Fires of Azeroth

Liyo," Vanye murmured, and whipped his sword from its sheath, for two of the arrha barred the doorway, and the air between shimmered with the barrier they formed.

Cease!" Morgaine shouted.

he elder stamped the heel of his staff on the floor, a sound almost drowned in the taut air; his half-blind eyes were set rigidly. "Six of us have invoked the power. There are thirty-two. Surrender that which you bear."

Liyo-"

Morgaine slipped Changeling's ring and dropped the sword to her hip. Vanye looked about him, at the elders, at the frightened arrhendim . .. and Roh, whose face was pale, but whose hands stayed from his weapons.

Two more," said the elder. The singing in the air grew louder, numbing hearing, and Morgaine lifted her hand.

"You know what the result will be," she cried.

"We are willing to die, all of us. The passage we open here may be wide enough to work ruin on the enemies of Shathan as well. But you who do not love this land… may not be willing to become part of that. One by one we shall add to the force. We do not know how many of us will be needed before the passage is complete, but we shall discover it. You ca

Gate-force keened in the air. Another joined it.

"Liyo," Vanye said. Very small his voice sounded in that power. "Your other weapon-"

She said nothing. He dared not look at what was happening before her, but kept his eyes to the arrhendim, who were at her back and armed; and Roh, Lellin and Sezar were apart from the others, fear in their faces, but they stood with arms folded and had never moved.

"My lords!" Morgaine exclaimed suddenly. "My lord arrha! We are gaining nothing by this. Only your enemies gain."

"We have made our choice," said Merir.

"You sat here-sat here until I should become desperate enough to try to come stir you out of it. A trap of your working, lord Merir? It is a well-devised one."

"We are utterly willing," said Merir, "to perish. We are old. There are others. But there is no need of it, unless you value power more than your own life. If we add many more jewels to the web, lady Morgaine, it will be accomplished. You sense that. So do I." He held up his hand, with the jewel-case upon it. "Here is another mote of that power you hold. Perhaps this will complete it. It is that near. Shall I add it to the others?"

"Enough! Enough. I see that you are capable of doing it No more."

"Surrender the sword."

She unhooked it and grounded it point-down before her. "My lords of the arrha! Lord Merir is right… that is an evil thing. And there is only one of it, and that itself is a great evil, and subtle. You hold your power divided into many hands; whoever takes this, that one will be more powerful than all the others. Which? Who of you seeks it?"

None answered.

"You have never seen a Gate opened," Morgaine said. "You have never summoned that power entire, counting that passage dangerous. You are right. Shall I show you? Damp that which you hold: I shall show you my meaning. Let me show you why Nehmin must cease to exist. You value reason, my lords; then listen to me. I have no terms. I come not to possess Nehmin by the threat of destroying it. I come to destroy it, whether or not the enemy is stopped. I do not want any power over you."

"You are mad," said the elder.

"Let me show you. Damp the jewels. If I do not convince you, the unveiling of only a few of them while Changeling is unsheathed will be sufficient for your purposes… and mine. You do not well reckon… that I also am willing to die for what I do."

The elder stepped back, bewilderment in his look. Merir made a helpless gesture. "She says well," Merir said, "We can always die."

The force ebbed, more suddenly than it had grown, jewel after jewel winking into cover. And when it was utterly gone, Morgaine eased Changeling forth, crystal is the jewels, which were only motes that human flesh itself could obscure unharmed. Opal fire flowed along Changeling's runes, and suffused the blade, and darkness flared at the tip of it, where the wind began. Someone cried out. Its light bathed all their faces. She moved it, and the wind grew stronger, whipping at the torches, tugging at hair and robes and howling within the dome. Vanye stepped back from her side, not even aware that he moved until he found himself near Lellin.

"Here is the passage you would form!" Morgaine shouted over the roar of the wind. "Here it is open before you. Look into it. Have you courage now to add your jewels to that? A few of them would suffice, and this whole dome will be elsewhere, with us in it. The shock of air will level all the trees hereabouts, and perhaps, as you say, take a good part of the enemy with us. Or more than that, if the force leaks through to this side of here and now. This is the power that your fathers' fathers' fathers trifled with. You do well to avoid it. But what will your children do? What, when someday someone less wise than yourselves takes it up again? What, if I surrender the sword to you, and someday one of your folk draws it? On it is written the knowledge of the Gates… and it ca

She held it aloft, and the void gaped and howled. Roh was at her back; Vanye saw him, never took his eyes entirely from him. Roh's face was rigid, his eyes reflecting that opal light.

And suddenly Roh moved, fled, thrusting aside Sezar and Lellin, rushed past the arrha guards… the two of them too dazed to react. Vanye realized his sword was still in his hand. He looked on the others, on faces pale and drawn… turned and saw Morgaine. Her arm trembled from that force which numbed body and soul. Sweat stood on her face.

"You must seal it off," she said. "Let me take this out of your world and seal the passage forever after me. Your other choice is not one that Shathan can survive. This-this- does not love living things."

"Put it away," Merir said hoarsely. "Put it away, now."

"Have you seen enough? I always questioned the wisdom that made this thing. I know the evil of it. Its maker knew And perhaps that is its only virtue: that it is shaped as what it is… it is something that you can see and know exacly as it is. There is no ambiguity here, no yes and no. This thing ought not to exist. Those delicate jewels of yours… are nothing other than this. Their beauty deludes you. Their usefulness deludes you. Someday someone will gather them together and you will know that they were all aspects of this. Look. Look at it!"

She swung it in a great arc, faster and faster, and the wind grew until it pulled at them, until the light blazed white, until the void widened and there seemed little air in the room. Cold numbed the skin, and the arrha held to their chairs, those standing staggered to the walls as if their own weight could not anchor them.

"Stop it!" the elder cried.

She did so, and returned it to sheath. The winds stopped; the howling died; the dark void and the blazing light went together, leaving the dome darkened, the light of the torches sucked out, only a shaft of daylight reaching them from the door. She grounded the sword, sheathed, before her.

"That is the power you hold, arrha. You have but to combine your tiny jewels into one. Did you not know that? We are armed… alike. And I make you free gift of that knowledge now-for someday one will discover it, and you will have to use them that way."

"No."

"Can you forget what I have told you?" she asked in a low voice. "Can you forget what you have seen? Can you take the sword and keep it forever sheathed, when the sirrindim rise up with cities and threaten you, when Men increase and you are few? Some evil, qhal or Man, someday… will draw it. And unlike your jewels, which will fade when the Gate is sealed, the sword is knowledge to build more such Gates."

There was deathly silence. Some of the arrha wept, their heads bowed into their hands.

"Give it up," Morgaine urged them. "Or leave Nehmin, and come my road, the passage that I must take. I have told you truth. I have shown you. And while Nehmin remains open, that truth will always gape at your feet to swallow you up. Seal up the passage; seal Nehmin and the stones lose their fire and Shathan stands… unbarriered, but living. Keep Nehmin open, and you will fall to it one day. But whatever you choose, I have no choice. I must take this sword out of the world. More than Shathan is at hazard. More than your lives. More than this world alone. The evil is as wide as all the passages that ever existed. And it is most dangerous when you think it tamed and secure. Those little stones are more evil than Changeling… because you do not see them for what they are: fragments of a Gate. Joined, they will drink you in and ruin more than your own world: they will reach to others."

The elder trembled, and looked on the others, and on Merir. Lellin wept, and Sezar, the both of them bowed to the floor; and two by two their brother arrhendim joined them.

"We have heard truth," Merir said. "I think we have heard the truth my grandson was quicker to hear."

The elder nodded, his hands trembling so that the staff rattled against the floor. He looked at all the arrha about him. There was none to say otherwise.

"Do as you will," he said then to Morgaine. "Pass. We will seal Nehmin behind you."

Morgaine let go a long slow breath, and bowed her head. After a moment she gathered Changeling to her side and hooked it there, drew it to her shoulder. "We have a number of Shiua to clear from our path to Azeroth. The enemy, my lords of the arrha, is still advancing from the river. What will you do about it?"