The Door Into Shadow

— and then she understood, she saw, As she watched in horror, the 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 aban-doned her pounce and crouched down like a bird under a serpent's eye.

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 Khavrinen 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 Khav-rinen a bit to savor her fear, to prolong the sweet conflict— and in that moment abruptly felt what she did. Immediately his tone changed. (Beware! We have company!)

It flowed out into the stone again, surrounding him, unwill-ing to give up such a splendid tool. Segnbora felt Herewiss founder and go down, and couldn't stir so much as a thought to help him. The Shadow was after her too, flowing into the dark, places in, her soul that had

belonged to It since she was very small. Relentlessly, It inflamed them all: her anger at a life that, didn't go exactly as she wished; her old feelings of impotence and insignificance., . She fought, back. If she lei It, it would, enter her and cause

her to trigger the fault, which in turn would bury the valley, killing her friends and enemies alike. That couldn't be al-lowed. Desperately, she thought of Lang, of Eftgan — lovers who had taught her laughter. She pictured Freelorn, beautiful Freelorn, who demanded so much and gave so much in return. . She wasn't 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 in her own body. Fortunately, she was not. She pulled her Dra-con-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. She was not its tool. (Herewiss!)

A tide of blackness was almost all she could perceive of Its attack against him. Within it, however, she saw something moving — a disembodied force, the essence of Khavrinen 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. (It can't get us to trigger the fault, but It'll be glad to do that Itself!)
So It was doing. Segnbora could see all Its power, all Its hate, flowing back into the lateral fault — concentrating, burn-ing, 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,