The Door Into Fire Read Free Page B

Arlen, a great impassable range of mountains reared up. Legend said that the demons’ country of Hreth lay beyond them, but no one particularly cared to brave the terrible snow-choked passes to find out. Southward lay more mountains, the Highpeaks or Southpeaks, depending on whether you were speaking Arlene or Darthene; no one had even ventured far enough into them to find out if they ever ended, though there were stories of the Five Meres hidden among them. Eastward, past the river Stel, the eastern border of Steldin and Darthen and civilized lands in general, the land stretched away into great empty desert wastes. Many had tried to cross them; most came back defeated, and the rest never came back at all. Those who did come back would occasionally speak of uncanny happenings, but most of the time they flatly refused to discuss the Waste. The Dragons might have known more about what went on there, or in the lands over the mountains -- but Dragons would only talk to the human Marchwarders who are sometimes their companions, and the Marchwarders, when asked, would only smile and shake their heads.
    The Kingdoms were four: Arlen, Darthen, Steldin, and North Arlen. Through them were scattered various small independent cities and principalities. The Brightwood was one of these, though like most of the smaller autonomies it had joined itself to a larger Kingdom, Darthen, for purposes of trade and protection. Arlen and Darthen were the two oldest Kingdoms, and the greatest; between them they stretched straight across all the known lands, from the mountains to the Waste Unclaimed, slightly more than three hundred leagues. The border between them was defined by the river Arlid, which flows from the Highpeaks to the Sea, south to north, a hundred leagues or so. It was not a guarded border, for the two lands had been bound by oaths of peace and friendship for hundreds of years. That, however, might change shortly....
    Herewiss rode along through the sparsely wooded, hilly country three days’ journey south of the Brightwood, and thought about politics. It seemed that there was nothing in the world that could be depended upon. The Oath of Lion and Eagle had been sworn for the first time nearly twelve hundred years ago, and sworn again every time a king or queen came to the throne in either country—until now. When Freelorn’s father King Ferrant had died on the throne six years past, Freelorn had been in Darthen; but it might not have been possible for Freelorn to claim the kingship even if he had been in Prydon city when it happened. Ferrant had not yet held the ceremony of affirmation in which the White Stave was passed on to his son, and Freelorn’s status was therefore in question. Power had been seized shortly thereafter by a group of the king’s former counselors, backed by mercenary forces hired by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer; and this lord, a man named Cillmod, had declared Freelorn outlawed.
    These occurrences, though personally outrageous to Herewiss, were not beyond belief. Such things had happened before. But six months ago, armed forces, both mercenaries and Arlene regulars, had moved into Darthen and taken land on the east side of the Arlid. Though the Oath had not been sworn again by Arlen’s new rulers, that did not make it any less binding on them. In all the years since its first swearing at the completion of the Great Road, neither country had ever attacked the other. Herewiss was nervous; he felt as if lightning were overdue to strike.
    “Listen,” his father had said to him, leaning on the doorpost of Herewiss’s room three days before, “are you sure you don’t want some people to take with you?”
    “I’m sure.” Herewiss had been packing; he stood before his bookshelf, choosing the grimoires he would take with him. “Notice would be taken—there would be reprisals later. The situation would only get worse. And even with the biggest force we could muster, we wouldn’t have a third enough