He reached a little sideways, found the world he was looking for, and stepped into it, passing out of the starstrewn night into a place of endless soft golden mists. Other people also moved through the fog, but they were only faintly perceived shadows going by. He could have conversed with them, but chose not to; he preferred them as silent company on the walk home, reassuring but unintrusive.
After a while the gray stone of the hold appeared through the haze. This surprised Herewiss a little, for he had expected to be able to find it only by feel — the place affected the worlds into which it reached, making a clearly perceptible bending in the stuff of space, something like the swirl-funnel that forms in stirred water. But the hold itself was manifesting here, and not merely the combined effect of its many doors.
It bulked clearer through the mist as Herewiss approached it. The stone was more silvery than gray, and it glittered and flashed softly with buried highlights, though there was nothing in the even golden mist to make it do so. And somehow the many odd angles and curves of its structure did not look as wrong here as they did in the 'real' world. There was a logic to them, a unity of construction and purpose that he had occasionally sensed, but never really seen. Even the hole left when Sunspark had destroyed the outer wall somehow entered the logic of the design and made sense; it was as if it had been a planned addition, which had been predicted and taken into account during the building of the place. And indeed, now that he concentrated on it, Herewiss could perceive changes that were to come later: a tower missing here, a wing added there, a whole section slated to unfold within the heart of the building, protruding partly into an adjoining world. All planned, all accounted for. The hold sang with inevitability like a great piece of music, and Herewiss stood there for a while and admired it for the work of art it was.
Finally he sighed a little, and walked through the gate and across the hall, heading for the stairs that would take him back up to the worktower and his waiting body. He looked through the doorways as he passed them, and was slightly amused to find that they showed only empty rooms, with windows looking out into the nighttime Waste. Of course, some of the rooms that could not have such views on the desert had them anyway, despite the fact that they should have looked down into the center court of the hold. Herewiss laughed softly; the place had a sense of humor that he appreciated. He trailed his hand along the wall as he went up the stairs, saying an affectionate hello, and the warm stone pushed back against his hand like a cat.
And here was the tower room at last, his tools and materials somewhat vague and hard to see on this plane, and his body sitting phantomlike in the chair, seemingly asleep—
—and standing close by it, as if guarding it—
—sweet Goddess, what was that?
To categorize it, to describe it, was to do it a disservice -that much he realized even as he tried to do so. Comparisons were unfair to it. It shook and burned with uniqueness, a hymn of piercing singularity; it was a poem wrought of glass and fire and the sudden taste of blood, an impossibility trying to become possible. Something that had never been, trying to be. Birth and death both happening at once in the middle of an existence, the pain and loneliness of both assaulting something that had invited them both willingly, though both were outside its experience—
(Sunspark?)
It turned and faced him. The comparison Herewiss had been trying to make suddenly made itself. He had perceived Freelorn and Segnbora in their totality, and himself partially, and had been amazed by the complexities he had found. Now he perceived Sunspark in its totality, for the first time. The experience at Madeil had been pallid and misleading compared to this.
Sunspark was a oneness. Not a tangle of warring motivations, not divided against itself. But one. A single, driving, driven force, an eternal constant, a being, an IS! And a tightly encapsulated one it had been, wound around and through itself, dwelling within itself completely, needing none other. Of course its kind had no need for love or companionship in any form. They were themselves, gloriously self-contained, solitary as stars. When they finally grew tired of themselves — to that extent the great Death could affect them — they found another in the same state and conjoined, united in an ecstasy of renewal, were lost in it forever and both reborn as new identities, a mix of parts of the two that formed them.
But Sunspark—
Sunspark had become unique.
Sunspark was changing. Daring to change. Trying to change.
It had managed to conceive of something totally outside of its needs. It had come to understand love, and it was daring to experience it, flying with doomed valor into the face of something that could only cause it infinite pain. But daring it nonetheless, for the sake of the dare, for the possibility of learning something new, of becoming something it had never been or known. Reaching out into the darkness outside of itself, as Herewiss had turned himself outward and sought to grow into the Universe. None of its kind had ever dared so. It knew as much, and trembled with fear even as it bent over Herewiss's stiff body and feared for him, loved him. It broke the laws that the Universe had set up for its kind; and it knew what it did, and it feared — but it loved—
Sunspark faced Herewiss, and perceived him. It feared him; feared that he would inflict pain upon it — pain, that amazing newness, all the more terrible for Sunspark's inexperience with it. The elemental's complete horror of pain rippled through its changing fires, plain to see.
Yet it welcomed him—
—and reached out to him—
—and dared to love him—
Herewiss stood there, torn, daunted, amazed, yet exalted by its courage—
(Sunspark—)
(Herewiss,) it said, and its use of his name was wound about with fire and gentleness both. (Thy body — it weakens.)
His emotions were burning through him now like fire themselves. (I was so lonely,) he said, (and I never knew -never understood that you were like this — the bravery -Sunspark, I'm sorry!)
It grew, its fires swelling, towering with love, terror, pain — (Oh my loved, don't be — don't be — just get back quickly before you die!)
The courage. The sheer daring. He was swept up, carried past his fear and through to the other side—
—he loved too—
(For this little while,) Herewiss said, exultant, euphoric — loving — (it can wait.)
He reached out. (Shall I dare less than you?) said Herewiss. Sunspark came to him.
(—embracing the heart of a star, and being embraced by it: part of that fire, lost in it, burning in non-ambivalent brilliance forever and forever; being and not-being, victory, surrender, death and birth lying in one another's arms at last, after long estrangement; the loneliness filled; the insatiable fires satisfied—)
In the morning, Sunspark learned how to cry, and Herewiss remembered how again.'Now indeed may it be seen,' said Earn, 'that our life's days are ended.' 'That were ill seen,' Healhra made answer. 'Wherefore,' said Earn, 'seeing that we shall meet again by the Shore of that Sea of which the Starlight is a faint intimation?' ''S truth,' said Healhra, 'my loved; yet though our Mother waiteth on that Shore, still here would I remain with thee. For life and breath are sweet. And also, She loveth not well those who let Life and Love, Her gifts, slip away through a grip made loose by resignation. Dearly She bought those gifts for us, and dearly shall the children of Night purchase them from me in turn. Well the Goddess loveth the driver of a hard bargain.'
9
Battle of Bluepeak, tr. Erard, ch. 16