He did that. A soft spring Moon, full and golden, outside the diamond-paned window; the wind in the apple trees, snowing their petals gently on the ground and drifting them about in a kindly mockery of the season past; a jar of wine that he had appropriated from the kitchen after helping with the dishes—and the innkeeper had scowled at him as if he was a naughty boy, and then winked and gestured him out; a chair and table by the window, with one warm rushlight burning like a star in the dim room, and the good bed with its clean linen, inviting him—not just now, but later, when he was just tired enough—it all conspired to produce such a perfect peace as Lorn had not felt in years.
And then there she was, in the doorway, gowned in white and dark-robed as if about to retire, and leaning in to peer at him like a mother checking on a child staying up late. Lorn had left the door open for the breeze, and at the sight of her he was glad he had. She came in and sat with him by the window, and they began to talk.
To this day he remembered so little of what was said. They talked about everything under the Sun—histories and how they part from the truth; and old legends and stories told to children in Arlen, and how they differ from those told eastward in Darthen or south along the Stel; what to do about clubroot in a cabbage field, or about a cavalry charge; —endless other things. And whatever she spoke of, she did so with such knowledge, and such love... and sometimes with great sadness in her face, as if she felt herself somehow responsible for a famine here or an unhappy ending there, so that Lorn would have done anything to ease her sorrow if he could. But it always passed into other talk, into memory, or merriment, or sweet or sober joy. And it was not until long after the rushlight had burnt out, and the Moon had slid softly up over the roof and out of sight, that Lorn realized that the moonlight had not left her, but still rested on her, golden, when everything else lay in starlight or shadow.
Then, at last, his heart thundering in his ears, he knew Her. Then he understood clearly how poor a word “queenly” had been, yet a word that would have to do, for the One in Whose name all kings and queens ruled—the One Who comes to every man and woman born, once before they die, to share Herself with them and have them know that they are loved. She pushed aside the cup that they had finished between them, and reached out and took his hand, and lifted it to Her lips.
“Dearest son of Mine,” she said. And the voice was his mother’s.
A long time, She held him through the weeping. And when it was done, and She was Mother no longer, but Bride—
“You’re up late,” said a voice right by his ear.
Freelorn jerked upright and slapped his left hip with his right hand, uselessly, for Súthan was not there any more, and it was a good question whether it ever would be again. The Darthene mastersmiths said its metal was probably too old to successfully reforge. He glared at the source of the interruption. Beside him on the parapet was a North Arlene hunting cat—or at least it would have been, if hunting cats had pelts that glowed a dull grey-dusted orange like coals in a banked fire, and black-irised eyes with pupils that were slits of molten yellow.
“Is there something I can do for you,” Freelorn said, breathing slow to quiet his heart, which was now pounding for different reasons, “or are you just looking for something to burn, as usual?”
“Herewiss is wondering where you are,” said Sunspark.
“Mmf,” Freelorn said. His feelings about Sunspark were mixed at best. But this much he knew, that he didn’t want a fire elemental as a go-between... especially when that fire elemental was sometimes Herewiss’s loved. Not that he was precisely jealous, of course, but— “Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“He didn’t send me,” Sunspark said, tucking itself down in a housecat-by-the-hearth position on the parapet. Only its tail hung down over the edge behind, and the tip of it smoldered as if thinking about bursting into flame. “And as for yourself, do your own errands, mortal man. I have one master only, and you’re not he.”
“Look,” Freelorn said, upset by the coolness in its voice, and unsure why he was upset, “wait a moment. I’m sorry. You startled me, that’s all; sometimes people are rude when they’re startled.”
Sunspark blinked slowly. “The way we burn things when we’re startled?”
“I guess so.”
“Well enough. But you people do about fifty other things when you’re startled, as well; I wish you would make your minds up.” And it sighed, so genuinely human a sound that Freelorn felt for it. Sunspark was studying to be human. Sometimes this was funny, but sometimes one came away after a lot of time spent “helping” with one’s hair singed for the trouble.
“Different reactions from different people,” Freelorn said. “We’re all one people, but not one kind, like elementals. —I take it you just heard him, then. Underheard him.”
“I always hear him. How not? He’s my loved.”
“There’s more to love than just hearing.”
“I know,” it said. “Compassion. He is teaching me.”
If the look in Sunspark’s burning eyes was affection, it was of a dangerous sort, and Lorn wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with it. Something else slightly out of the ordinary, he thought.
I’m in a threesome with a brushfire
....
“You’re not, indeed,” Sunspark said, and lazily stretched out a paw, flexing the claws; they burned white-hot. “You’re interesting in your own way, but you’re most unlikely to master me as he did. And I doubt I’ll ever give love save where I’m mastered. This much I’ll say, though, for your sake, since he loves you: I would not have him in pain. Please watch what you do.”
“I’m trying,” Freelorn said, surprised. He had never heard Sunspark say “please” before.
Sunspark gazed out over the town, calm, or not noting the look. “So I heard. It’s well; for otherwise, king or no king, I would certainly have you for nunch.” It tucked the stretched paw back in again, serene. “Most of all, I won’t have him tamed; so watch your heart, for it was trying, just then.”
“What?” He looked at it, too alarmed even to be angry for the moment.
“Oh, you’re trying to tame him, all right,” it said. “Who should know the symptoms better?” It regarded him with dry amusement. “Many another has tried it with me, and wound up as cinders. And what about you? Will you have a pet? Or be loved freely by something dangerous? You may die of it, but you won’t mind the death, not afterwards, when the love is a hundred times greater.”
Freelorn began to shake. It was hard to tell whether Sunspark was speaking allegorically, since its kind didn’t handle life and death as humans did. Herewiss had had problems of this sort with Sunspark before, and had taken a long time to convince it not to simply kill people who were bothering him. “You sound sure of yourself,” Freelorn said at last.
“I know what worked for me, and for Herewiss. It should work for other humans, but Herewiss keeps complicating it with explanations.” It laughed gently. “If I come to understand why our loving works for him, that will be enough for me. And the sooner, the better. No use wasting time.”
“Why not?” Lorn said. “You won’t die any time soon.”
“
He
will,” said Sunspark.
Lorn was shaken. “And what was it that worked for you?”
Its voice was soft, and even puzzled, as if even now it didn’t understand the answer. “Fight with all your power, to the death, and lose the battles, first. Learn defeat. Then you get everything. Win, and lose it all.” It shook its head slowly, and sat up, stretching fore and aft, cat-fashion. “If I had won,” Sunspark said, reflective, “he would be ashes on some south wind, and I would have been free... of this.” It gazed down over the parapet, toward the lower towers, in one of which Herewiss lay. “Free of him, of love, and fear, and death... free of you mad creatures.” To Freelorn’s amazement, it turned and bumped his head against his shoulder, and the touch was warm. “Mastery is better,” it said, muffled, “even if I’m on the wrong side of it.”
Very slowly Lorn put a hand up to stroke the burning pelt. It was like hot velvet to the touch, and Sunspark shivered in response. “Maybe it’s unlikely,” he said to it, rubbing the good place behind the ears, “but it might be interesting anyway, to try to master you, and find out firsthand what the Dark you’re talking about.”
One eye opened and looked at him. “So it might be at that,” it said, sounding amused. Then it straightened up. “He’s waiting for you,” it said, and leaped off the parapet, dissolving into a streak of fire that struck outward into the night.
What have I gotten myself into?
Lorn thought, and sighed, and went down to bed. In the morning, he would ride for Arlen.
They who say we are made in the Goddess’s image, they say true. For She made the world, yet in the heat of Her creation forgot the Shadow of Death that lurked, waiting Its chance: and unthinking She bound it into the world, and now rues Her doing. And we, like Her, make works that we fancy shall last for ever, but leave this or that great matter out of our reckoning; and then rue the mistake after. Here, though, we come at last by Her mercy to differ. For the mistakes we make, we can set right: She, never. All the hosts of man must come to the Last Shore before She may end the world and begin anew. Yet though we may set our mistakesaright... how often do we so? And in this the Shadow’s laughter may be heard. In our pride and blindness is Its only hope... and the means by which the likeness between us and Her is made complete.
(s’Lehren,
Commentaries on the Hamartics
)
Dead tired, wrung out, held safe and close, he would have thought that this once he was safe from the dream. He found out otherwise. It started as innocently as they tended to—one of those strange, slightly frantic, funny dreams in which good friends and people you’ve never seen before all rush around on bizarre missions that make perfect sense while you’re dreaming, and none whatsoever when you wake. He remembered wading a muddy river in company with Herewiss and Lang. Where the rest of his people were, he couldn’t imagine. A while later in the dream, he remembered that Lang was dead, fallen off the trail over the Scarp near Bluepeak. But in the dream, Lang’s appearance was some kind of good omen, so he let it pass: they were too busy to bother with small business at the moment, it would wait. Then suddenly they were in an inn somewhere—so he thought, anyway: a small crowded room full of shouting people. No, not shouting—singing. Over the singing, as if he had his head bent to catch an intimate conversation quite nearby, he could hear two people talking together softly.
“What was the problem?”
“Dear one, I seem to be pregnant.”
“That’s news! Will you be all right?”
“For a few months, at least. But—”
And then a pause as he realized this was not an inn at all, but some kind of cave, in which some sound was echoing and hissing so that it sounded like many voices talking at once. It might be the sea, outside. That would make sense, for he could smell salt air. He headed for the shadowy walls of the place, hunting a doorway, while the voices began to argue.
“Wait a minute! What do you mean, you’re pregnant? I’m pregnant!”
“That’s ludicrous! What have you been doing to get pregnant?”
“The same thing you have!”
Lorn began to laugh quietly to himself as he went, because it occurred to him suddenly in the dream that one of the two people arguing was male. He walked on, into the stony shadows, and then began to wonder whether he was going in the right direction. The seacrash was dwindling away into silence.
He paused, stood still, feeling nervous. The last sound faded away, leaving him standing in silence and darkness.
Moonlight there was, lying faint in long parallelogram-shapes upon the patterned floor. He went by it, touching a familiar doorframe here, turning a corner there, now knowing surely where he was going, for he had walked these pillared halls by night and day for sixteen years of his life. The old almeries and chairs and presses looked at him calmly as he went by in the moonlight, and the stairway up to his old room spread itself broad for him, though he couldn’t go up there just now. He had other business; they were waiting for him. He found the great curtained archway in the white marble walls that led to the hall he was looking for, the place where they were waiting. He put out his hand to touch the embroidery-stiffened velvet of the curtain, feeling acutely the touch of the gold wire under his fingertips. He moved to push the curtain aside.
And then he heard it, that low awful moaning sound, and barely had time to turn and flee before it burst out from the curtains behind him—the pale thing. He had seen it often enough before, it had been chasing him seemingly for his whole life, and he didn’t need to turn to know what it looked like. He didn’t even need to turn to see it. Fleeing, all his attention fixed ahead of him as he ran pounding down the tiles and looking for some place to hide, he could still see it clearly coming behind him, with that same doubled vision of the Blackcastle courtyard. A huge thing, scabrous, pallid, with a shape that never stayed the same for long, but flowed and changed like some glowing corruption. But mostly it had a broad pale body—of a deadly paleness, like something leprous—and long soft grabbing arms, and a wet white toothless maw that drooled pus and slime, and huge chill vacant eyes like sick moons that refused to stay in one place like eyes should. He ran, he ran, but it did him no good—it never did. It would get its claws into him and his blood would run with its corruption, he would feel the poison stink of its breath in his face as it lowered its mouth to his and—
—the door, oh blessed Goddess, there was the door out into the garden! He ran for it in horror, tugged at its iron handle, it was stuck, hammered helplessly at the oaken, iron-nailed width of it, then yanked again in crazed desperation as he heard that evilly longing moan behind him. This time the door flew open, so fast that it hit him in the mouth. He gasped with the shock, flung himself sideways and through—
—and found something worse. The sky was red, red like blood, long streaks of blood across a black like death, and the taste of blood in his mouth, and something screaming through thunder, the end of the world. There was his choice. Flee out into that, and die; or stay and face the pallid thing that hunted him, that he heard coming up behind him, that reached out for him even now and wrapped its great soft horrible arms around him and turned him around by force and held him, held him till he screamed for help, any help, even death would be better than this, and he struggled, wild and desperate, as its mouth came slowly down—