And then Freelorn — in love, suddenly, with Segnbora. Sharing, opening himself to her, letting himself give her his best. And a level down, sealed away from his own perception, anger, bitter anger at Herewiss, for being something other than what he was supposed to be. For daring to defy Freelorn's control, for daring to break the old patterns. And also anger at Segnbora — for daring to understand what he could not about Herewiss, for daring to put the needs of the Power above anything else, for supporting Herewiss against him. For dividing them, for coming between them. For being a threat. Freelorn would use her then; would assert the only control over the situation that was available to him. He would take Segnbora and use her; and when her fears (which he had sensed) made her begin to back away from him, he would be safe again. He would be hurt, and she would be hurt, but he would be blameless. And later on, when Herewiss came home, he would see what seemed to have happened, and would forgive Freelorn, and everything would once more be the way it had always been . . .
All this Herewiss saw and sensed, as he stood over them, watching the movements under the blankets, hearing the words of love spoken. He could not ward away what he had heard, or forget it. He had grown into the hearing, and now he could not grow out of it. He perceived Freelorn and Segnbora in all their tangled intricacy, knew the woven lights and darks of their selves; and backed away a little, afraid. He understood them both, in terrible completeness, but he could not forgive them.
I have been cheated. Cheated. Something has been stolen from me. I never wanted to see this, no-one should see this, not this way. Something's gone. Something's stolen. Something of mine—
Some nights after Herelaf had died, all that while ago, Herewiss had gone out into the Wood and had walked aimlessly through the cold night for a long, long time. After a while it had occurred to him that he was looking for something — something that had been taken from him, unfairly, while his back had been turned. His innocence? Or else he had been looking for somewhere to get rid of this new thing that had taken possession of him: his guilt. But Herelaf was gone, taken, stolen, his brother whom he loved. And instead of the love, only the deathguilt remained, as if some thieving night-creature had taken away the love between them and left this in its place. A shiny hollow glittery guilt, one that reflected chill accusing lights back at him when he examined it. For a long time he had let it stay there, feeling that it was better to have something in that echoing empty place, than nothing at all. But now he looked at the cold cheap gleam of it and began to be revolted ...
But I was cheated. How can I love him now, knowing this? And it was the drug that did it! And You, Goddess! My love, my caring, You stole them from me—
A pause. A long one. And a slow dawning realization.
My love? Mine? The way he thinks I belong to him, with no thought for my wishes in the matter? Goddess, I'm no better than he is! And Herelaf, then— Another pause. His fear rose suddenly up in him.
I could look, now. I have known whole worlds at once tonight, held all their thoughts at once. I could certainly know what makes me work.
With the very idea, he knew, just a little. There were two of him. Three. Nine. He multiplied suddenly, shattering in his inward vision into countless bright prisms, a frightening flurry of mixed motivations and swirling personality-pieces, dancing before his terrified observer-self like a snowfall set afire. They were all bits of him, and they were all hotly alive, and they were all arguing with each other. An impossible and confusing miasma of joys and fears and angers, they strove among themselves for dominance of him, the him that walked the world and acted as one being. He had never dreamed that there were so many of him, or that they were so at odds. Imposing control upon them seemed a ridiculous impossibility. And there were currents sweeping through the jeweled snow, winds of anger or hopelessness or pain, so that all his myriad selves were taken and moved by them -or did those selves make the winds to carry them where they wanted to go, and Herewiss with them, whether he wanted to go or not?
The one of him observing was horrified. How much of what happens to me do I make happen? Oh Goddess, I don't want to see any more!
There was a sudden consolidation. There were fewer of him now, but they sang together at him in tearing harmonies of challenge and promised pain. No? You could know yourself . You could dare—
No!
You could. More voices joining in the chorus, all his own, distracting discords blending with the purer notes of cold reason. And if you don't dare, you'll never find out the truth about the world. Who sees clearly through a cracked glass?
NO!! Coward.
He wanted to weep, and found that he could not. Maybe I'll dare later, he said.
Maybe, came the reply, some of the voices pacified, some skeptical. And then one high clear voice, still his own, but with a cutting edge that went through him like a sword, 'Maybe' means never, it sang in a minor key, and you know it. With 'maybe' you pronounce your own doom, and that of a thousand lives tangled with your own. A life of 'almost' is its own reward.
And then the masses dwindled away, and there was one of him again. He had never felt so lonely in his life.
First Herelaf gone.
Now Freelorn, abandoning him for the moment, intending to pick him up again later when he was more amenable, more willing to be what Freelorn wanted him to be. I'm not a loved to him. I'm a tool. I'm a symbol for something else. I'm something to use—
He wandered away slowly. He had come looking for joy. He had found only misery. Cheated—
Eventually he found himself back in the gray place again, isolated in the cold gray fog and glad to be that way. There he stayed for a while, sitting on the damp hard ground, letting his sorrows have free run through him, mourning his losses, sunk in his wounded self.
Unfortunately, he couldn't make it last. His own wry sense of humor began to betray him — there was no holding it in abeyance for long. Well, he thought, I was a god for a little while, and that was nice — and then I died a little from something my loved did to me. That's the way the pattern usually runs, isn't it? So now I should go be reborn, so that the circle can be closed, and all things start again. It's such a nuisance—
He laughed softly to himself, and the act destroyed the cold place around him, leaving him hanging free again amid the myriad brilliances of the stars. They look like my mind did, he thought, his heart slowly opening out to them, rejoicing in them — celebrating the stately passage of their bright-burning companies, the way they opened shining arms to the wide darkness, blown swirling in slow grandeur by winds he could not sense. But how calm, how serene. Is this what the Goddess's mind looks like, then?
He hung there for so short a time, it seemed. He had perceived all these families of stars at once, and all the lives upon their worlds, and the knowledge had been as nothing. Now he turned his mind outward and found something that he could not comprehend, though he could feel the currents of it stirring around him — the vast breath of a Life greater than all life, to which all that lived would eventually return. He strove to understand, pushing his mind outward again, and found to his bewildered joy that, no matter how hard he pushed, the Sharer of that greatest Life was always far ahead of him. Herewiss finally gave himself up to the joy, his heart taking him into regions where cold thought could not.
Much later he came back to some knowledge of himself, and sighed; feeling diminished, but not alone. It's good to know, he thought, that there's always something bigger than you are ...
He hesitated a moment longer, waist-deep in the stars, like a swimmer wondering whether to come out of a warm sea. Oh, well, he thought after a moment, Sunspark was right -I was awfully tired, I shouldn't stay out much longer; I could die of it. But I could take a little more time. I'll walk home.