The Door into Sunset (39 page)

“You,” Lorn said. “Eftgan. Me.”

“But why hasn’t Rian used it already?” Herewiss said, sitting up, pulling the pillow out from behind him, and trying to punch it into a more comfortable shape. “Why wait?”

Lorn looked at Herewiss. “Because he’s waiting for a particularly large infusion of backlash, to fuel a particularly effective manifestation... an appearance of the Shadow Itself, the way the Lion and Eagle were an appearance of the Goddess’s other Lover.” Lorn raised his eyebrows. “You could get an infusion like that from the workings of a lot of other sorcerers.”

“Such as would be provided by the outbreak of a war,” Herewiss said. “By the first few battles....”

They looked at each other dubiously.

‘
Berend,
Herewiss said.
Could we trouble you?

Are you decent?
she said.

“No,” Freelorn said, “but come on in anyway!”

There was a sound of muffled snickering from outside. A moment later Segnbora opened the door and stepped in, carrying a plate and some linen napkins, and gnawing on a chicken bone. She put the plate down on the bed for them—the rest of the roasted chicken—and sat herself down on the window-seat.

There were a few minutes consisting of nothing but muffled exclamations at scorched fingers. Then Herewiss said, “When’s the last time Hasai was up on the wing?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“What are the Arlenes doing?”

“Oh, they’re moving,” Segnbora said, “but not quickly. They still haven’t been able to bridge Arlid near the city, and they’re having to do all their crossings at Daharba and Anish. About two thousand mercenaries and a thousand regulars are on the east side of the river now, and some of them are moving down the Road, but only about a thousand so far. Supply trains haven’t caught up with the others yet, and they’re refusing to move until they do.”

Herewiss smiled at that. Those soldiers who had spent a hungry tenday sitting outside Prydon with only bread and water to sustain them were not willing to put up with such treatment just before a battle. “Well enough,” he said. “How fast are the forces on the east side moving?”

“Not very. There have been reports,” she said, with an annoyed look, “of Fyrd over there, quite a few of them.”

Herewiss looked alarmed at that. “Attacking the Arlenes?”

“No. Just spotted by them. But the Arlenes are nervous about it, especially the mercenary troops. Apparently there are quite a few of the bigger kinds of Fyrd prowling around.”

“Rian’s shock troops,” Freelorn said. “I think we’d better force the pace.” He looked out the window at the dome of Lionhall, away across the roofs.

Segnbora followed his glance. “It’s guarded, you know,” she said. “There are about a hundred soldiers around the place already, and there are sorcerers nearby. I think there’ll be more of both, as the time for the battle gets closer.”

“Best not to wait, then,” Lorn said. “And I encourage witnesses... enough of them to spread the word, later, that I did go into Lionhall, and come out again afterwards. Once that happens, the whole tenor of this war changes. There may still be battles, but the question of who’s in the right will have been sorted out for good and all.”

Herewiss swallowed, trying to put his feelings in order. “Lorn,” he said, “I want to have enough of our people handy to make sure we can get you in there. My Power—” He shook his head, and made the admission that had been galling him bitterly since last night: “At the moment, and especially after last night, I’m about as powerful as any given Rodmistress. My breakthrough’s over, and if you’re looking for miracles, you’re going to be disappointed. We’re going to have to make do with strategy and precision instead of overwhelming force.”

Freelorn gazed at him. It was an odd, steady expression that Herewiss wasn’t sure what to make of. “Who else do you think we need?” he said. “Besides yourself and Segnbora and Hasai. I assume we can count on Hasai for this—”

Segnbora laughed softly. “We have at least one miracle on our hands,” she said: “a Dragon who’s itching to do something. I doubt we could keep him out of it.”

“Mori’s with Andaethen. dritt’s here. Where’s Harald again?”

“He’s in the city,” Segnbora said. “I can send him word when you’re ready, Lorn, and he can meet us.”

“It’ll have to be tonight, then,” Lorn said. “No point in letting Cillmod’s people add more guards than necessary: no point in letting Rian have a breathing space, either.”

“Lorn—” Herewiss said. All his fears were standing up inside his head and shouting at him. “Are you sure you’re ready for this—”

Freelorn burst out laughing, and put his arms around Herewiss. “Of course I’m not ready! But I have no choice. Neither do any of us. And this is what I came here for... what Eftgan is coming down the road with that army for. Cillmod may have gone into Lionhall and come out again, but he is not Initiate, and he wasn’t able to make use of the Regalia. If he had been, I wouldn’t have been able to invoke the Great Bindings at Lionheugh. They worked because I was next-best—because I knew the ceremony, and had the Regalia myself, and the Queen of Darthen working in partnership. But it’s not enough any more. Time,” Lorn said, sounding grim, “to resolve this part of the disagreement between the two of us once and for all.”

Herewiss wondered briefly which “two of us” Lorn meant. His insides were in turmoil. He was realizing that though he loved this man, for the first time in many years he did not like him much: this abruptness, directness, was alienating. Herewiss felt the blade go deep, and found his heart made two. And Herewiss realized that there were certain parts of his mind screaming,
Don’t trust him, he’s messed it up before, he’ll do it again! He gets these fits of decisiveness, but they don’t last, and then someone is needed to come in and clean everything up.... .

The voice inside him trailed off hurriedly as he looked for its source.

No matter,
Herewiss thought, remembering his dream, and the blade with the blood on it, all bright. “Tonight, then,” Herewiss said. “And then what?”

“We get out of the city and join Eftgan.”

Herewiss thought it might be more easily said than done: but Lorn was right. He reached out to Khávrinen, lifted it into his lap, and stroked the edge thoughtfully. It needed sharpening... not a surprise, since it had only rarely been used as a sword.

Tonight it would have a chance.

*

The afternoon dawdled on, hot and still, until the light grew more and more golden, and the air started to cool. Westward the sunset began in long streaks of orange and gold and smoke-grey. Now the rich light was gilding all the roofs of Prydon, turning thatch the color of bronze, and slate to dark polished copper, from which the sunset glared in occasional intolerable brightness as the Sun declined. Lionhall’s dome shone red-golden. But down in the alleys, everything was coolness and shadow: and that was much to Segnbora’s taste.

She stood at the street-side window, gazing down as the Sun went down truly, and the darkness began to seep into the streets, the warmth leaching more swiftly out of the sunset now. “Lorn,” she said.

He did not move from where he stood at the other window, gazing out westward. There was much less noise out in town than there would normally be, but that was not what Lorn was paying attention to, she knew.

“Not this one,” she said.

“What?” He finally turned to look at her.

“It’s not the sunset you’re thinking of,” Segnbora said. “I’ve seen that one, briefly. It’s not anything like.”

“You mean you’ve remembered it ‘ahead’—”

Segnbora nodded. It was beginning to be a curse, these last few days: for memories of things that might happen were crowding out those of things in the past. She glanced down at her hand on the windowsill; the sill was clearly visible through it, more so than even earlier in the day.

“How certain are these memories?” Lorn said quietly.

“
Ahiw mnek’hej,”
Segnbora said, and then laughed at herself, an uneasy sound. She had also been losing Darthene, the past few days. “They’re quite probable. But they’re not utterly certain, Lorn; and they’re fragmentary. The sunset you’re thinking of, I saw the afternoon we sat with Eftgan, after the Hammering. But just a flash of it—”

There was an abrupt creaking sound. Segnbora looked over to the bedroom door, to see if Herewiss was coming out. But the door had not moved. She turned toward the window again, and looked down in shock at the claw that had come over the edge of the windowsill, just missing her hand, and split the oak plank of it the long way.

The mate to that claw, or paw, came up over the sill a moment later. It hooked over the edge of it, rather than digging into the wood, and something on the far end of the ugly coarse-furred limb began to pull itself up against the braced claw. It was the closest thing to a living sickle that Segnbora had ever seen, and her response to it was immediate. She had instantly drawn Skádhwë at the sight of the first one; now, as the claw’s mate came over, she chopped them both off neatly at the sill. The shadowblade went through the wood like butter, and the limbs. There was a hoarse grunting sound from outside, and then a thick crunching sound as something hit the gravel down in the yard.

“Lorn,” she said. “Look down!”

“What?” He looked out the window, gulped, stepped back, and slammed the shutters closed, dropping the bolt.

“Here,” she said, kicking one of the disconnected limbs toward him. “What do you make of this?”

The inner door burst open, and Herewiss almost fell into the room. “What the—”

“I don’t know,” Segnbora said. “Some new kind of Fyrd, perhaps? I haven’t seen this one before. But look down.” She glanced down out of her own window. “One, two—five—”

There was a thin scream from the horseyard out behind the building: a human throat. “How many out there, would you say, Lorn?” Segnbora said.

“I saw six or seven—it was hard to tell—”

“Something bulky-bodied,” she said to Herewiss, as he reached for Khávrinen. “Four limbs, all like that. If there was a head, I didn’t see it.”

A scratching sound came from outside, rattling through the stone and mortar, muffled but ugly. “Rian,” Herewiss said. “So much for secrecy. He knows we’re here.”

“But they’re not coming in,” Segnbora said. “They could, to judge by what that one did to the windowsill. Whatever those things are, they’re just meant to keep us inside.”

The scratching sound from outside was getting louder, and coming from up on the roof-slates as well. “To keep Lorn inside, you mean,” Herewiss said, looking at Freelorn. “The Sun’s going down. This would be his first chance at Lionhall.”

Herewiss opened his mouth, but at that moment the door to the outer hall was flung open. All three of them whirled to face it, Herewiss and Segnbora with Khávrinen and Skádhwë at the ready, Lorn with the black knife from the Regalia that was all he had been carrying since Súthan was broken. But it was just Dritt, with his blunt peasant face and his floppy peasant clothes, and an armful of stuff, mostly weapons.

“Have you seen—” he gasped, out of breath from running up the stairs.

“Yes!” “Goddess, it’s cold in here,” Dritt said, looking around him in puzzlement.

Sunspark came padding out of the bedroom in hunting-cat shape, its eyes wide with alarm. “There’s something on the roof,” it said.

“Several somethings,” Dritt said, glancing upward. The sound of grating claws on the slates was horrible.

“No, just one,” Sunspark said. “I don’t mean the things crawling up the walls. I just tried to burn one of them—” It shivered.

“‘Tried’?” Herewiss said, glancing at it in concern.

The temperature was dropping fast: it might have been the other end of autumn, almost winter, from the feel of it. Outside, an uncomfortable silence had fallen, broken only by claw-scratchings on the walls and the roof.

“One way or another, we can’t stay here,” Herewiss said. “We’ve got to get to Lionhall. Segnbora, let Harald know we’re on our way—tell him to get close enough to keep the place in view, but not to be seen himself. And get Hasai.”

“On his way already,” Segnbora said. Her
mdaha
had felt her alarm, and was shouldering upward through her mind; but he was finding it harder going than usual. This was another of the problems that had been besetting them—not only was Hasai having trouble “going away” when he had been physical, but it was taking a lot of time for him to become physical in the first place. Segnbora found herself beginning to tremble. But the cause didn’t feel like fear. Cold, possibly—

Herewiss rested Khávrinen’s point on the ground, began to speak in Nhaired. Abruptly he stopped, glanced around him: started to speak again; then stopped again, and swore vilely.

“What’s the matter?” Dritt said.

“Gating’s blocked,” Herewiss said. “We can’t just vanish out of here. It’s Rian’s doing, and there’s no telling how long he can hold it.”

“Until we freeze to death?” Dritt said, dropping some of the weapons he was carrying onto a table and starting to stuff them into a bag he had brought in with him. “Is that part of the same sorcery?”

“No,” Herewiss said. “Sunspark is right. Whatever’s on the roof—that’s the source.” He frowned. “The trouble is, it feels like—”

“An elemental,” Sunspark said, sounding grim. “Not someone I desire to meet, in my present condition. I told you: there are those who are to ice as I am to fire. Apparently Rian has decided to go out and get an elemental of his own from somewhere,” it said bitterly. “My fault. I put the thought into his head by challenging him. And even if I were quite well, I doubt I could do much—”

Segnbora looked up. Rime was forming on the exposed beams of the ceiling. “It means to leave Sunspark harmless, or dead, and us unconscious from the cold. But we can’t deal with it from in here. And if we open the windows again, we’re going to have more trouble with those knives-on-legs. We’d better get downstairs. At least that way we have two ways to break out if we must—”

“Right. Lorn—” Herewiss looked at him, standing there with nothing but the black knife of the Regalia. “You need more than that. At least take a sword—”