen again, that the next year his people wouldn’t starve. But that’s the price one agrees to pay, if necessary, when one accepts kingship. Put off the choice, and the land and the people that are both part of the ruler suffer. Who knows what good might have been done for the Two Lands, and all the Kingdoms, if the Lion’s Child had somehow found the courage to go through with that Feast three years ago, instead of panicking and fleeing when it was half-finished? He might not have died of the wound he took. He might be king now.”
“Yes,” Freelorn said, looking very thoughtful.
“And as for the queen,” the innkeeper said, “it wouldn’t matter if that was ‘the end of it’ for her, would it? Even if she died in the act of one of the royal magics, she has heirs who will carry on after her….heirs who know that the only reason for their royalty is to serve those bindings, and the people the bindings keep safe from the Shadow. But as to other heirs to Arlen, who knows where they may be? And who knows what the Lion’s Child is thinking, or doing?”
“The Goddess, possibly,” Lorn said.
“Men may change their minds,” the innkeeper said, “and confound Her. I doubt it happens often enough. But I suspect She’s usually delighted.”
Freelorn nodded, looking bemused.
Herewiss looked over at the innkeeper. She gazed back at him, a considering look, and then turned to Segnbora and began gossiping lightly with her about one of her relatives in Darthen.
Freelorn once again became interested in the wine, and Herewiss sighed and did the same. It was real Brightwood white, of three years before, from the vineyards on the north side of the Wood. A current of unease, though, still stirred on the surface of his thoughts. Where is she getting this stuff? he wondered. It’s a long way south from the Wood, through dangerous country. And I’ve never heard mention of this place—which is odd—
There was motion at the end of the table; the lady had risen. “It’s been a pleasure having you,” she said. “I could go on like this all night—but I have an assignation.” She smiled, and Segnbora smiled back at her, and most of Freelorn’s people chuckled. “If one or two of you will help me with the dishes—maybe you two,” and she indicated Dritt and Moris, “since you obviously liked the looks of my kitchen earlier—”
Everyone got up and started to help clear the table— all but Herewiss, who hated doing dishes or tablework of any kind. Out of guilt, or some other emotion perhaps, he did remove one object from the table—the carafe full of Brightwood white. He went up the stairs with it, into the deepening darkness of the second story, feeling happily wicked…and also feeling sure that someone saw him, and was smiling at his back.
***
Herewiss’s room had a small hearth built of rounded riverstones and mortar. It also had something totally unexpected, a real treasure—two fat overstuffed chairs. Both of them were old and worn; they had been upholstered in red velvet once, but the velvet was worn pale and smooth from much use, and was unraveling itself in places. Herewiss didn’t care; the chairs were both as good as kings’ thrones to him. He had pulled one of them up close to the fire and was sitting there in happy half-drunken comfort, toasting his stocking feet. The red grimoire was open in his lap, but the light of the two candles on the table bes
ide him wasn’t really enough to read by, and he had stopped trying.
A steady presence of light at the far corner of his vision drew his attention. He looked up, and gazing across the bare fields saw the Full Moon rising over the jagged stony hills to the east. It looked at him, the dark shadows on the silver face peering over the hillcrests at him like half-lidded eyes, calm and incurious.
He stared back for a moment, and then slumped in the old chair and reached out for the wine cup.
There was a soft knock at the door.
So comfortable was Herewiss that he didn’t bother to get up, much less reach for his knife. “Come in,” he said. The door edged open, and there was the innkeeper, cloaked in black against the night chill.
At sight of her Herewiss started to get up, but she waved him back into his seat. “No, stay put,” she said. Pulling the other chair over by the hearthside, she sat down, pushing aside her cloak and facing the fire squarely.
Herewiss let himself just look at her for a moment. Beauty, maybe, was the wrong word for the aura that hung about her, though she certainly was beautiful. Even as she sat there at her ease, she radiated a feeling of power, of assurance in herself. More than that—a feeling of certainty, of inevitability; as if she knew exactly what she was for in the world. It lent her an air of regality, as might be expected of someone who seemed to rule herself so completely. A queenly woman, enthroned on a worn velvet chair that leaked its stuffing from various wounds and rents. Herewiss smiled at his own fancy.
“Would you like some wine?” he said.
“Yes, please.”
He reached for another cup and poured for her. As he handed her the cup their hands brushed, ever so briefly. A shock ran up Herewiss’s arm, a start of surprise that ran like lightning up his arm and shoulder to strike against his breastbone. It was the shock that a sensitive feels on touching a body that houses a powerful personality, and Herewiss wasn’t really surprised by it. But it was very strong—
And he was tired, and probably oversensitive. He lifted his cup and saluted the lady. “You keep a fine cellar,” he said. “To you.”
“To you, my guest,” she said, and pledged him, and drank. He drank too, and watched her over the rim of the cup. The fire lit soft lights in her hair; unbound, it was longer than he had expected, flowing down dark and shimmering past her waist. Some of it lay in her lap, night-dark against the white linen of her shift and the green cord that belted it.
“This is lovely stuff,” Herewiss said. “How are you getting it all the way down here from the Brightwood?”
The lady smiled. “I have my sources,” she said. She lowered her cup and held it in her lap, staring into the fire. The wine was working strongly in Herewiss now, so that his mind wandered and he looked out the window. The Moon was all risen above the peaks now, and the two dark eyes were joined by a mouth making an “o” of astonishment. He wondered what the Moon saw that shocked her so.
“Herewiss,” the lady said, and he turned back to look at her. The expression she wore was odd. Her face was sober, even sad, but her eyes were bright and testing, as if there was an answer she wanted from him.
“Madam?”
“Herewiss,” she said, “how many swords have you broken now?”
Alarm ran through him, but it was dulled; by the wine, and by the look on her face—not threatening, not even curious, buy only weary. It looked like Freelorn’s face when he asked the same question, and the voice sounded like Freelorn’s voice. Tired, pitying, maybe a bit impatient.
“Fifty-four,” he said, “about thirty or thirty-five of my own forging. I broke the last one the day I left the Wood.”
“And the Forest Altars were no help to you.”
“None. I’ve also spoken with Rodmistresses who don’t hold with the ways of the Forest Orders or the Wardresses of the Precincts, but there was nothing they could do for me either. But, madam, how do you know about this? No one knew except for my father, and Lorn—”
He looked at her in sudden horror. Had Lorn been so indiscreet as to mention the blue Fire—
She shook her head at Herewiss, smiling, and was silent. For a while she gazed into the fire, and then said, “And how old are you now?”
“Twenty-eight,” he said, shortly, like an unhappy child.
The lady rubbed her nose and leaned back in her chair until her pose almost matched Herewiss’s. “You feel your time growing short, I take it.”
“Even if I had control of the Power right now,” Herewiss said, “it would be starting to wane. I’d have, oh, ten years to use it if I didn’t overextend myself. Which I would,” he added, smiling at himself. “Oh, I would.”
“How so?” She was looking at him again, a little intrigued, a little bemused.
Herewiss drained his cup and stared into the fire. “Really! If I came into my Power, there I’d be, the first male since Earn and Héalhra to bear Flame. That is, if the first use didn’t kill me. Think of the fame! Think of the fortune!” He laughed. “And think of the wreaking,” he said, more gently, his face softening, “think of the storms I could still, the lives I could save, the roads I could walk. The roads…”
He poured himself another cup of wine. “The roads in the sky, and past it,” he said. “The roads the Dragons know. The ways between the Stars. Ten years would be too high an estimate. Better make it seven, or five. I’d burn myself out like a levinbolt.” He drank deeply, and set the cup down again. “But what a way to go.”
The lady watched him, her head propped on her hand, considering.
“What price would you be willing to pay for your Power?” she asked.
The question sounded rhetorical, and Herewiss, dreamy with wine and warmth, treated it as such. “Price? The Moon on a silver platter! A necklace of stars! One of the Steeds of the Day—”
“No, I meant really.”
“Really. Well, right now I’m paying all my waking hours, just about; or I was, before I had to get Freelorn out of the badger-hole he got himself stuck in. What more do I have to give?”
He looked at her, and was surprised to see her face serious again. Something else he noticed; there was an oddness about the inside of her cloak…. He had thought it as black within as without, but it wasn’t. As he strained his eyes in the firelight, there seemed to be some kind of light in its folds, some kind of motion, but faint, faint—He blinked, and didn’t see it, and dismissed the notion; and then on his next look he saw it again. A faint light, glittering—
No…it must have been the wine. He rejected the image.
The lady’s eyes were intent on him, and he noticed how very green they were, a warm green like sunlit summer fields. “Herewiss,” she said, her voice going very low, “your Name, would you give that for your Power?”
The wine went out in Herewiss as if someone had poured water on the small fire it had lit. “Madam, I don’t know my Name,” he said, trying to conceal his shock, and wondering suddenly what he had gotten himself into: what kind of woman kept an inn out here on the borders of human habitation, all alone—
He looked again at the cloak, with eyes grown wary. It was no different. In the black black depths of it something shone, tiny points of an intense silvery light, infinite in number as if the cloak had been strewn with jeweldust, or the faint innumerable stars of Héalhra’s Road. Stars—?
She looked at him, earnest, sincere; but the testing look was also in her eyes, the look that awaited an answer, and the right one. A look that dared him to dare.
“If you knew it,” she said, “would you pay that price for your Power?”
“My Name?” he said slowly. Certainly there was no higher price that he could pay. His inner Name, his own hard-won knowledge of himself, of all the things he could be—
But he didn’t know it. And even if he had, the thought of giving his inner Name to another person was frightening. It was to give your whole self, totally, unreservedly; a surrender of life, breath and soul into other hands. To tell a friend your Name, t
hat was one thing. Friends usually had a fairly good idea of what you were to begin with, and the fact that they didn’t use it against you was earnest of their trustworthiness. But to sell your Name to a stranger—to pay it, as a price for something—the thought was awful. Once a person had your Name, they could do anything to you—bind you to their will, take that Name from you and leave you an empty thing, a shell in which blood flowed and breath moved, but no life was. Or bind you into some terrible place that was not of this world. Or, horrible thought, into another body that wasn’t yours; man or beast or Fyrd or demon, it wouldn’t much matter. Madness would follow shortly. The possibilities for the misuse of a Name were as extensive as the ingenuity of malice.
But—
—to have the Power.
To have that blue Fire flower full and bright through some kind of focus, any kind. To heal, and build, and travel about the Kingdoms being needed. To talk to the storm, and understand the thoughts of Dragons, and feel with the growing earth, and run down with the rivers to the Sea. To walk the roads between the Stars. To be trusted by all, and worthy of that trust. To be whole.
Even as he sat and thought, Herewiss could feel the Power down inside him; feeble, stunted, struggling in the empty cavern of his self like a pale tired bird of fire. It fluttered and beat itself vainly against the cage-bars of his ribs every time his heart beat. Soon it wouldn’t even be able to do that; it would drop to the center of him and lie there dead, poor pallid unborn Otherlife. Whenever he looked into himself after that, he would see nothing but death and ashes and endings. And then soon enough he would probably make an end of himself as well—
“If I knew it,” he said, and his voice sounded strange and thick to him, fear and hope fighting in it, “I would. I would pay it. But it’s useless.”
He looked at the innkeeper and was faintly pleased to see satisfaction in her eyes. “Well then,” she said, pushing herself straighter in the chair, “I think I have a commodity that would interest you.”
