The Door Into Fire

Then she was up in the saddle and away, pelting off after the others, leaving nothing behind but a small cloud of dust and a brief taste of warmth.

Herewiss watched her go, then turned back. The hold swallowed him like a mouth.

8

It is perhaps one of life's more interesting ironies that, of the many who beseech the Goddess to send them love, so few will accept it when it comes, because it has come in what they consider the wrong shape, or the wrong size, or at the wrong time. Against our prejudices, even the Goddess strives in vain.

Hamartics, S'Berenh, ch. 6

'Sunspark?'

(?)

'What do you make of this?' (Just a moment.)

Herewiss sat cross-legged before one of the doors, making notes with a stylus on a tablet of wax. Through the door was visible an unbroken vista of golden-green hills, reaching away into unguessable distances and met at the mist-veiled horizon by a violet sky. The brilliant sun that hung over the landscape etched Herewiss's shadow sharply behind him, and struck gray glitters from the wall against which he leaned.

Sunspark padded over to him in the shape of a golden North Arlene hunting cat, the kind kept to course wild pig and the smaller Fyrd varieties on the moor. It peered through the door, its tail twitching (Grass. So?)

'That's not the point. I've been by this door five times today, and the sun hasn't moved.'

(It could be a slow one. You remember that one yesterday that went by so fast, three or four times an hour. There's no reason this one couldn't be slow.)

'Yes, but there's something else wrong. That grass is bent as if there's wind blowing, but none of it moves.'

(That might just be the way it grows. There are a lot of strange things in the worlds, Herewiss—) It stepped closer to the door. (Then again — Look high in the doorway. Is there something in the sky there?) It craned its neck. (By the top of the left post.)

Herewiss squinted. 'Hard to tell, with the sun so close -no, wait a moment. Does that have wings?'

(I think so. And it's just hanging there, frozen.) Sunspark shrugged. (That could be your answer. This door may be frozen on one moment — or if it's not, it's moving that moment so slowly that we can't perceive it.)

Herewiss put down the tablet of wax in its wooden frame, and stretched. 'Well, that's something new. What was that one you were looking at?'

(Nothing but empty sea, with four suns, all small and red. They were clustered close together, not spaced apart as most of them have been when they're multiple. And there was something around them, a cloud, that moved with them and glowed. The cloud was all of thin filaments, as if they had spun a web around themselves.)

'So . . .' Herewiss picked up the tablet again. 'That's the nineteenth one with more than one sun, and the eighty-ninth one with water. More than half of these doors have shown lakes or seas or rivers. Who knows ... the Morrowfane itself might be through one of these doors. Did you see any people?'

(No.)

'No surprise there . . . people have been much in the minority so far. Maybe whoever built this place was more interested in other places than other people.'

(What you would call people, anyway.) Sunspark chuckled inside. (Would you call me 'people'?)

Herewiss looked at the elemental. Its cat-face was inscrutable, but his underhearing gave him a sudden impression of hopefulness, wistfulness. 'I think so,' he said. 'You're good company, whatever.'

(Well, 'company' is something I have not had much practice being. There is usually no need for it—) 'Among your kind, maybe. We need it a lot.'

(It is the way your folk were built. It seems strange, to want another's company before it comes time for renewal, for the final union.)

'It has its advantages.'

(In the binding of energies, yes—)

'More than that. There's more than binding. Sharing.'

(I have trouble with that word. Giving away energy willingly, is it?)

'Yes.'

(It seems mad.)

'Sometimes, yes. But you usually get it back.' (Such a gamble.)

'Yes,' Herewiss said, 'it is that.'

(What happens when you don't get it back?)

'Then you've lost energy, obviously. It hurts a little.'

(It should hurt more than a little. Your own substance is riven from you; part of your self —)

'Depends how much of yourself you give away. Most of the time, it's nothing fatal.'

(Well, how could it be?)

'It happens, among our kind. People have given too much, and died of it; but mostly because they convinced themselves that they were going to. In the end it's their own decision.'

(Mad, completely mad. The contract-conflict is safer, I think.)

'Probably. But it doesn't pay off the way sharing does when it turns out right.'

(I don't understand.)

'It's the dare. The gamble, taking the chance. When sharing comes back, it's — an elevation. It makes you want to do it again—'

(—and if it fails the next time, you'll feel worse. A madness.) It shrugged. (Well, there are patterns within the Pattern, and no way to understand them all. How many doors have we counted now?)

Herewiss looked at the tablet. A hundred and fifty-six. Five of the lower halls and half this upper hall. Then there's that east gallery, and the hallways leading from it—'

Sunspark's tone of thought was uneasy. (You know, there is no way that all these rooms could possibly be contained within this structure as we beheld it from outside. There's no room, it's just too small.)

'Yes, I know — but they're all here. What about that row of rooms between the great hall downstairs and the back wall? They couldn't have been there, either. Of course it was all right; after a few days they weren't. Four doors went missing from this hall alone earlier this week, but here they are again—'

(The next one along was one of the ones that vanished. Let's see what it looks like now.)

Herewiss got up, and they walked together down to the next doorway. It showed them nighttime in a valley embraced by high hills; behind the hills was a golden glow like the onset of some immense Moonrise. The valley floor was patterned with brilliant lights of all colors, laid out in an orderly fashion like a gridwork. Down from the gemmed heights wound a river of white fire, pouring itself blazing down the hillsides into the softly hazed splendor of the valley's floor. There were no stars.

(Now those may be people,) Sunspark said after a moment, (but not my kind, or yours, I dare say. What do you say to a white light?)

'I don't know. What do you say to a horse, or a pillar of fire?' Herewiss grinned a little, and made a note on his tablet. 'This next one was gone too. Let's look—'

They moved a few steps farther down the hall, and stopped. The door showed them nothing. Nothing at all.

'Sweet Goddess, it came back,' Herewiss said. 'I was wondering what this one might be, and I had a thought — it could be a door that was never set to show anything before the builders left. An unused blank. It appears and disappears like all the other doors in the place, but it doesn't show anything.'

(I don't know.) Sunspark looked at the door dubiously. (It gives me a funny feeling)

'Well, let's see.'

Herewiss blanked everything out, slowed his breathing, and strained his underhearing toward the door, past the door— —strained—

'Nothing,' he said, and opened his eyes again. 'Can't get into it the way I can some of the others. Spark, would you do a favor and get my grimoire for me? The one with the sealed pages.'

(You're going to try to open this now?)

'Is there a better time? I had a good night's sleep. I ate a big breakfast. Let's try.'