Herewiss slipped warily into Sunspark's mind, confining himself to the narrow dark bridge that represented his control over it, a sword's-width of safety arching over unfathomed fires. (Sunspark. Go, take their tents, their wagons, everything, and burn them. I don't want us being followed.)
(And the men?) Its inward voice was no longer a thing of concepts, but of currents of heat and tangles of light.
(Don't kill!!)
It resisted him, testing, defying his control, and in his heart Herewiss shuddered. He had not really understood what a terror he had chosen to bind. Its fires ravened around him, barely constrained by its given word. Nothing more than its sense of honor kept him from being consumed, but at the same time it was not above trying to frighten him into releasing it. And it did not understand his scruples at all. (What is death?) it sang, its up- leaping fires dancing and weaving through the timbre of its thought. (Why do you fear? They would come back. So would you. The dance goes on forever, and the fire—)
(Maybe for you. But they have no such assurances, and as for me, you know my reasons. Go do what I told you.)
It laughed at him, mocking his uncertainty, and the flames of its self wreathed up around Herewiss, licking, testing, prying at the cracks in his mind. It was without malice, he realized; it was only trying to make him understand, trying to make him one with it, though that oneness would destroy him. He held his barriers steadfastly, though in some deep part of him there was a touch of longing to be part of that fire, lost in it, burning in non-ambivalent brilliance for one bare second before he was no more. The greater part of him, though, respected death too much, and refused the urge.
(Go,) he said again, and withdrew himself. Sunspark gathered itself up, leaped, streamed across the sky like a meteor, a trail of fire cracking behind it and lighting the lowering clouds as if with a sudden disastrous dawn. The men before the keep, frozen in their silent regard of the Lion, saw Sunspark coming and knew it for something perhaps more real than they were. The few minds still bright with disbelief bent awry and went dark as if blown out by a cold wind. Herewiss, though shaken, turned his thought back to his sorcery, and as Sunspark swept down among the tents of the soldiers, the Lion roared, a sound that seemed to shake the earth clear back to where Herewiss sat.
It was too much. The army broke, scattering this way and that in wild disorder, screaming. Sunspark flitted from place to place in the first camp, the one on the eastern side, leaving explosions of white fire behind it. The flames spread with unnatural speed, leaping from tent to wagon as if of their own volition. Herewiss opened a door in the encircling cloud, parting it to the northward, and people began to flee through it. Sunspark saw this and hurried the process. It dove into the southern camp like a meteor and ignited it all at once into a terrible pillar of flame, driving the stampeding army around the west side of the keep and toward the opening in the cloudwall. They fled, officers and men together, with their screaming horses. Sunspark came behind them, though not too closely, spitting gledes and rockets of fire with joyous abandon.
Herewiss sighed and dissolved his remaining illusions, the Lion last of all. The great white head turned to regard him solemnly for a moment. Herewiss gazed back at it, seeing his own weary satisfaction mirrored in the golden eyes, himself looking at himself through his sorcery; then he withdrew his power from it with a sad smile. The image went out like a blown candle, but Herewiss imagined that those eyes lingered on him for a moment even after they were gone . . .
He shook his head to clear it. The backlash was getting him already.
(Sunspark?)
It paused and looked back at him, a tiny intense core of light far down in the field.
(Are they all out?)
(Nearly.)
(Good. Look, the keep door is opening — it's all fire there, go and part it for Lorn and his people and bring them through.)
(As you say.)
Slowly, hesitantly, six faintly glowing figures rode out of the keep and paused before the flaming eastern camp. The bright blaze that was Sunspark joined them there, and they all headed toward the fire, which ebbed suddenly.
The Othersight departed without warning, in the space of a breath. The sorcery dwindled and died away, the wall of cloud evaporated, emotion dissipating before the wind of relief. Herewiss sagged, feeling empty and drained. The fragile spell-structure swayed and fell and shattered inside him, the bright crystalline fragments littering the floor of his mind, sharp splinters of light hurting the backs of his eyes. Backlash. He put his hands behind him and braced himself against the ground, fighting the backlash off. There was one more thing he had to do.
The pain in his head was like hammers on anvils — he laughed at the thought, and found that it hurt to laugh, so he stopped — but he held himself awake and aware by main force, waiting. It was hard. Presently there were hands on him, helping him up. Herewiss opened his eyes and knew the face that bent over him, even in a night of impending storm and no stars.
'Lorn,' he whispered, reaching out, clinging to him.
'Herewiss. Oh Goddess. Are you all right?' The voice was terrified.
'Yes. No. Get me up, Lorn, I have something to do. When I finish, tie me on Sunspark here—'
'Fine. Up, then, do it, you've got to rest.' 'You're telling me. Where's Sunspark?'
'The horse, he means. Dritt, give me a hand. Segnbora, help us—'
'Right.' A new voice. Female. Where did she come from? Oh — the sixth one . . . Strong hands stood him up, guided him to Sunspark.
He put out his hands, braced himself against the stallion's shoulder. 'N'stai llan astrev—', he began, spilling out the simple water-deflecting spell as fast as he could, for the darkness was reaching up to take him—
He finished it, and sagged back into the supporting arms. 'East,' he said, but his voice didn't seem to be working properly, and he had to push the words out again harder,'—straight east—'
Darkness deeper than the stormy night enfolded him, and as he drowned beneath the black sea roaring in his ears, he felt the rain begin.
5
Silence is the door between Love and Fear; and on Fear's side, there is no latch.
Sunset was glowing behind his back when Herewiss woke up. He opened his eyes on a wide barren vista of earth and scattered brush, streaked with crimson light and long shadows. He stretched, and found that he ached all over. It wasn't all backlash; some of it was the pain of having been tied in the saddle and taken a great distance at speed.
'Good evening,' someone said to him.
He didn't recognize the voice, a deep, gentle one. Then as he turned his head, the memories snapped back into place. The new person, the woman. This must be her.
Looking up at her, Herewiss's first impression was of large, deep- set hazel eyes that lingered on him in leisurely appraisal, and didn't shift away when he returned the glance. And hands: long, strong-fingered hands, prominently veined, incongruously attached to little fragile bird-boned wrists and too-slender arms. She was very slim and long-limbed, wearing with faint unease a body that didn't seem to have finished adolescence yet. But her muscles looked taut and hard from assiduous training. She sat cross-legged on the ground by Herewiss's head, those strong hands resting quietly on her knees, seemingly relaxed. But his underhearing, hypersensitive from the large sorcery he had worked, gave him an immediate feeling of impatience, an impression that beneath the imposed external calm seethed something that had to be done and couldn't. Her dark hair was cut just above the shoulders; Herewiss looked at it and smiled. She wants to make sure they know she's a woman, he thought, but she doesn't have the patience for braids . . .