They jammed shoulders through the stone; wings smote the rock like lightning, burst free into the night. Segnbora’s arm knocked away with one sweeping gesture the hands that held her. In rage and pity, and a desire to see something other than slack peace in those beautiful eyes, her hand swept back again. She struck the Maiden backhanded across the face.
Shocked and horrified at what she’d done, Segnbora waited for the lightning….or at least for her own handprint to appear on Her face. Nothing came, though. No flicker of the eyes, no change in the mouth. Slowly the Maiden turned Her back on Segnbora, went back to Her throne, seated Herself. She said nothing. Segnbora found herself free.
(Sdaha—)
(I know, mdaha, time!)
Segnbora shook Freelorn by the shoulder. There was no answering movement—he seemed asleep or tranced. Well, dammit, if I have to carry him— She reached down and took him under the shoulders, heaving hard. Freelorn made a sound, then. It was a bitter moan; a sound of pain and mourning as if some sweet dream had broken.
“Come on, Lorn,” Segnbora said, wanting more to swear than to coax, for at her best guess Moonset couldn’t be more than a quarter-hour away. “Come on, you Lioncub, you idiot, come on—!”
Turning, she got him up—then blinked in shock. They were all there, slowly drifting in to this place’s true center. Lang, looking peaceful. Dritt, Moris, Torve, Harald, all the life gone out of their movements. Sunspark, quenched in the twilight like a firebrand dropped in water. Herewiss, his light eyes dark with Glasscastle’s dusk, and no flicker of Fire showing about Khávrinen.
Despair and anger shook Segnbora. She didn’t have time to go into each mind separately and break the Maiden’s grip. She doubted she had the strength, anyhow. Not even the Fire, had she been able to focus it, would help her now. Though sorcery—
She paused, considering. Perhaps there was a way to break them all free at once. It shamed her deeply, but she had no leisure now for shame. (Mdaha —)
(Do what you must,) Hasai said, placid. (I’ll lend you strength if you need it.)
She gulped, and began building the sorcery. It was a simple one, and vile. These people were her friends. She had fought alongside them, guarded their backs, eaten and drunk and starved with them, lain down in loneliness or merriment to share herself with them. Their friendship gave her just enough knowledge of their inner Names with which to weave a spell of compulsion.
It was almost too easy. Their own wills were almost wholly abolished. The images of loneliness, loss of Power, and midnight fear that she employed were more than adequate. She knew less about Herewiss and Sunspark than about Freelorn and the others, but could guess enough about their natures to bind them and compel them out of here. Torve was hardest—an outer name and a wry flicker of his eyes was all she had. Yet she was terrified for this innocent, and her fear fueled his part of the sorcery, making up for her lack of knowledge.
Segnbora gasped out the last few syllables of the sorcery, then in her mind began carefully making her way out of the spell-construct, slipping through it sideways and scoring herself with sharp words in only a few places, thankful for once that she was so slim. Once out, she bound the sorcery into a self-maintaining configuration that would give her time to fight off the inevitable backlash and follow the others out.
One by one, her companions began drifting away from the Maiden’s throne, out in the direction of the great gates. She sagged a moment, feeling weary and soiled, watching them go.
Inside her, wings like the night sheltered her and fed her strength. (Sdaha, don’t dally—)
(No.) Yet she paused to look one last time at the throne, where the Maiden sat silent, watching the others go, dispassionate as a statute in a shrine. O my Queen, Segnbora thought. Surely somewhere the Maiden dwelt in saner aspects, whole and alive and forever creating. But to see even a minor aspect of Godhead so twisted was too bitter for a mortal to bear for long. Hurrying, Segnbora turned to follow the others.
They were far ahead of her, unerringly following the way out that she had set for them. The sorcery was holding surprisingly well, considering how long it had been since she had used sorcery to do as much as mend a pot or start a fire. Segnbora went quickly, trotting, even though physical activity would bring on the backlash with a vengeance. It just felt wonderful to move again. (Mdaha, you all right?)
(My head hurts,) he said, surprised.
(It’s the effect of the sorcery; you’re picking it up from me.) Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to be very solicitous: there were still too many things that could go wrong. They could come to the doors and find them closed. Or, if they were open, the bridge could be gone. Or—
Something moved close by, a figure approaching Segnbora from one side. It was not one of her own people, she knew. Her hand went to Charriselm’s hilt.
Summersky opals winked at her as Efmaer came up beside her and walked with her, quickly but without animation. “You are leaving,” the Queen said.
“Yes. Come with us—”
Efmaer shook her head. “Gladly would I come…but I never found Sefeden to get my Name back, and without it I cannot leave.”
“But you know your Name.”
“I have forgotten it,” said the Queen.
Segnbora’s insides clenched with pity…and suddenly the memory she hadn’t been able to pin down drew itself across her pain-darkened mind like a falling star. She stopped and took the Queen urgently by the shoulders, half expecting to find herself holding a ghost, or something hard and cold. But there was warmth in that body, and an old supple strength that spoke of years spent swinging Fórlennh and Skádhwë in the wars against the Fyrd. “Efmaer,” Segnbora said, “Enra gave the secret to her daughter, and it passed into the lore of our line. I know your Name.”
Undead though she was, the Queen still managed to show shock and dismay that a stranger knew her greatest secret, the word that described who she was. But her distress lasted hardly a breath. “Tell me quickly!”
Segnbora swallowed, looked Efmaer in the eye, and whispered it—one long, cadenced, beautiful word in very old Darthene. Efmaer’s eyes filled with it, filled with life, and tears.
“Kinswoman,” she choked, the word carrying a great weight of thanks and wild hope. “Go. Don’t stay for me. I’ll meet you by the doors if I can. I have to see about something before I go.”
Off Efmaer went into the unchanging dusk. Segnbora turned and ran after her friends. They were almost out of sight, near the outwall, where the twilight was thickest.
(Mdaha, what’s the time?)
(There’s a little left yet.)
She ran, harder than before, somehow feeling relieved of a great burden. She could feel the backlash of her sorcery creeping up on her, a hammering in her head and a weakness in the limbs. But her sorcery was holding, the others were still bound by her will. She caught sight of them now, not too far ahead, right up against—
“Oh Dark!” she whispered in complete despair, not caring what the swearing might invoke.
The great doors were shut. The faint light of the lying Moon shone high as before, but its light looked dimmer somehow. Freelorn and Herewiss were standing there looking dully up at the doors with the others. There was someone else there too, backed up against the entrance. She pushed past Herewiss and stopped short, horrified.
There was more energy bound up in that waiting figure than in anyone else she had seen in Glasscastle. It was someone slender, a blade of a woman with about as much curve; someone with a slight curvature of the back that made for an odd stance, balanced forward as if perpetually about to lunge; someone with a sword like the sharpened edge of the young Moon, and short straight hair shockingly white at the roots; someone wearing a surcoat with Enra’s lioncelle on it, passant regardant in blood and gold. Her dark eyes had a dazzlement about them, a terrible placidity. The One with Still Hands looked out of them. She was not defeated yet.
“No,” Segnbora whispered. Her other self gazed at her with eyes
tranquil and deadly, and hefted another Charriselm, making sure of her grip.
“You’re not leaving,” her own voice said.
Segnbora stepped closer, fascinated by the sight of herself. The other watched her unperturbed, wearing the aura of calm that Shíhan had taught her was better far than armor.
(Mdaha, do you suppose she has you too?)
(As far as I can tell, I’m only here once. Is she truly you?)
(I don’t know—) Segnbora took another step forward.
“Save yourself some trouble,” said the Segnbora who guarded the door, “and don’t bother.”
(I think so,) she said to Hasai. Queasiness started to rise inside her. The backlash was starting, and that meant she would soon be unable to hold together the sorcery. The others would start to drift away.
Her other self took a step forward. There was no question about her purpose. Segnbora raised Charriselm to guard, two-handed, and for the first time eyed her own stance as other opponents must have eyed it, seeking a weakness to exploit for the kill. What frightened her most was that so far, all those who had attempted what she must now attempt were dead.
They started to circle one another. “What I don’t understand,” the other said in a calm, reasonable voice, “is why you’re trying to leave.”
“I have my reasons,” Segnbora said, shuddering at the strangeness of answering her own voice. “And I have my oaths—”
“Your oaths are vain,” said her other self, edging closer in that particular sideways fashion that was Segnbora’s favorite for closing inconspicuously with an enemy. “Who’ll notice if you break them?”
“She will—”
“Oh, indeed. And what has She done for you lately, besides graciously allowing you a night in bed with Her? Just Her sneaky way of telling you that you’re about to die. Oh, come, didn’t you realize?” The other looked scornful. “Oaths! The way Freelorn’s behaving, he’ll never make it anywhere near Prydon: you at least know that! He’ll get himself killed, along with the rest of you, on that cold dark ledge. Ice and darkness, that’s what oaths get you—”
Segnbora slid closer, trembling. It was hard to think of this as just another fight. The necessary immersion in the other’s eyes—that act of becoming the opponent in order to counter her moves before they happened—was impossible when those eyes had the mad Maiden’s dreadful stillness in them. Her every glance made Segnbora afraid she would be caught by those eyes, drown in their blank dazzle, drop Charriselm and surrender. To make matters worse, the backlash was hitting her harder now—not by accident, Segnbora suspected.
(Mdaha!) Hasai said. (Let us fight for you!)
Segnbora blinked at this, and her other self moved in fast, striking high at her head with Charriselm’s twin. Segnbora whirled out of range toward the other’s right, taking advantage of her own slightly weak backhand recovery, and came about again. There was a stir of movement among the silent watchers. For a moment her will to keep them in one place wavered, and they started drifting back toward Glasscastle’s center, where the Maiden waited.
(Don’t answer, sdaha. The mdeihei and I have been here long enough to be able to work your body; and your memories of your training are now for us. Tend to the sorcery. We’ll deal with this other you.)
The other Segnbora was inching in again, waiting for an unguarded moment—evidently Shíhan’s injunctions about not wasting time on showy but ineffective swordplay were binding on her too. Segnbora didn’t much want to give her body to the mdeihei, but even now the sorcery was unraveling. (Mdaha, if you get me killed—!)
(Killed? Here?) Hasai said, gently ironic.
The other leaped in to the attack again. While she was still in midair Segnbora felt other muscles, other wills, strike through her body and wear it as she had worn Hasai’s earlier. Without her volition she saw Charriselm twist up and slash out in the hardein move, the edge-on stroke and backstroke that opens the kier sequence.
Normally, the feint of the first stroke and the vicious backhand cut of the second would have been enough to disembowel her opponent, but Segnbora’s sword met its mate halfway through the first cut. The two swords together sang a tormented note like a bell having its tongue cut out. Charriselm glanced down and out of the bind, and white Darthene steel sliced air where Segnbora would have been, had not the mdeihei twisted her impossibly sideways.
(Ow! My back!)
(You’re still alive, aren’t you? Tend to the sorcery!)
There was no more time for discussion. In the back of her mind the hard-stressed words of the sorcery were turning on one another, blades cutting blades, striving to undo themselves from her constraints. Ignoring her roiling insides, Segnbora shoved words back into place, reinforced them, threatened them, cajoled them in heartfelt Nhàired. It was like carrying water in a sieve, for all the while the power of the wreaking wore away at her outer mind, letting the twilight seep in again.
While she stopped up hole after hole of the sieve to keep her sorcery from running out, Segnbora watched the mdeihei inside her skin using her to turn and cut and thrust, attacking high and low, using all-out routines like sekek and ari’th. Nothing came of it. Every time, Charriselm met its otherself in her twin’s hand, and the steel cried out. Every time she felt her own leverages, her own moves, being used against her. Again and again the mdeihei saved her life with dives and dodges that nearly snapped her spine, but the situation got no better.
(I had—no idea you were so—difficult in a fight, sdaha,) Hasai said, breathing hard from Segnbora’s exertion. He lunged her forward in the dangerous hilt-first “mutiny” maneuver, but her otherself twisted nimbly away.
(Neither did I.) Segnbora pushed a couple of words frantically back into the weave of the spell. As she did, she remembered something Efmaer had said. I could not kill myself, and so I am less than dead. Was this what had happened to her? Had she fought herself here at the gates and lost?
Hasai backed Segnbora up a step, raised Charriselm and stood poised in her body like a dancer, waiting for imprudence to tempt her adversary within range. The other Segnbora took the bait, stepping in suddenly and swinging—the edelle slash that could open her opponent up like an oyster if it connected.
The Dragon sucked Segnbora’s stomach in and struck downward with Charriselm to stop the edelle, then whirled the blade up in a blur to strike at the other’s unprotected throat. But her otherself came up to block, and Segnbora’s stroke was slightly off angle. The two swords met, and this time there was no scrape, but rather a sudden snap that went right to the pit of Segnbora’s stomach. A handsbreadth above the hilt, Charriselm broke in two. The blade-shard went spinning away through the air to fall ringing on the crystal floor.
“No!” she cried, staring in anguish at the broken-off stump that had once been whole and beautiful. Before the doors, her otherself relaxed into guard, knowing Segnbora would think three times about trying a passage armed with only half a sword. At the back of her mind, words began falling away from one another—
A quick motion off to one side brought her around. It was Efmaer. The Queen came to her with her hands extended, and nothing in them…or not quite nothing. She held a long slim darkness, like a slice of the utter darkness beyond the world, like a splinter of night made solid—
“You gave me my Name,” Efmaer said, urgent. “This is all I have to give you. Take it!”
Only for a second Segnbora hesitated as she stared at the uncanny thing. It was impossible to focus on it despite its razor-sharp outline, but Segnbora seized it out of Efmaer’s hands by the end that was slightly thicker, and swung it up. There was no weight of hilt or blade; no feeling of actually holding anything, not even coolness or warmth or resistance to the air.
(Hasai—)
(Trust us, we’ll do well enough with it.)
“Kinswoman, be warned,” Efmaer said, “it’ll demand a life of you some day—it did of me!”
Segnbora nodded absently. She was already busy with the sorcery again, s
horing it up. Her otherself dropped once more into a wary crouch, waiting, watching Skádhwë. Hasai saw his advantage and moved in on the other, not waiting.
“So,” said the other, “now you’ll kill me—”
Segnbora wrought a long word in Nhàired and wove it into a spot in the sorcery that was going bare. “You’re in my way,” she said, remotely feeling the strange heft of the sword as Hasai lifted it. Legend said it would cut anything, but would it work here, inside another legend?
“That’s only part of it,” her otherself said. “You like to kill.”
Angry, Segnbora couldn’t help looking into the other’s eyes then, and seeing the placid regard of the Maiden. The power that had almost drowned her before stirred again.
Hasai danced in close, striking with Skádhwë. (I can’t—!) Segnbora whispered in mind. Her resistance made the mdeihei guiding her body miss the stroke. Her otherself slipped out of range, whirling to come at her on her weak side. The mdeihei spun Segnbora about too, so that the face-off stood again as it had.
Down in Segnbora’s mind a word unraveled itself from her sorcery and slithered away like a serpent of light, followed by another, and another. Herewiss turned away, and Freelorn, and Lang—
(Sdaha!)
“Yes!” Segnbora said aloud. The regard the other brought to bear on her wasn’t that of her Maiden, not the Lady of the White Hunt, defender of life and growth. The occupant of her otherself was a counterfeit of Her, as committed to stagnation as Hasai was to doing and being. The mdeihei felt her resolve and leaped again.
The other Segnbora, perhaps thinking Segnbora wouldn’t kill or hurt her, was slow about retreating. A second later she danced back with a cry. Red showed high up on her arm, pumping fast. Segnbora flinched, for she’d felt nothing, no bite of sword into flesh at all.
“If you kill Me, you’re killing part of yourself!” the other cried, sounding afraid for the first time.
Hasai pressed in, following his advantage. Segnbora felt tears coming, but didn’t argue as she patched the spell again and realized what she was going to have to do. It would have been easiest to let Hasai win the fight, but she refused to allow him sole responsibility for that. The spell would hold for this long, if no longer—