before was very fresh. The fire in the firepit rose up too, putting several broad curves of flame over the edge and leaning anxiously out to see what was the mat-ter. As a fire elemental, Sunspark had not had much experi-ence with fear, but after last night it was apparently taking no chances.
Segnbora lifted a hand to her pounding head and found that she was holding her sword, Charriselm. Evidently she had drawn it while she was still half-sleeping. Beside her in the bedroll, blond Lang was still blanket-wrapped, but neverthe-less he had found his graceknife in a hurry. Lying propped on one elbow with the knife in one ham of a hand, he blinked at her like an anxious owl. A few feet away, big swarthy Dritt and lanky Moris were sitting up back to back, looking as panicked as Segnbora felt. On the other side of the firepit, Harald was attempting simultaneously to string his bow and brush the brown hair out of his eyes. All of these looked at Segnbora as if they thought she was crazy. "A bad dream?" Lang said.
She nodded, sliding Charriselm back into its sheath and looking across the room toward the firepit and the bedrolls laid down there.
Herewiss was sitting up, bracing himself with one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. He took the hand away from his face, and Segnbora was shocked to see his terrified expres-sion. Lorn was holding Herewiss tight and peering worriedly into his face. Under other circumstances it could have been a touching and humorous sight — the little, dark-mustachioed, fierce-eyed man comforting someone who, judged by his slim hard build and shoulder musculature, might have been the village blacksmith.
"Are you all right? What happened?" "It was a dream," Herewiss said, his voice anguished. "Shh, it's all right." "No, it's not." Herewiss rubbed his eyes again, then glanced around him with frightened determination. He started searching in the blankets for his clothes. "We've got to go." "What?"
"We have to hurry."
Herewiss grabbed one bunched-up blanket and impatiently shook it. A sword fell out and clattered to the floor — a hand-and-a-half broadsword of gray steel that would have seemed of ordinary make except for the odd blue sheen about it. He reached out for it, and at his touch his Power ran down the blade: blinding blue Fire, twisting and flurrying about as if in bright reflection of his distress.
"It was — there was — the mountain fell down, just like that. And there were thousands of Fyrd, and bigger monsters too — and a wave came down over everything, and Sunspark went out — " (I did not!)
"Loved, slow down so I can understand what the Dark you're talking about — "
"So much for a whole night's sleep," Lang muttered under his breath. Putting his knife away under the rolled-up cloak that was serving them as pillow, he lay down again. "Wake me up when they're finished?" "If necessary," Segnbora said, rubbing his shoulder ab-sently. The gesture was more for her comfort than for his. Her underhearing was wide awake, bringing her the hot coppery blood-taste of Herewiss's fright as if it were her own. Herewiss was talking fast. He had yanked a shirt out of the blankets and was struggling into it, while in his lap Khavrinen kept on blazing like a torch.
"It's angry as anything," he was saying. "And It's going to work the worst mischief It can, by putting pressure on the Royal Bindings that have been keeping It in check." He started feeling around for his britches. "For seven years no one's reinforced the Arlene half of those Bindings, and they're wearing thin—"
Freelorn glanced away from Herewiss. Segnbora put her hands behind her and leaned back, closing her eyes and brac-ing herself against
the gut-punch of grief and anger she knew would come from Lorn. When his father had died on the throne, and the Minister of the Exchequer, Cillmod, had taken the opportunity to seize power, Freelorn had fled for his life with a price on his head. Now Lorn would wonder again whether staying in Arlen to see to the bindings, and possibly getting killed as a result, might not have been the more noble course.
It was an old midnight pain that Segnbora had come to know as well as the arthritis in Harald's right knee, or Drill's self-consciousness about his weight. Indeed, no Precinct-trained sensitive could have helped underhearing her sur-roundings as Segnbora did. It was the gift she would have been happiest to lose when she gave up her studies. She had enough trouble dealing with her own pains. Those of others were an unwelcome burden.
"Lorn, enough," Herewiss said, catching Freelorn's an-guish himself. "The fact remains that if the Shadow leans Its full strength against the Bluepeak bindings, we're done for. The Kingdoms will founder. I saw the southern passes full of Reaver armies. And the plains full of Fyrd. There were storms and earthquakes, and where the earth opened a whole town fell in. And that cliff at Bluepeak—" Herewiss broke off. Freelorn, still holding him close, looked puzzled. "But it was just a dream!*'' "Oh no," Herewiss said, shaking his head emphalically. "I saw."
"He's dreaming true," Segnbora said quietly. Freelorn's frightened eyes flicked to her. "He's focused now," she said hurriedly. "It's to be ex-pected."
"What about the cliff?" Freelorn said to Herewiss. Herewiss closed his eyes and sagged back on his heels, looking tired. "It was snowing—"
"A month and a half before Midsummer's? You call that dreaming true?"
Segnbora held her face still as Herewiss saw again that image of Freelorn turning away from him, away from love and life toward death.
"Lorn," Herewiss said. "I was shown a lot of things. I don't know what they all meant. I don't think most of them have happened yet. But some of them will, unless they're prevented." He swallowed hard. "I have to assist in the pro-cess. I was given all this Power. Now it has to be used, fully, and I won't be able to to take my time about its mastery, either."
Freelorn looked askance at his loved, getting an idea and not liking it. "But what other way is there, but to work into your Power slowly?" "The Morrowfane, Lorn."
Freelorn looked grim. "I've done a little reading on the subject," he said.
It was a great understatement, for among the responsibili-ties of a throne prince of Arlen was the curatorship of rr'Virendir, the Arlene royal library, and that meant intimate knowledge of nearly every extant writing dealing with both mundane sorcery and more elevated matters of Power.
"All the sources say you can't go up there without coming down changed—"
(What's the problem with that?) Sunspark said from the firepit. The reaction was understandable; change was a fire elemental's chief delight. (Just yesterday Herewiss changed— quite a bit — and you didn't mind.)
Lorn glanced with annoyance at Sunspark, and the elemen-tal threw back a smug feeling. During the time Herewiss had spent in the Hold forging Kheivrinen, Sunspark had come to.
be his loved too. Lorn, not yet at peace with the situation, was still subject to occasional twinges of jealousy.
"I don't mean shapechanges," Lorn said with exaggerated patience. "Soul-changes. Great alterations in personality. Madness and other brands of sanity that human beings don't usually survive."
"The change needn't be harmful," Herewiss put in. "Re-member, the place is a great repository of Flame. All the legends agree on that. Those who climb the Fane are given what's needed to do what they must do in a life."