The Door into Shadow Read Online Free

can overturn the world in fire and storm.You have some new defense that you’ve come up with since last night? A strategy sufficient to stop a being so powerful that to be rid of it the Goddess Herself can only let the Universe run down and die?) The irony was gentle, but it was there.
    (I plan to win,) Segnbora said at last. (What are you going to do?)
    He looked across the room at her for a while, still not moving. (I’m glad you’re here,) he said finally. (I can’t tell him about this—) A quick thought, a flicker of the shape of an arrowhead, passed between them. (I hope you won’t either.)
    Segnbora shook her head.
    Herewiss straightened, laid Khávrinen aside. Away from its source, the Fire in the blade died down to the merest glow. Only in his hands did a little Flame remain burning. Looking down at Freelorn, Herewiss absently began to pour it from hand to hand. Like burning water it flowed, the essence of life, the stuff of shapechanges and mastery of elements and magics of the heart, the Goddess’s gift to the Lovers and to humankind: the Power that founded the world, that the Shadow had lost and caused men to lose.
    And there’s nothing It hates more, Segnbora thought to herself. Though love probably comes close.
    She closed her eyes to the light of Herewiss’s hands, shuddered, and went to sleep.
     
    ***
     

TWO
     
    … ere the Dark could spredde so far as to kyll all Powre and thought… there fled to Lake Rilthor that was holie, the men and womyn gretest of Fire aft that time. And of theyre greate might and Powyre, that those whoo came after the Darke should learn agayn the wrekings of those auncient daies, those Wommen and Men did drive their Flame down intoo the mount at the Lak’s heart; and all dyed there, that Fyre might bee spared from the Darrk for those to comm after. Therefore it ys called Morrow-fane.
    ( Of the Dayes of Travaile , ms. xix, in rr’Virendir, Prydon)
     
    … they say that after the Error, there the Maiden lay down in love with Her other Selves, celebrating the Great Marriage. In the joy of that sharing, the Fire with which She creates flowed forth and sank deep in earth and stone, so that to this day the Fane burns with it. And those who dare to climb the Fane share in that first Sharing themselves, becoming Her Lovers as well: and as in that first sharing, their need is filled, and new life is given them…
    Book of Places of Power , ch. 3
     
    It is the Heart of the World: there is no other.
    (d’Elthed, Reflections in the Silent Precincts, 6)
     
     
    In the long west-reaching shadow of the glittering gray walls that rose a hundred fathoms high, fourteen figures stood: seven riders, and six horses, and a creature that looked like a blood-bay stallion, but wasn’t. Dawn was barely over, and the morning was still cool. The vast expanse of the Waste all around—sand and rubble and salt pans—was sharp and bright in the crisp air. But behind them the Hold from which they had departed wavered and shimmered uncannily, as if in the heat of noon.
    “ Be glad to be out of here,” Lang muttered from beside Segnbora.
    She nodded, yanking absently at her mare Steelsheen’s reins to keep her from biting Lang’s dapple-gray, Gyrfalcon. The Hold unnerved Segnbora too. The Old People from whom the humans of the Middle Kingdoms were said to be descended had wrought with their Fire on an awesome scale. Within those slick and jointless towering walls, odd buildings reared up—skewed towers, blind of windows; stairs that started in midair and went nowhere; steps staggered in such a way as to suggest that the builders, or those who used the building, had more legs than humans; more rooms inside the inner buildings than their outer walls could possibly contain.
    And worst of all, or best, the place was full of doors—entrances into other worlds. There were also gateways to other places in this world, and doors into areas not even classifiable as worlds or places. People could go out