She made a lot of love, Lorn thought, struggling somewhat, to ask Her creation to give it up, business or not. He was struggling now, for there was no part of his relationship with Herewiss that meant more to him: the breaking down of the physical barriers, the Other who took you out of yourself again and again, made your gut turn with astonishment and joy that he should care about you at all, you being what you were. Would you lose all that, forever, no matter what She seems to be offering in return? And it’s not much, really. She took your mother, and left your father bearing the burden, and gave him nothing in return but his own death, too soon. Why commit yourself to service with Her when it means such loss and no gain? Even did Herewiss stay with you, as King you will have less and less time for him. Finally he will grow tired and fall away from you, finding another. Indeed, there’s another already, and despite their protestations, you suspect the truth—
He shook his head at that, but his traitor body had its own ideas, and already the tears were creeping down. Sorrow and self-pity washed through him. But without Her, where would our love be? Where did it come from in the first place? That sense of having been “made” for another—was it, then, untrue? And if it was true, didn’t she have first call on the Lovers?
That was where the trouble originally started, of course....
You do come first, he said to Her. It seems hard. But the gift has to be returned, eventually.... .
Something in Freelorn raged and screamed at the feeling of him giving in, and insisted that only weaklings let Her into their loves, or bothered remembering Her at all. It was Her fault to start with that love could not last forever, must die. Take what you can, and while you can: let Her wait! --
Freelorn wiped his eyes, and slowly, with difficulty, put aside the hand that was holding his.
There was silence, and no change in the darkness around him. But Herewiss’s voice was gone. Lost! screamed the guest he had been hearing in his own thoughts. Freelorn laughed once, just a breath of sound, and wiped his eyes again. He thought of the play in the square at Hasmë, no different from this, really—no surprise, since the story was the same. You wrestled with Demon-Doubt, always losing, but continuing the match nevertheless—
He breathed out and took a step or so forward. Still no sound, no light, and no reason to expect either. At least the floor was smooth. How did Cillmod manage to find the Regalia in here? he thought. There has to be a place where they were kept. And if there’s such, then perhaps Hergótha—
—and he stopped stock-still as from behind he heard the breathing, the wet chesty sound of it. Freelorn knew what was behind him—the pale white shape that had been chasing him through his dreams for all these months. But it was here now, and no dream; and there was nowhere for him to run, except out the door—which would be his death. Though if I—
Outraged at himself, he discarded the half-formed thought, turned, and grabbed the thing right about its thick throat.
Instantly it seized on him and hugged him close with those awful, flabby-soft arms, pulling his face into the rough hair of its chest. The stink of it was terrible, and he could feel venom burning against his face. But Lorn thought to himself, Let’s see how you like this. He pushed, and pushed, wondering if he might run it into a wall... though that seemed unlikely: Lionhall seemed half the city wide, once you were inside it. But he didn’t need a wall. The stone under his feet was enough. Not just the sense of it, this time, he said to the stone. The reality. Make it happen!
Nothing happened. The arms around him were pressing him more tightly into that huge chest: it was getting hard to breathe.
Come on. Now or never—
Out of the darkness, it began to rain. Softly at first: then harder, pattering on the floor, spattering so that he could feel it on his legs: and harder still, so that it came down hard, drumming on his head. The pressure did not let up. More, he thought, come on, I need more than that --
The rain backed down, as if the shower were pausing for breath. Then came the real downpour, one of those late-summer storms that beats the air down from around you, a storm that would look like steel rods coming down if it could be seen. There was no seeing it, but it beat on Lorn’s head and body like whips, and the wind rose behind it, pushing the way he pushed. The pressure on his chest began to lessen slightly. He gasped for breath, and kept pushing. The thing’s throat was too thick for him to choke it by hand, but from the wheezing noises it was making, he was succeeding by other means. Harder, he said to the land. Just a bit more—
—and though he staggered with the pain of the water coming down, really feeling like metal rods beating him now, he kept pushing. Let’s see how you like it now, you misery. All this while you’ve chased me. Now see what you’ve caught— The grip on him was relaxing. He finally managed to push his head away from the thing’s body, arched his back against it: the rain slammed down into his face, hammering on his eyeballs as he squeezed his eyes shut. Now, Lorn said. Right in front of me. Don’t miss.
The lightning struck. He felt it through his own body first, as if it had to pass through him to get where it was going. Probably it did. It held him in an awful searing rigor, then passed, leaving him staggering. But what it struck went flailing away in a great thrashing of limbs, and there was a flat wet sound as its huge head crashed into the stone floor.
Lorn swallowed, for by the lightning, for the first time, he saw it. White. Four legs: and a long tail: and a mane, longer than on the tan Darthene lions, the ones that run in prides --
Darkness fell again. Freelorn stood there gasping in the rain, then said to it, Let up, please— It did, as suddenly as those summer thunderstorms will: a sort of sigh of wind, and then silence, and faint dripping noises.
The form that lay on the floor before him was becoming apparent. It was bigger than the thing that had held him: much bigger—ten times the size at least, towering over him. The shape grew more distinct as it got slowly to its feet and shook itself. Not to say it glowed: nothing so mundane—but it was bright as sun on snow, and it was there, the first thing that had truly been there since Freelorn came in, he suspected. He stood there, panting and dripping, and gazed up at the White Lion.
“It was You, in the dreams,” he said softly. “It was always You....”
The Lion gazed down at Freelorn with the original of the expression His statue wore: but this look was lively with additional meaning that the sculptor had not anticipated—in particular, at the moment, amusement. “I have wrestled with many a one of My children over the years,” He said, wry, “but none of them ever made it rain indoors.”
“After things quiet down,” Lorn said, unable to look away from those eyes, “I’ll come back with a mop.”
The Lion smiled, showing His teeth. “A long time I sought you,” He said. “You have taken longer to come to grips with than most. Has it been worth it?”
“Ask me again in a week,” Lorn said. “But meantime, You might have tried looking like something other than the personification of the plague!”
“I take no responsibility for your perceptions,” the Lion said. “You see to them if you don’t like them. But you see there are few images that fear won’t distort, no matter how powerful the original.”
“But I’m not afraid of You—”
“Of Me? Probably not, My son. But of what I represent—the price to be paid.... As I said, that’s been your problem to deal with. It’s not My affair.” The Lion stretched and flexed His claws. “When we last spoke,” He said, “you were asking for miracles. None this time?”
Freelorn wiped water out of his face, and shook his head hard, like a wet dog, to stop the dripping down the back of his neck. “No, sir.”
“That’s as well,” the Lion said. “So tell Me: what have you come for?”
“My Initiation,” Freelorn said.
“Most of that you have, as you’ve guessed. You passed through much of it, or what comprises it in your particular case, on the way here. Most do. The rest of it lie
s in being willing to attempt the fatal unknown, and accept that uncertainty, and power, into your life. Lionhall is the end of Initiation, not the beginning. All the same, no one ever comes here just for Initiation’s sake.” The Lion finished his stretching and lay down on the floor, sprawling comfortably and somehow managing not to get wet as He did so. “There are always other issues.”
Freelorn considered that, while noticing that the Lion’s head was still slightly above his own, even lying down. “I had other matters to settle,” he said. “Most of them—” He shrugged. “They’re broached, at least: they’ll settle themselves later... if I survive the next few days. Besides that, I want nothing more than Hergótha.”
“And if it is not forthcoming?”
“I could make it rain again.” Freelorn smiled again. It was not a purely joyful smile, but not exactly a sad one, either. “I know You’re the fount of the power of this place. But it seems I have some share in that power myself. It took me a long time to find it, and since I’m in a bit of a hurry, I don’t mind exerting it.”
The Lion looked at him, cool-eyed, and gave Lorn his own smile back. “I am only a legend,” He said. “What power I have these days lies in what I was, and now am, given to work with. She gave Me much, of course; and what I was given, I pass on. Don’t mistake Me for more than I am. But it seems you’ve gotten over that particular misapprehension.” And the expression was approving. “It’s just as well. Besides being a barrier to other achievements, well, She desires love rather than mere worship; and as Her Lover—or one of Them—Her desires are Mine.”
“Father,” Freelorn said, “where is Hergótha?”
“In here,” said the Lion: and His voice abruptly sounded rather like Ferrant’s. “Where I left it.”
“But Cillmod was in here, some time ago, and didn’t find it—”
The Lion blinked at him, a somber look. “He didn’t make it rain on Me, either,” He said. “I have little to say about his affairs, though. He was not Initiate. Was there anything else? For you said you were in a hurry.”
Freelorn thought of Herewiss, out there in the front, wondering whether he himself was alive or dead. “Nothing else, Father,” he said, “except possibly Your blessing.”
The solemn eyes gazed at him. “What I have from Her,” He said, “I pass to you. Go do the job to which She has called you. That was all I did.”
The Lion glanced over into the corner of the room. Lorn followed His glance, and saw a plain marble table there, with something long and slender lying on it: a scabbard. His heart leapt as he went over to the table, and reached out to the scabbard, lifted it up. It seemed smaller than he remembered. But there was the great golden hilt, with the mantichore sapphire in the pommel, though there was still no light to bring out the blood-red glint in it. Lorn hefted the scabbard in his hands, looked over his shoulder to speak to the Lion: but found all dark again, and the Lion gone.
“Hergótha,” he whispered. He gripped it in triumph, and turned to go.
He was halfway back to the door, he thought, when from behind him something hard whipped around in front of his neck and cut off his air. A stick of some kind, pulled back tight by two shaking hands.
“Who were you talking to?” came the voice from behind him—choked with rage and hopelessness, and old tears. “Who do you think you were talking to?!”
“You know,” Freelorn said. There was only one person to whom that voice could belong. Choking again, he took hold of the stick one-handed, having had enough of this sort of thing for one day: found his balance, bent over forwards, and pitched Cillmod right over his head and (he thought) halfway across the room. The stick went clattering away.
“You know perfectly well,” Lorn said, standing there and breathing hard. “My Father. Not yours. You couldn’t even hear Him.”
The wash of pity hit him. How must it feel for this man? —to have held a difficult sort of almost-kingship for seven years, and then to know he was about to lose even that? To know that the Force he most desired to recognize him in the world was invisible, inaudible to him? But Lorn frowned and put the thought away. This was his old enemy—
A body caromed into him. Lorn kicked out, slammed Hergótha, still sheathed, into Cillmod as he passed. He heard the man crash to the floor. Then the sword was yanked downward, hard, and Lorn went down with it rather than let it out of his hands. Other hands fastened on his, wrestled with Lorn for control of Hergótha. Freelorn pulled one of them off the sword, found the other, and forced Hergótha down again, hard, across the other’s throat. There was a choking noise.
Now then, Freelorn thought, in bitter satisfaction. Finish this disagreement between us once and for all.
Beneath him, Cillmod gagged and struggled for air. Freelorn felt the straining hands joined with his, clutching, pushing at them, and and found himself wondering just who he was strangling....
A poor way to start a kingship, he thought. With a murder. For this would be nothing else.
He would do the same for me, though. Look what he was trying! The hands trying to push Hergótha away from Cillmod’s throat were weakening, and Freelorn could feel their sweat, their trembling. A little more pressure would do the job. Save everyone time and trouble. Give the army an excuse to stop fighting right away—because what mercenary will bother fighting after the paymaster’s been killed? Three-quarters of the opposition’s strength stripped away in one stroke. And you couldn’t even say that blood had been shed in Lionhall, since there wouldn’t have been any—
Freelorn gulped. All the excuses sounded plausible. He thought of the Goddess’s Lovers, Her sons, two brothers, into Whose love the great Death entered—at each other’s throats, wrestling for dominance: and the Shadow that fell over the winner.
“Father,” he whispered, “what do I do?”
No answer came back. But his own mind said to him, You had better stop this, before someone wins.
Freelorn grimaced, and let up, pulling Hergótha out of Cillmod’s hands and standing up again. As he backed away a few steps, he put his foot on something round that rolled: the stick Cillmod had been using to choke him with. Freelorn bent and picked it up... and drew in breath as he recognized the feel of it in his hand, and the metal filigree—silver, he knew—all up and down the shaft.
“I don’t think any ruler of Arlen has ever used the White Stave as a weapon,” he said, his voice shaking, but still fairly conversational, “and I don’t plan to start. What you do, of course, is your own business. What were you doing here?”
There was a shuffling on the floor, and a choking noise. “Seeking my Initiation,” said Cillmod.
“You will not find it,” Freelorn said. “There is an Initiate.” And somewhat to Lorn’s horror, the triumph that he felt at finally being able to say the words was alloyed with pity for the man.
“I thought,” Cillmod said, “that if there were an Initiate, the armies wouldn’t fight: there would be no reason. If this could be stopped—” He coughed. “But now it can’t. Initiate you may be, but they still won’t accept you as King.”
Freelorn stood quiet in the dark for a moment. “As regards that,” he said, “we’ll have to see. But in the meantime—” He guessed at direction, from that last cough, and threw the Stave gently toward where he thought Cillmod was. It clattered on the stone. Then Hergótha scraped as he drew it from the scabbard. Freelorn heard Cillmod’s gasp of fear, and was well satisfied with it, and was instantly ashamed of the satisfaction. “You have nothing to fear from me,” he said, “at least, not right this minute. But the battlefield is another matter. If you live through the battles, come see me when I’m King, and we’ll resolve what to do with that. If I haven’t already taken it from you.”
He turned and headed for the door.
*
Herewiss sat with his back to the pedestal of the Lion’s statue, trying to avoid listening to the cries outside. He leaned his head back against the stone. It was an hour past midnight: five hours, at least, si
nce Freelorn went into Lionhall. All that time his heart had been hammering terror in his ears, and Herewiss had been trying to ignore it. Now, though, he had found the measure of his own bravery, and it was bitter to him. They had killed four of of the sorcerers outside now, and Herewiss doubted that any more would be wasted; they would be wanted for the battle. He had been efficient in dealing with them, but there was no satisfaction in it, for they didn’t really frighten him, didn’t really matter. What mattered was that—
—door, he thought, stricken, as he saw it open.
Lorn came out. He was soaking wet, which was extremely strange. But he had a sword in his hand, the hilt massy and golden, with its beautiful carving, and the blade with that familiar, bizarre mirror-polish gleam, a sword that had refused to scratch or wear since it first left the smith’s hands at Bluepeak. The mantichore sapphire caught the Firelight and glanced back blinding purple; the blade caught the light, blinding too, as if on Fire itself. Herewiss’s heart leapt in relief, and great joy: and strangely, terror.
The peculiar part of it all was that Lorn paid almost no attention to Hergótha, or Herewiss, or anything else. He stopped, some steps out of the doorway, and his face went first blank, then alarmed. Then he glanced at Herewiss and Segnbora, and said to them both, “Get us out of here. Now.”
All relief and reaction and question were driven out of Herewiss by the plain naked tone of command in Freelorn’s voice. Gating’s still blocked, he started to protest, but Segnbora had already lifted Skádhwë with the expression of a woman who had suddenly decided not to take no for an answer. “What’s breakthrough for, otherwise?” she said, and pushed Fire down into her focus.
Herewiss felt his mind gripped by her wreaking, and knew better than to resist. Khávrinen struggled to assert itself, as might have been expected, but Herewiss told it to be passive for the moment, as he felt, through her, the straining of her Fire with space and the webwork of forces, sorcerous and otherwise, that surrounded Lionhall. There was an unnerving undercurrent trembling in the stone underfoot that he hadn’t felt before, but Segnbora was sensitive to it, and frightened by it. He felt her Power strive with the force that tried to make piercing the worldwalls impossible. It resisted, but Segnbora stood there with that stubborn look on her face, and Skádhwë clutched in her hands like a sliver of night set on Fire, and the light burned away the resistance she strove against. The whole place whited out. And then the thunderclap—