But then she brushed away the irrelevant thought, doubtless the maundering of some mdaha long dead and out of touch with life. Herewiss had slighted her, and her patience was wearing thin. (Do you want my help or not?)
(Not particularly, no! I have more than enough Power to handle this business myself, and you know it. I thought you might have appreciated the kindness I was doing you by letting you come along on a wreaking, but I see it was wasted.)
So spiteful, so certain of his own potency, she thought. The burning began to swell in her throat, and she let it, enjoying the feeling. I’m tired of being restrained, tired of being patient with arrogance! The forefingers of her wings—the terrible black diamond razors that could tear even Dragonmail—cocked forward and down at the dark stress in the stone that had unwisely been paying her so little attention. (Little man,) she said softly, (it’s time you found out what you’ve been toying with!)
Slowly she bent down, waiting for his attack, savoring the delay, wondering how she would finish him when he finally moved. A quick slash of those black razors, or a breath of her fire? But he wasn’t physical now. He dwelt in the stone as she did, and the stress he wore as form began to warp and change as he lifted Khávrinen to kill her. Let him try, the fool! she thought, rearing back to strike.
The mdaha who had spoken before now cried out again something unintelligible about not seeing, about a presence creeping up from behind, an ambush… Segnbora snarled at the interruption, a sound that woke rumblings in the stone. She arched herself upward to come crashing down on the pitiful little weapon raised against her—
—and then she understood, she saw. darkness in the stone drew together to one spot. At the lateral fault it stood, staring at her. Dracon though she was—immense, terrible—she dropped to all fours again and crouched down like a bird under a serpent’s eye, filled with horror as awareness reasserted itself and grew. The Shadow smiled at her, baleful, and waited.
Herewiss didn’t waste his opportunity. Swollen with rage, he towered over her in the stone with Khávrinen upraised, ready to destroy her. (Come on!) he cried in an ecstasy of fury. (Stop me, if you’re such a power! Try to stop me!)
Segnbora didn’t answer. It was impossible to look away from the one Whose essence lay concentrated in the fault, waiting for Herewiss to strike and bring the valley down around their ears.
Herewiss’s rage didn’t diminish. He merely lowered Khávrinen a bit to savor her fear, to prolong the sweet conflict— and in that moment abruptly felt what she did.
His horror, his sense of betrayal, were even more profound than hers had been. (Ah, Goddess, no – what did I almost do?)
The darkness rumbled with the amused reply: (Not ‘almost!’) The stone shook around them as the Shadow flowed out and suffused the darkness around Herewiss. Segnbora felt Herewiss founder and go down in it, unable to stir to help him. That dark tide flowed past him, over her and into the shadowy places in her soul that had belonged to It since she was very small. She’d always hated to admit they were there at all; now Segnbora realized that the failure to own them had made them a deadly vulnerability. Relentlessly the Shadow inflamed them all—her fury at a life that didn’t go exactly as she wished, her old feelings of impotence and insignificance. Nothing she did could matter against this power that had fought even the Goddess to a standstill. It would make her trigger the fault, bury the valley, kill her enemies and her friends together. That being the case, why struggle any longer? The impotent, merciful Other would understand. Let it happen, end the pain –
But I stood up even to Her, the thought occurred in Segnbora, like a last lightning-flash before the storm. If I could do , then we’re evenly matched. And I’m not alone!
The realization was dangerous. Her opponent changed its tactics from persuasion to direct attack: a blast of hatred and pain that would have killed her in a second had she been human and in body. But at the moment she was neither. She pulled her Dracon-self closer about her, wearing it like mail. Hatred, even the vast hatred of an embittered god, meant little to a Dragon who had experienced the Immanence from the inside, with all its joys and rages regarding all things mortal and divine.
And as for the pain, Segnbora simply opened herself to it as a Dragon would. She spread her wings wide and took it all, drank it like Sunfire, made it hers as she had made the stone and the mountains hers. I am not Your tool. And You can’t make me destroy what I came to save. Herewiss!
A deadly undertow of blackness was almost all she could perceive of Its attack against him. Within it, however, something was moving—a disembodied force, the essence of Khávrinen and the Power it focused, slashing the dark into ribbons. Always the Shadow resealed Itself, but always the fierce blueness pushed It aside again, widening the breach for the man who fought his way upward out of the Shadow’s heart.
I’m Hers, not Yours! he gasped, forcing the darkness aside and pushing himself higher into the stone. And even for Her, I’m not a thing to be used! (‘Berend?)
(Here!)
With terrible abruptness, both attacks ceased. Segnbora reeled.
(Pull yourself together!) Herewiss shouted at her instantly. (If It can’t get us to trigger the fault, It’ll do that Itself!)
And It was doing it now. Segnbora saw all Its power, all Its hate, flowing back into the lateral fault—concentrating, burning, stinging the stone into the beginnings of movement. A low rumble spread through the strata. There was one spot in particular, a thousand feet or so south of Barachael, that was almost ready to fracture. In a matter of seconds its stone would reduce itself to powder with explosive force, releasing the vertical faults on either side of it.
(There!) she cried, and as she did the Shadow poured Itself fully into that spot, an irresistible blast of destruction—
—but Herewiss was already there, dwelling in the stone, being it, holding it together. It was granite and marble, but he was diamond, unshatterable by Goddess or Shadow—for the moment. (I’ll hold it!) he said, the thought tasting of gritted teeth. (You distract It!)
With what? she thought, fumbling desperately for an idea. Distant as if one of the mdeihei sang it, seemingly irrelevant, a scrap of verse spoke itself in her. No shadow so deep that light cannot sound it, no hatred so hard that love cannot loose it— Béorgan’s old ballad, the alliterative one. It told how she had taken the Shadow within herself, draining its power so that her daughter could challenge the Shadow in her turn and slay It.
A mad idea, then and now. But it worked—
Though still wearing her Dracon self, Segnbora brought her human nature to bear as strongly as she could, and began exposing her dark sides to the Shadow’s influence. Intent on Herewiss, It perceived only an augmentation of Its power in the area, and therefore let her darknesses gather from It and grow, becoming small likenesses of Itself. I ignored these vulnerabilities before and made them weapons in Its hands. Now we turn the tables. She laid them out like choice dishes at a banquet: old hatreds, petty jealousies, desires gone sour, procrastinations; laziness that would let others languish in pain while she lay idle; envy that smiled at the misfortunes of her peers. As long as she still recognized them as sickness, she was safe. Acceptance of them as normal was the danger. And it would creep up on her fast, now….
But she waited. Those tarnished parts of her grew steadily in power, knew their source, flowed back toward it and melded with it, becoming part of Its substance as drops of mercury join. Terrible power rushed through them and back into Segnbora. She dared not fight it, lest she betray her consciousness of what was happening. As she had first become Dracon, and then as a Dragon had become stone, she now let herself become the Shadow.
Mortal, and beset by mortality’s limitations even out of her body, Segnbora could contain only a small part of Its being in herself—but it was enough. In a sickening flash she experienced the incalculable rage of One Who had possessed Godhead and for jealousy’s sake had then thrown it away. There was pain, too, an anguish deeply colored with bla
me for the Goddess Who’d let the pain happen—
There was no time for more. Segnbora didn’t speak, didn’t even truly think, but merely held her control as best she could and looked at the painful memories, living inside the old story, wordlessly recreating it with a Dragon’s immediacy and a storyteller’s skill. It was an easy story to tell, for she knew it by heart. It was the same story she’d dreamed that night in the old Hold: the story of the Maiden, of Death, and of Her children, the Two, Who had loved one another.
The hatred that was the rest of herself still strove to reach out and destroy Herewiss—but It did so less vehemently, distracted by memories ancient beyond telling. Ever so gradually Segnbora shifted the story’s focus, making it less a narrative, more an invitation.
Do You remember how it was? The two of You loving outside the constraints of existence, taking eons to learn and love one another’s infinite depths? Do You remember the divine passion, how Your loving invented time and space—a place to love and explore together, in all the bodies that ever lived? Do You remember the Loved, and how there was always One Who understood? Your sister, Your brother, Your beloved… O remember!
It was in Nhàired she sang now, as if weaving a spell, silently recalling the Song of the Lost. Normally that Song was never voiced except during the Dreadnights, in the depths of the Silent Precincts, to beseech the Shadow to remember Its ancient joy and be merciful to the world. Segnbora sang it now without the fearful intonations the Rodmistresses used, but winding poignant Dracon motifs of compassion and forgiveness around the words. She was calling to herself as much as to the other. Vile though her darknesses were, they were rooted in the memory of the loss of joy, just as the Shadow’s malice was founded in the pain of Its ancient loss, the memory of love discarded forever. And if It could not be saved, neither could she….
The Shadow held still in the stone, Its malice wavering, half forgotten. A hasty flicker of perception stolen through It showed Herewiss, hanging on in the stone, shuddering with pity and also with fear for her. No one had ever before been so foolhardy as to sing the Song of the Lost in first person, and tempt the Shadow. But Herewiss was already examining the strata around him, and Segnbora felt him find the spot where the Shadow’s consciousness had rooted Itself most concretely into the stone.
But yet will come that time when Time is done, the world begun again, aright, she sang, pouring herself into the promise. And once again We shall be as We were—
She drew away, singing. The Shadow surrounded her, towering above, about to drown her in deadly consummation. She dared not react, but only looked up into the darkness, arms open wide –
Without warning Khávrinen’s essence flicked through the earth like a white-hot thought burning through a brain, instantly severing the linkage of the Shadow’s consciousness to the stone.
There was time for just one wild shriek of rage and betrayal before the dark presence faded, temporarily banished.
But that single cry was enough. All around Herewiss an unstoppable tremor stirred in the stone….and as it did, an ominous coppery feeling with an aftertaste of blood began sliding through Segnbora’s self. The Moon was eclipsing.
(Goddess! Herewiss, get out of there. We have to get back to our bodies or you won’t be able to control this!)
(Right,) Herewiss said, sounding distracted. Khávrinen swept again and again through the bedrock, and its unseen Fire wavered with Herewiss’s alarm as he tried to cut himself free of his empathy with the stone. (I seem to have gotten kind of attached here, you go ahead—)
(Are you crazy? This is your wreaking and I’m stuck in it!) Precious seconds slipped away as Herewiss laid about him harder and harder with Khávrinen, and still didn’t move. (Dammit! My own Fire won’t cut my own Fire—)
(Watch out!) Segnbora said. Furiously, she whipped down her right wing at the stone, the wing tipped with the black razor-diamond that was Skádhwë. Through fathoms of marble and granite it sliced, the shadow of a shadow, until it reached the rock under Herewiss, passed through it—
He shot upward and out of the strata, free. Shrugging off her Dracon-self, Segnbora followed him up and out of the empathy.
They broke the surface of the valley, gasped for the dear familiarity of breath like swimmers down too long, and began running up the air in frantic haste. The Moon’s face, full now, was stained half red against the early evening sky. The stain grew larger as they raced for the tower window with the light in it. Under them, red fire dove and swooped about the valley, driving massed darknesses before it. They spared the sight hardly a glance, diving through the tower wall. Segnbora threw herself down on the cot where her body lay—
—and hit her head.
No, that’s just the usual headache. Up, get up! Freelorn was shaking her, worsening the agony of pins and needles that transfixed every bone and muscle she owned.
Herewiss was already up, sagging against the window. With Freelorn’s help, she staggered over to join him. Segnbora was temporarily blind, but the othersight was working. Above the valley the Moon’s whiteness had diminished to a thin desperate sliver, struggling with the creeping darkness as if with a poison, foredoomed to lose.
The corroded copper taste was as hot in Segnbora’s mouth as if she had been struck there. The Chaelonde seemed to run with blood. Below them the lateral fault burned through stone and earth, moving. Sai khas-Barachael began to shake beneath their feet.
“Put your scales on,” Herewiss whispered, grabbing one of her hands in a grip like a vise, and with the other drawing Khávrinen. Segnbora stumbled and fell down into herself, into the cave where Hasai waited with wings outspread in alarm. There was no time for the usual courtesies. Segnbora matched him size for size, flung his wings about her as she had wrapped herself in his shadow before, and became him.
As the sensation of the stone in the valley became plain again, the mdeihei cried out in a song of terrible alarm. “Shut up, the lot of you!” she shouted in Dracon, and once more gathered the whole valley within the span of her wings, feeling it all.
The pain struck her immediately as the lateral fault came alive inside her, a black-hot line of agony running from chest to shoulder and up her left wing like a heart seizure. Her outer body gasped and clutched at the sill, missed it, and thumped down to her knees with a jolt. Inside, no less clearly, she felt the heave and stutter of the faults as they tried to move, attempting to foul Herewiss’s game before it was fairly started.
But Herewiss had not lost his grip on her hand. Half crouched over and supported desperately by Freelorn, he was beginning to shine like a vision as his soul settled more firmly into the spirit-to-body connection necessary for full Power flow. In his free hand, Khávrinen blazed like chained lightning, impossible to look at with the eyes of either body or mind. Herewiss struck deeper into his Power, tapping what seemed an inexhaustible source, and straightened with refound strength. Then he was inside Segnbora’s perception, as Dracon as she.
The Fire burning in her throat was suddenly blue, an awesome counterpoint to the dark burning of the faults and the rage of the frustrated Shadow. Stirred by Its influence, the player on the Inside made a move. But it was a poorly reasoned one, born of fury and the hope of a quick win. The lateral fault jumped an inch north and south.
Segnbora felt Herewiss smile the satisfied smile of a player whose opponent has fallen into a trap. The burning blue upflow of his Fire seared through her perception and poured in a great flood down into the valley’s stone, binding together three of the vertical faults.
Like diverted lightning, the released energy of the lateral fault stitched whiplash-quick through the strata in several different directions. But Herewiss was quicker. Fire streaked through the strata too, sending fault-blocks up or down, blocking and absorbing forces, setting up piece by piece the final checkmate that would freeze the lateral forever and seal the Eisargir Pass. Two more moves and he would have it—
Bent over double by the fault-pain, harder to handle now tha
n while she’d been out-of-body, Segnbora heard someone a long way off shouting in thought. She couldn’t make out concepts, though.
“They’re not?” Freelorn said, much closer, and very alarmed. “Dusty! They’re not all clear of the pass yet. Sunspark says you have to hold off if you don’t want all those Reavers dead—”
Herewiss said nothing aloud, but Segnbora could feel his resolve. No one dies of this, not even them. Yet the position he had set up in the stone was delicate and couldn’t be maintained for long.
The Shadow, sensing Herewiss’s hesitation, immediately called the attention of the foiled, blocked forces in the stone to the weakest spot in Herewiss’s game: the root of Aulys that was split in two. Pressure played about it like lightning. Half of the massive root twitched, about to shift.
(Hold that position!) Segnbora said to Herewiss. Both inside and outside the stone at once, she anchored herself with rear talons and barbed tail, and reached out to sink diamond fangs into the trembling root. It struggled and tried to tear away from her, vibrating so violently that she was certain she was going to lose teeth. But a Dragon never lets go except when it chooses to. We are the stone. We command. We – will – not – let – go!
She held. Eyes squeezed closed, every muscle pulled taut as a rope, her tail desperately tightening its anchor around a lower stratum as she felt her fore-talons slipping….
“They’re out! They’re out of the pass! Dusty!”
Canny and desperate, the Shadow kicked two of the remotest vertical faults as a distraction. Herewiss was having none of it. Using Segnbora’s Dracon-self as she had, he descended deeper into the stone, deep enough to set his own jaws around his last move, a great marble fault-block half a mile south of Barachael. This was the key to the puzzle. Diamond fangs set hard into the stone. He heaved—
The blow came at her, not at him, and took them both off-guard. Preoccupied with the immensities, neither of them expected the sudden choking darkness at their back in the place where the mdeihei dwelt. A song of madness swept the mdeihei, controlled them, sent them tearing at the floor of Segnbora’s cave. Razor talons and ruthless blasts of Dragonfire ate and sliced down through the stone of her memory, to lay it bare and make it real. For one memory in particular they searched—