“I’m strong too,” Herewiss said. The complete assurance in his voice made Segnbora shudder. She had heard such assurance before, and disaster had followed. “The wreaking itself doesn’t worry me; I received more than enough Power to handle it at the Morrowfane. The tricky part will be the survey of the land. That’ll have to be done out-of-body, and it’ll take at least a day. Moreover, it has to be done today, or tomorrow at the latest, in order for me to be properly rested up for the long wreaking.”
Lang raised his eyebrows. “Survey?”
Herewiss nodded and leaned on the parapet. “Can’t seal the pass without checking the valley to see how its stone lies—strata, faults, underground water. Touch the wrong part of landscape and the whole thing could be destroyed.”
“For one so new to this work, your caution’s still insufficient, for this area is quite unstable,” someone said. Heads turned toward Segnbora, confusing her terribly until she realized that it was she who’d spoken; someone had begun using her voice without consulting her on the matter.
“There are two major faults under the valley,” Hasai said. “Additionally, eight minor vertical faults run east-west between Adínë and Aulys, and one runs across the lower Eisargir Pass. One major vertical fault crosses the valley mouth from Swaleback to Aulys’s southern spur—”
(Mdaha? What are you—)
(If he’ll work with stone, here of all places, he’d best learn this, sdaha!) said the great dark voice inside her. “Then beneath those is a lateral fault which runs down the Eisargir Pass from the foot of Mirit into the valley, past the town, and out into the plain. It’s treacherous, and the chief reason we made no Marchward here; it hasn’t moved since before we came. Touch it wrongly and the fault will discharge and fold the valley right in on itself. The mountains may come down too, especially Adíne; its support-spurs are rooted too close to the lateral.”
The others stared at her, particularly Herewiss. He opened his mouth, but paused a moment, unsure how to begin. “Sir—”
“I greet you, Hearn’s son,” she said, and bowed slightly to approximate Hasai’s informal bow within her.
“Sir, how do you know all this?”
The mdeihei indulgently, as one laughs at a child. “We are Dracon,” Hasai said. “We know. Stone is our element.”
“Sir,” Herewiss said, “I’d like to trust what you say, it’d save me a great deal of time, but—”
“—but you don’t understand,” Hasai said, patient. Segnbora was surprised to hear the overtones of his inner song, calm and measured, coming out in her own voice. “Neither do we; what you ask is a mystery. Even we aren’t sure how stone became our element. But in the world from which we came, we were born in the stone, and dwelt in it. These are the very earliest times of which we speak. When food and drink failed us, stone and starlight were all we had left. Over a long time we learned to use them. Those who didn’t understand stone—how it could be moved to make shelter, or melted with Dragonfire to help one find more starlight in dim times—those didn’t survive. Those of us who lived to become as we are now, are born knowing the structure and movement of rock as we know how to use our fire to shape it. We experience stone as if it were part of us. It is part of us. We are the foundations, the roots of the world.”
Herewiss and Freelorn looked at each other. No one on the parapet spoke.
From down in Barachael valley, the hot eyes of the blazing serpent that encircled the town looked up with interest. (You’re good with fire, are you?) Sunspark said, its voice lazy, but full of challenge.
Hasai turned Segnbora’s head and looked down at the elemental calmly. “For sport we chase the day around the world and drink it at our leisure; for play we bathe in the world’s blood, or hotter places than that. Yes, we know something about fire.”
Sunspark glanced at Herewiss, as if considering the agreements that bound it, and then back at Segnbora. “Some day,” it said formally, “we’ll match our power, you and I, and see which is greater.”
“Some day,” Hasai said calmly, “we shall.” The words made Segnbora squeeze her eyes shut against a sudden blinding headache, for they were in one of the precognitive tenses, future definite, describing something that had not yet come to pass but most certainly would. A room somewhere, dim and suddenly cold with a frost that bit at the bones, and Skádhwë in her hand: a shadow falling over everything, a shriek of pain—
The memory passed, and the sight of common daylight came back to her. Hasai lifted her head again, as perturbed by the precognition as she, but for different reasons of which Segnbora could make nothing. In any case, he seemed determined not to let it show, for it didn’t matter to the task before them. “Hearn’s son,” he said, “do you desire our aid?”
Herewiss looked at Segnbora as if trying to see past Hasai’s voice. “‘Berend, what do you say?”
She coughed and cleared her throat, getting control back. “I say, if Hasai offers you help, take it.”
“In that case,” Herewiss replied slowly, “I’d like to check his assessment of the faults—” He stopped as if unwilling to go on.
“In my mind?”
“Yes.”
Segnbora considered the idea. “You’re welcome to look in,” she said. “When?”
“As close as possible to the hour when we begin the wreaking. Tomorrow night?”
“Wait a minute!” Segnbora said, panic rising. “We?”
Herewiss shrugged. “I’ll need ongoing information during the wreaking itself. I could probably do it alone, but why stretch myself thin when there’s expert assistance offered?”
Segnbora hesitated. To participate in the wreaking itself would mean becoming involved with Herewiss’s Fire… and she’d sworn she’d never touch Fire again; she’d had suffered too many frustrations on its account. Besides, being unable to focus, she might become a danger to the proceedings…
Herewiss picked up her last thought. “‘Berend, you came out of the Precincts with every thing they had to teach, less one,” he said. “I doubt you’ll foul a wreaking in progress. Goddess knows how many of them they put you through!”
Most of them, Segnbora thought sourly, for all the good it did. But she had no excuse. “All right,” she said.
“We’ll move mountains together,” Hasai added in a rare show of humor, with the slow quiet laughter of the mdeiheisinging counterpoint behind.
Herewiss nodded to Segnbora, and then turned to Eftgan. “Madam,” he said, “we should finish discussing the Bluepeak business…” He started back up the stairs to the tower, taking them two at a time, Khávrinen bouncing at his back and trailing blue Flame. Eftgan gave Segnbora a curious look and followed.
What have I got myself into! Segnbora thought. She put her head down onto her hands and gazed across the valley at Barachael. Below, the fire-serpent folded its hood and looked at her with innocent wickedness. (Tell me a joke?) it said.
Segnbora groaned.
***
The next day it began to seem as if Eftgan’s glum assessment of the Shadow’s ability to direct the Reavers was correct. It certainly seemed as if they knew the incursion route down the Eisargir Pass was threatened. They came pouring out of the valley in a disorderly but constant stream. Skin tents sprouted everywhere, and thousands of shaggy Reaver ponies got on with cropping the green corn down to stubble. The old silence of the valley was replaced by a low, malicious whispering, like the Sea’s when a storm is brewing. Dusk brought no peace, either. All the valley glittered with the sparks of campfires, around which war songs were being sung and swords sharpened.
Segnbora sat atop an embrasure in the northeastern battlement as twilight settled in, looking down at the press of Reaver tents and people gathered around the lower switchback of the approach to khas-Barachael gates. Hasai looked with her, undisturbed. (This place is well built, for something made by your kind,) he said. (It won’t fall to such as these.)
“Maybe not. But this is the strongest fortress in this part of t
he south, and they don’t dare march away from here and leave it unconquered at their backs. Even if Herewiss seals the pass successfully, these three thousand will just sit at the gates and hold the siege.”
(You’re troubled, sdaha. And it’s not the prospect of battle that’s causing it.)
With a sigh, Segnbora swung down from her perch and sat on the stone bench inside the embrasure, leaning against the cool wall. (I’m not delighted about this business of being involved in a wreaking,) she said silently. (Especially this one. And you got me into it.)
The dusky melody of Hasai’s laughter rumbled inside her. (I think not. Who spoke the words? Who told the Firebearer he was welcome? Did you lie to him, then?)
Exasperated, Segnbora closed her eyes and slid down into herself. Above the cave within her, it was twilight too. Stars were coming out one by one in the shaft that opened on the sky. Hasai lay at ease on the stone, his eyes silver fire, his tail twitching slightly like that of an amused cat. Segnbora walked over to him and sat down by one of his front talons, leaning back against it and craning her neck back to see him.
The Dragon was a shadow, winged like the night, only his face glittering in the hot light of his eyes. “Very funny,” she said. “Mdaha, I didn’t lie. But I’m afraid of him depending on me. What if I fail him?”
“Essn ‘hh ‘suuóo,” Hasai rumbled. “When will you accept what you are?”
“Be patient, will you? It took me long enough to find out what I’m not.”
“Part of you is me,” the Dragon said. “I won’t fail so simple a task as examining the stone in this valley. If you wore my body more often, you would know that.”
The melody of the bass viols in his voice became grave. Behind him the mdeihei matched his song in cadences of calm regret. “Your memories are buried deeper under you mind’s stone than ever,” Hasai said. “We’re at your foundations, and still you try to keep us out. It would be so easy to become one. Only look…”
In a flash of memory, Hasai showed her the building of the Eorlhowe in North Arlen—a whole mountain that had been uprooted from a remote range in west Arlen as casually as a man might pluck a flower for his hair. The mountain was carried to the tip of the North Arlene Cape, laid there upon the body of the slain Worldfinder, and melted down upon him with Dragonfire until it was only half the size it had been. Then its remains were talon-carved and tunneled and reworked into the residence of the DragonChief, the Dweller-at-the-Howe. Segnbora looked at the memory and shivered at the thought of the paltry skin of stone that had been “protecting” her inner mind from Hasai and the mdeihei.
“Your fear cripples you,” Hasai said more gently. “You fear what we are. Even our joys are terrible to you. Matings, births, deaths, the Immanence that isn’t your Lady but is nonetheless real— You must give up the fear, come to terms with these and all the other things from which you cannot run away. Cease hiding yourself from yourself, be who we are!”
“It’s not that easy,” Segnbora said, though she couldn’t resist taking a last glance at that memory of the Howe. As she watched, storm-clouds clustered about it, hiding the Howe’s peak. Dragons flashed in and out of the clouds like lightning, their roars drowning out the thunder. Ahead-memory? Past-memory? she wondered. It wasn’t clear—
(Hallo the heart!) came a voice from a long way up. It was Herewiss’s voice, tentative but cheerful.
“Damn,” Segnbora muttered.
Hasai lowered his head toward her. “Later, sdaha?”
“Later for sure,” she said, disgruntled. She was not ready for this, but nevertheless she called up to the stars, “Come on in!”
“I brought a friend,” Herewiss said, slipping sideways out of nothing as if through a narrow door. Khávrinen was laid casually over his shoulder. Fire flowed from it and caught in Freelorn’s eyes as he appeared behind his loved.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Herewiss said, sauntering in. “Where’s your lodger? Lorn wanted to—”
Segnbora watched in amused approval as Herewiss stopped in midsentence and looked up…and up, and up. Freelorn halted beside him and did the same, his eyes going wide. When Segnbora had first come in, Hasai had been indistinct, a looming dark presence. But now the gems of his scales caught the light of Herewiss’s Fire and threw it back in a dazzle of blue sparks. He lowered his head to thirty or forty feet above Freelorn and Herewiss, tilting his head to look first at one of them, then at the other.
“I see the resemblance remains,” he said very low, rumbling a major chord of approval. Following the words came Dragonfire, a slow and luxuriant spill of blinding white radiance that poured from his mouth to the floor and pooled there, burning. “Greetings, Lion’s Child. And to you and your Flame, greetings also, Hearn’s son.”
From the darkness beyond Hasai the mdeihei joined the greeting, recognizing the sons of two lines old enough to be worthy of notice even as Dragons reckoned time The huge cavern filled with a thunder of concerting voices, a harmony that shook the walls.
Herewiss bowed very low. Freelorn glanced around him in amazement at the noise, and then down at the spill of Dragonfire, under which the stone floor had melted and begun to bubble. Finally he tilted his head back up to look at Hasai. “Resemblance? he said in a small voice.
“To Héalhra,” Hasai said.
Freelorn’s mouth fell open.
“I was at Bluepeak Marchward some years before the Battle,” Hasai said. “I saw him when he was a little younger than you. You have his nose.”
“I, uh…” Freelorn said, and closed his mouth. He looked over at Segnbora.
She shrugged. “He’s been around for awhile, Lorn. Mdaha, what do we have to do for Herewiss?”
“Come deeper inside us, sdaha. He’ll see what he needs to see when you do.”
Hasai dropped his head down to Segnbora’s level, his jaws opening slightly to receive her hand. Dragonfire still seethed in his mouth, so that the floor hissed and smoked where drops of it fell. For a split second she hesitated. Then, recognizing a challenge, she rolled up the sleeve of her shirt and thrust her arm into the fire. This is all in happening in my mind, after all. How badly can it hurt?
She found out. Jaws closed and held her trapped in the essence of burning, a heat so terrible that it transcended pain. Her control broke. Segnbora opened her mouth to scream, feeling the heat more completely than anything she had ever felt in her life. But to her utter amazement, without the sensation stopping, the pain vanished—
She felt the stone. There was no way she could not feel it. The sensation was like a fencer’s when balance at last becomes perfect and power flows up through it from the depths of the earth. Connections formerly hidden suddenly became clear and specific—her body seated on the stone of the bench; the bench’s placement on the stone of the upper-battlement paving; the positions and junctures of the blocks of khas-Barachael’s walls; the massive piers and columns of its foundation-roots in Adínë’s southern spur.
She could feel the whole mountain, a complex of upthrust blocks and minor stresses pushing against one another as Adínë’s roots met those of its neighboring peaks. Segnbora’s perception widened and spread around the valley to include Eisargir and Houndstooth and Aulys, the other mountains all leaning on or striving against one another. The valley, too, filled with her until she felt the faults and stresses there, a surface unease like a vast itch. She felt the transverse vertical faults, lying fairly quiet now that mountain-building in the area was largely finished. She felt the lateral fault, stretching from head to foot of the valley and holding dangerously still.
Farther down, heat grew in the stone. Its structure and its temper changed as her perception slid down through the fragile skin on which continents rode and jostled. Weight and pressure grew by such terrible strides that there was no telling anymore whether the stone was liquid or solid: it simply burned darkly, raging to be free, yet having nowhere to go.
Down farther still, it was too hot, too dense, for stone. Molten met
al seethed and roasted in eternal night, swirling with the planet’s turning, breeding forces for which Segnbora had no words but which the Dragons understood. These were some of the forces they manipulated for flying and finding their way.
(Enough!) Herewiss said, his voice seeming to come from a long way off. (Sir, I see your point.)
(Look here, then,) Hasai said, redirecting Segnbora’s attention to the very top of the papery layer where mountains were rooted and the valley lay. (You see the danger of the lateral fault. Trigger it and the vertical faults will likely collapse the valley, bringing down the mountains. Yet the pass you propose to close has the lateral running right down it, and direct intervention there will definitely set off the fault.)
(There’s also the problem of the negative energies,) Segnbora said. (See how they’re gathered along the lateral fault.
It’s ready to have a quake. Evidently that’s an option the Shadow’s been considering for a while.)
(I’ve been thinking about it too,) Herewiss said, sounding grim. (The question is, what do I do about it? There’s only one possibility…) He trailed off, sounding dubious.
(What’s your thought, Firebearer?) Hasai said.
Herewiss indicated one of the eastern roots of Houndstooth, a colossal pier of granite and marble set a half mile deep in the crust. (Positive and negative attract,) he said. (If I strike there with my Fire and cause that root to move, the negative should flow away from the lateral fault and attack my positive Power. But before that happens and the forces cancel out, the root itself will move upward enough to knock the Houndstooth peak down into the pass and block it permanently—) He broke off, looking at Hasai’s perception as if seeing something wrong.
(Yes, you’ve found the problem with your plan,) Hasai said. (Watch.) As he spoke, the perception moved and changed in response to Herewiss’s suggestion. They all felt, rather than saw, the smooth peak of Houndstooth rear up and collapse westward into the Eisargir Pass. A few seconds later the lateral fault came violently alive. Half of Barachael valley slid south with a jerk, while the rest jumped north. Every vertical fault went wild, one after another, some blocks thrusting hundreds of feet upward in a matter of minutes, some sinking fathoms deep. Mount Adínë fell on Barachael. Eisargir collapsed on itself and buried the priceless ironlodes forever. When it was all over, nothing was left but a broken, uninhabitable wilderness.