The Door into Shadow Read Free

one of the first things that happens…”
    “ What about the cliff?” Freelorn said to Herewiss.
    Herewiss closed his eyes and sagged back on his heels, looking tired. “It was snowing—”
    “ A month and a half before Midsummer’s? You call that dreaming true?”
    With a great effort Segnbora held her face still as Herewiss saw again that image of Freelorn turning away from him, away from love and life toward death. “Lorn,” Herewiss said. “I was shown a lot of things. I don’t know what they all meant. I don’t think most of them have happened yet. But some of them will, unless they’re prevented.” He swallowed hard. “I have to assist in the process. I was given all this Power. Now it has to be used, fully, and I won’t be able to take my time about its mastery, either.”
    Freelorn looked askance at his loved, getting an idea and not liking it. “But what other way is there, but to work into your Power slowly?”
    “ The Morrowfane, Lorn.”
    Freelorn looked grim. “I’ve read a little about that,” he said, and this was likely a great understatement, for among the responsibilities of a throne prince of Arlen was the curatorship of rr’Virendir, the Arlene royal library, which dwelt at length on such subjects. “Everything I’ve seen suggests you can’t go up there without coming down changed—”
    (What’s the problem with that?) Sunspark said from the firepit. The reaction was understandable; change was a fire elemental’s chief delight. (Just yesterday Herewiss changed—quite a bit—and you didn’t mind.)
    Lorn glanced with annoyance at Sunspark as the elemental radiated smugness at him. Freelorn’s discovery that Sunspark had also come to be a loved of Herewiss’s during the time spent forging Khávrinen had left him with reactions that were complex, and far from settled.
    “ I don’t mean shapechanges,” Lorn said with exaggerated patience. “Soul-changes. Great alterations in personality. Madness, or types of sanity that human beings don’t usually survive.”
    “ The change needn’t be harmful,” Herewiss put in. “Remember, the place is a great repository of Flame. All the legends agree on that. Those who climb the Fane are given what’s needed to do what they must do in a life.”
    “ Then why do so few people go up it?”
    “ For one thing, you need focused Fire, and enough of it to keep the Power of the place from blasting you,” Herewiss explained. “For another, so few people want what they need. . . . Lorn, listen. This is necessary. It’s part of getting you back on your throne. If we don’t get to Bluepeak by Midyear’s Eve, so that you can aid in restoring the bindings, there won’t be a country left for you to rule.”
    “ But I was never Initiated into the Mysteries. If I had been, we wouldn’t have these problems—I’d be King, and that slimy bastard Cillmod would be out looking for other employment.”
    “ True, but you know the royal rites, don’t you? You have to do it.”
    “ Who says?”
    “ Who do you think?” Herewiss said, very gently. “When you dream true, Who do you think sends the dream?”
    Lorn held very still, and most of the fierceness faded out of his eyes. “There’s another problem. You know the money I removed from the Arlene treasury in Osta? Well, Bluepeak’s in Arlen too. Cillmod’s probably annoyed about that missing money, and if we go back to Arlen so soon, and he finds out about it… ”
    Herewiss said nothing.
    After a moment or two, Freelorn shrugged. “Oh, what the Dark! If the Reavers and the Shadow are going to come down on Arlen, Cillmod hardly matters. I suppose I have no choice anyway. I swore that damn Oath when I was little. ‘Darthen’s House and Arlen’s Hall—’”
    “‘— share their feast and share their fall,’” Herewiss finished. “If Arlen goes, so does Darthen. And after them Steldin, North Arlen, the Brightwood…”
    Freelorn laughed, but without merriment. “Why am I even