The Door into Shadow Read Online Free Page A

those doors and return. People, or things, could come in them, as the hralcins had. Segnbora shivered.
    “ You sure you can pull this off?” Freelorn was saying nervously to Herewiss.
    “ Mmmph,” Herewiss said. He was standing with Khávrinen unsheathed, and seemed to be minutely examining a patch of empty air three feet in front of him. The Fire that ran down from his hand flooded the length of Khávrinen, leaping out from it in quick tongues that stretched out and snapped back, reflecting his concentration.
    Behind Herewiss, Sunspark extended its magnificent head to nibble teasingly at the sleeve of Freelorn’s surcoat, leaving singed places where it bit. (You have to be careful, doing worldgating inside a world,) it said, sounding smug. (Don’t distract him.)
    Freelorn smacked the elemental’s nose away and got a scorched hand for his pains. “He could have used one of the doors in the Hold. Now he’s got to use his Flame—”
    (It’s simpler doing it yourself,) Sunspark said. It knew about such things, having been a traveler among worlds before love had bound it to Herewiss’s service. (And more reliable. Those doors are complex…it would have taken quite a while to figure them out. Don’t complain.)
    “ I’m not.”
    Segnbora restrained an urge toward amusement. Sunspark had done perhaps more than any of them to save all their lives two nights before, holding the hralcins off until Herewiss could break through into his Flame. It had done so specifically because it knew Herewiss loved Freelorn, and would have been in anguish if he died. But Sunspark seemed determined not to admit its motives to Lorn—from caution, or for the sake of sheer devilry, it was impossible to tell.
    Herewiss stood scowling at the air he had been examining, or whatever lay beyond it. It was dangerous, this business of opening doors to go from one place to another. Gates, when opened, tended to tear as wide as they could. A person doing a wreaking had to maintain complete control, or risk ending up in a world that looked exactly like the one he wanted to journey in, but with minor differences—a differing past or future, say, or familiar people missing.
    Segnbora was not happy that one man was trying to pull off a gating by himself, and in such an unprotected place. All her previous experiences with worldgates had been in the Silent Precincts, where safe-wreakings bound every leaf or blade of grass about the Forest Altars. Always there had been ten or twenty senior Rodmistresses on call to assist if there was trouble, and never had a gate been held open long enough for so many to pass through. She hoped Herewiss knew what he was doing.
    Herewiss didn’t move, but from where Khávrinen’s point rested against the ground, a sudden runnel of blue Fire uncoiled like a snake and shot out across the sand. It put down swift roots to anchor itself, then leaped upward into the air. The atmosphere prickled with ruthlessly constrained Power as the line of blue light described a doorway as tall as Herewiss and twice as wide. When the frame was complete the Fire ran back along its doorsill and reached upward again, this time branching out like ivy on an unseen trellis, filling the doorway with a network that steadily grew more complex. In a few breaths’ time the door became one solid, pulsing panel of blue.
    Sweat stood on Herewiss’s face. “Now,” he said, still unmoving.
    The blue winked out, all but the outline. From beyond the door a wet-smelling wind struck out and smote them all in the face. Lake Rilthor, their destination, lay in the lowlands, a thousand feet closer to sea level than the Waste. Through the door Segnbora saw green grass, and a soft rolling meadow leading down toward a silver-hazed lake, within which a hill was half-hidden.
    “ Go on,” Herewiss said, and his voice sounded strained. “Don’t take all day.”
    They led their horses through as quickly as they could, though not as quickly as they wanted to, for