He stretched a little, making an irritated face. 'Well, for whichever of the reasons they gave me, they've been right so far. I tried using various sorceries to condition the metal of a sword to the conduction of Flame — that was silly, the Power and the mundane sorceries are two entirely different disciplines. But I tried it. I tried swords of wood, and ivory, and horn, and bone, but those didn't work. I finally started forging my own swords and using my blood at various stages — melding it with the metal, tempering the sword with it, writing runes on the blade with it.'
'Nothing, though.'
'Well, not quite. Once, the business with the runes, that began to feel as if it would work — almost. Not quite, though. There was a stirring — something was starting to happen — but the sword still felt wrong. They all do. It could be they're right about the dichotomy between swords and life.'
'Maybe you need to know your Name,' Segnbora said.
Herewiss went stiff for a moment, feeling threatened by the subject. The matter of Names wasn't usually mentioned in casual conversation, and certainly not between two people who had just met. But Segnbora's tone was noncommittal, and her expression reserved. She shifted her eyes away as he looked at her. Herewiss relaxed a little.
'Maybe,' he said, looking away himself, his fingers playing idly with the empty scabbard. 'But I don't know how to find it. I mean, I'm not all that sure who I'm supposed to be. I have ideas — but it's like water in a sieve. I pour myself into them, into this role, or that identity, and they won't hold me. I'm a passable sorcerer—'
'A little more than passable.'
'Yes, well — but that's not what I want to be. Sorcery is an imposition on the environment, a forcing, a rape. The Power is a meshing, a cooperation, like love. You don't make it rain; you ask it to, and usually it will, if you ask it nicely. You know that. I have no desire to be just a very talented rapist, when I have the potential to be a lover, even a clumsy one. So. I'm all right as a warrior, but I don't have a sword; and I don't want to kill anyone anyway. I'm a good scholar, I know six dead Darthene dialects and four Arlene ones, I can read runes a thousand years old. But there's more to life than sitting around translating rotting manuscripts. I'm not much of a prince—'
Segnbora's eyebrows went up. 'My Goddess. You're that Hearn's son? I didn't make the connection — that's a fairly common name up north.'
Herewiss bowed slightly from the waist, smiling. 'The same.'
'And I thought my family was impressive. I'm sorry; please go on.'
'Well, there's not much to say about it, really. I don't know — I'm so many people, and no-one of them is all of me—'
Segnbora nodded. 'I know the problem.'
'There was a while when I was giving the problem a lot of thought: I said to myself, "Well, maybe the Power will follow if the Name is there." So I tried all the ways I could think of to find out. Fasting — yes, you know how that is -and a lot of time spent in meditation. Too much. Once I sat down and turned everything inward, everything, and what happened was that I got stuck inside and couldn't find my way out again. I rattled around in the dark and struck out at the walls, but they seemed to be mirrored -and I found myself thinking that if I hit the walls, I would hurt the inside of me — and there were voices in the dark, some of them seemed to belong to my parents, or to people I knew; some of them were kind, but some were ugly and twisted — I got out eventually, but I'll never go that way again. I might not be so lucky the next time.'
Segnbora stretched her arms over her head and let them drop to encircle her knees again. 'I heard it said once,' she said, so softly that Herewiss had to strain to hear her, '— oh, a long time back — that to find your Name, you have to turn the mind and heart, not inward, but outward rather; that you have to pay no attention to the voices in the dark -or, rather, accept them for what they are, but take their advice only when it pleases you, and don't allow yourself to be driven by them. Look always forward and outward, not back and in.'
'Nice,' Herewiss said. 'I understand that not at all. How can you get to know yourself by looking out? Who other than yourself can tell you what you are, or what you're going to be?'
'I don't know. I haven't found my Name, either. Maybe I never will.'
They sat there in depressed and companionable silence for a while. Then Herewiss looked up and grinned at Segnbora. 'Well,' he said. 'Maybe I can't command wind and wave, but I can do this much—'
He cupped his hands before him, and beside him Segnbora leaned close to watch. Herewiss closed his eyes, reached down inside him, found the flicker of Flame within him, breathed softly on the little light, encouraged it, cherished it, and then willed—
It flowered there in his outstretched hands, a tiny wavering bloomof fire that grew and bent in the wind of his wilclass="underline" as vividly blue as a little child's eyes, with a hot white core like a newsprung star, but gently warm in his hands—
It went out, and he folded his hands together and strove to thank the Power in him, rather than cursing at it for being so feeble. He looked at Segnbora. 'Can you?'
She smiled at him. 'Watch,' she said, and reached out before her as if to support something that Herewiss could not see, hanging in the air. It came before he was ready for it, sudden, brilliant, so bluely brilliant that it outraged his eyes and left dancing violet afterimages: a lightning flash, a starflower, a little sun, hanging in the air between her hands. For a moment there was an odd blue day in the desert, and everything had two shadows, sharp short black ones laid over long dull streaks of red-purple light and darkness. Then the light went out, and Segnbora let her hands fall. 'As you see,' she said, 'I can't maintain it. Maybe I can find work as a lighthouse beacon.'
Herewiss looked up at Dritt, who still sat on his rock, unconcerned, eating; he had spared them no more than a curious look. 'Do you do this often?' Herewiss said.
'Every now and then, in dark places. They've seen it before, they think it's an illusion-charm. None of them but Freelorn would know real wreaking from sorcery if it walked up and bit them; and Freelorn never says anything about it ... And speak of the Shadow, here he comes.'
They stood up, and Herewiss wobbled for a moment, the world darkening in front of him and then brightening as the dizziness passed. He made a mental note to be careful of the backlash for the next couple of days. Four forms on horseback were approaching slowly, and the horse in the lead had a young desert deer slung over its withers.
Herewiss stood there, his hands on his hips, and watched the figure in the saddle of the lead horse. Their eyes met while the riders were still a ways off, and Herewiss watched the smile spread over Freelorn's face, and felt his own grow to match it. The horse ambled along toward the camp, and Freelorn made no attempt to hurry it. An old memory spoke up in Freelorn's voice. 'I hate long goodbyes,' it said, looking over a cup of wine drained some years before, 'but I love long hellos . . .'
(Are you going to do it now?) Sunspark asked, with interest.
(Do what?)
(Unite.)
(Spark, don't ask questions like that! It's not polite.)
The group drew rein and dismounted, and Herewiss glanced at them only briefly. They all looked about the same as they had when he had last seen them. Lang, a great golden bear of a man, slid down out of his saddle like a sack of meal, grinned and winked at Herewiss, and then went over to hug Segnbora; when the hug broke, the two of them got busy starting a fire in the lee of the boulder. Tall, skinny, cold-eyed Moris with his beaky nose swung down from his horse, nodded to Herewiss and spoke a word of greeting; but his eyes were mostly for big Dritt, still up on the rock, and for him Moris's eyes warmed as he climbed up to sit beside him. Harald, a short round sparse-bearded man, staggered past with the deer over his shoulder. He waved a hand at Herewiss and hurried past him, puffing.