The Door into Sunset Read Free Page A

terrible joke was being smothered, and then went back to searching. “Under that tunic, the white one,” Lorn said.
    Herewiss straightened up, clutching a nightrobe around him. The free hand held Khávrinen. Superficially the sword looked like just another hand-and-a-half broadsword, obviously amateur work though of good material... gray steel with an odd blue sheen. But in the hand of the man who had forged it in terror and blue Fire and his own blood, it blazed—the blade burning inwardly like iron at white heat in the forge, while blue Flame wrapped up and down the length of the sword from point to hilt, about the hand that gripped it and the arm that wielded it. Right now that Fire licked and wreathed leisurely as weed in water, mirroring Herewiss’s calm state of mind. But Freelorn had seen it when Herewiss was angry, or exerting himself. Then lightning came to mind, young gods wielding thunderbolts against the powers of darkness, defeating them—or being defeated. Freelorn swallowed, thinking again of the impossible becoming possible. It had been a close business, yesterday. The Shadow, the darkness cast sideways from the Goddess’s light, was surely annoyed with them all... and especially with this bit of flesh and blood that leaned Khávrinen safe against the wall, and yawned and rubbed his eyes.
    “Come on,” Herewiss said. “The Queen may have to fast, but we don’t. Are you going to lie there all day?”
    Freelorn got up, put a robe on and went out after his loved.
    They went down the hall together and found even the palace living quarters unusually noisy. Children, the princes and princesses indistinguishable from the many other children of the household, were running in all directions, squealing, chasing pets, chasing one another; harried-looking chamberlains were chasing some of the children with clothes, or carrying bundles, messages, laundry. At the corner of their own hall, where it turned right, there were several children, all dressed in hose and buskins and tunics of dark-blue linen, clustered together and staring around the corner at something. Freelorn looked at Herewiss. Herewiss shrugged, sneaked up behind the children, and peered around the corner with them. Lorn followed suit.
    Down at the end of the hall was this floor’s bathroom, and no one was waiting to use it... most likely because of the darkness lingering like a fog around the hallway’s end, half-hiding the bathroom door in a tangle of shadows that smelled of hot stone or metal. Looking straight at the darkness, one saw nothing; but avert the eyes slightly, and in the shadows something moved and glittered smokily, massive and indistinct.
    One of the children, perhaps six years old, pert-faced and blond, looked up at Herewiss and Freelorn with an expression half annoyance and half great interest. “What’s that?” he said.
    Herewiss shook his head. “Nothing... just magic.” He looked down, noting the shade of the child’s hair, and the White Eagle stitched small above the heart of the midnight-blue tunic. “One of your royal mother’s relatives. We’ll get her out of there. Shouldn’t you be having breakfast?”
    “I have to go first.”
    “You want to get in there and play with the plumbing,” Herewiss said. “If you have to go, prince, then use the privy. The other way. Hurry up or you’ll wind up standing behind all the tall people and not see any of the Hammering.”
    The prince groaned loudly, and looked over at Freelorn in a bid for sympathy, but Lorn shook his head. Sighing, the princeling went off with his two friends.
    “Some things never change,” Lorn said.
    “Seems that way. Come on.”
    They headed for the bathroom. From inside the door, as they approached it, came sounds of singing; a single strong contralto, nasal but true, and surrounding it, a chorus of approximately fifty voices from highest soprano to profoundest bass. Freelorn recognized the tune as a Darthene drinking song, but the words were