Read Online The Door Into Fire by Diane Duane - Free Book Online

feeling: a fire, going out, almost too tired and weak now to be afraid any more. Steam rising, flames dying—and indeed there was steam wavering about the horse’s hide, as if it had been ridden hard on a cold day.
    He went over to the poor stumbling thing, took its head and stopped it. It regarded him dully from glazed eyes, taking a long time to realize what he was. And a feeling stirred in his head. The horse was bespeaking him.
    (Help…) it said. (Dry…)
    It collapsed to its knees.
    Herewiss was utterly amazed. No one had ever bespoken him but his mother, who had had the talent as a result of her training in the Fire; they had used it so commonly between them while she was alive that some of his more remote relatives in the Ward used to accuse him of disliking her, since when together they rarely spoke aloud. But after her death he had hardly ever used the talent again. There were no others in the Wood who had it, not even Herelaf; and after numerous disagreements with the Wardresses of the Forest Altars, Herewiss had little to say to them.
    But a horse?
    Then again, something in a horse’s shape could very well have the bespeaking ability. Rodmistresses sometimes took beast-shapes. If that was the case, though, why the distress—and why that strange underheard reading like none he had ever experienced?
    (Dry!) the horse-thing said again, more weakly.
    Herewiss bent over and grabbed the horse by the nose. Had it been in any better shape, it would certainly have bitten him. But now as he pulled at it the horse only moaned pitifully and struggled to its feet again. Herewiss pulled it, step by trembling step, back toward the shrine.
    (It hurts,) the creature said, bespeaking him piteously. (It hurts! )
    “I know. Come on.”
    This close to it, touching it, Herewiss’s underhearing was coming much more fiercely alive. He could feel the creature’s terror as if it were his own, and moreover he could feel its agony, for with every drop of rain that touched it the horse was seared as if by hot iron. Abruptly it collapsed in front of him, and then screamed, both out loud and within, trying to flinch away from the wet ground on which it had fallen.
    Herewiss was shaken to the heart by the sound of its terror. I can’t carry it or drag it— It screamed again, thrashing helplessly on the ground.
    Oh, damn, damn, dammit to Darkness! Herewiss thought. He bent down, put his arms around the barrel of its ribs just behind the forelegs, and began to pull. It was terribly heavy, but nowhere near as heavy as a real horse would have been, even one as emaciated as this creature seemed to be. It was wheezing with pain as he got its forequarters just clear of the wet grass and dragged it along.
    Herewiss wanted desperately to drop the horse, just for a moment’s rest, but he was also deadly afraid of hearing that terrible lost scream again. He kept pulling, pulling, cast a look over his shoulder. The shrine was a dark shadow through the rain, not too far away. And another shadow was approaching with a sound of wet squishing footfalls. Dapple came up through the rain, looked at Herewiss, and then turned sideways to him, facing him with the saddlebag in which the rope was coiled.
    “Thanks!” Herewiss said, reaching up with one arm to get the rope out. He uncoiled it, wound a bight around the strange horse’s chest behind the legs, knotted it, and tied the other end to Dapple’s saddlehorn. Dapple began backing steadily toward the shrine, and with Herewiss holding the horse partly clear of the ground, they got it to the door of the shrine quickly. There was a slight problem getting the horse through the door—Herewiss had to drop the poor creature on the floor halfway in and go around to push its hind legs inside. When he had managed that, he undid the rope, coiled it, stowed it, and went back into the shrine. He dropped to his knees beside the horse’s head, gasping for breath and rubbing at his outraged abdominal