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

muscles.
    “Well,” he said. “Now what?”
    The horse lay there with its sides still heaving, its breath rasping in and out, harsh with pain, as if it had been ridden to the point of foundering. Herewiss looked at it through the odd detachment that sometimes accompanies great exertion. In color the horse was a brilliant bay, almost blood-color, and its stringy, wet mane and tail were pale enough to be golden when they were dry. Under the taut-drawn skin, it had a beautiful head, fine-boned like that of a racehorse.
    But racehorses don’t bespeak people, Herewiss thought. And the way the rain was hurting it. Water… Could this be a fire elemental, then? People meet them so rarely, the stories say. But the reading I got from it—
    Herewiss closed his eyes and listened again. A feeling like fire, still, but not being rained on any more. Gathering strength, burning hotter, growing—
    He bespoke it, making the thoughts as clear as he could. (What happened?)
    (Don’t shout,) it answered faintly.
    (Sorry. What happened?)
    Its thought was weak, but had an ironic tone. (I didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Get out of me for a little, will you?)
    Herewiss did, and pushed himself over to where he could lean against the wall. The horse was still steaming slightly. He reached out a hand to touch one of its legs, and then jerked it away again, sucking in breath between his teeth. His fingers were scalded.
    A fire elemental. I’m in trouble.
    The legends were fairly explicit about elementals of any kind being capricious, dangerous, tricky. Some elementals were death just to see. Flame would be a protection, but a lot of good that did him. Sorcery wasn’t supposed to be much use either. Herewiss’s Great-great-great-great-aunt Ferrigan was supposed to have had dealings with some elementals, those of water and air mostly, and she had survived to tell about it, but no one was sure just how....
    Herewiss looked at the horse with apprehension. Its breathing was slowing, and it looked less emaciated than it had before. Herewiss shrugged his cloak back, and then realized that the air in the shrine was getting much warmer. And the blood-bay “horse” seemed to be drying out as he watched. In fact, it was becoming better fleshed out, growing sleek, growing whole—
    (What are you called?) Herewiss asked.
    It bespoke its Name to him, and Herewiss reflexively started back and shielded his eyes. The elemental showed him a terrible blazing globe of fire—the Sun close up, it seemed to be saying—and out of that blinding disc a sudden immense fountain of flame leaped up, streamed outward like a burning veil blown in a fierce wind. Then it bent back on itself with an awful arching grace, and fell or was drawn back into the vast sphere of flame below. That single pillar of fire would have been sufficient to burn away all the forests of the world in a moment; but the creature bespoke the concept casually, as a small everyday kind of thing, not a terribly special Name. And—Herewiss shuddered—it made free with its inner Name as if it had nothing to fear from anything—
    (Sunspark,) Herewiss said. (Would that be it?)
    (That’s fairly close.) It looked up at him from the floor. Its voice was sharp and bright, and currents of humor wafted around it as if the elemental balanced eternally on the edge of a joke. (What’s your name?)
    (I’m called Herewiss, Hearn’s son.)
    (That’s not your Name,) it said, both amused and scornful. (That’s just a calling, a use-name. What is your Name? )
    (You mean my inner Name?) Herewiss said, shocked and terrified.
    The elemental was confused by his fear. (“Inner?” How can a Name be “inner” or “outer?” You are what you are, and there’s no concealing it. Don’t you know what you are?)
    (No....)
    More confusion. (They told me this was a strange place! How can you be alive, and thinking, and able to talk to me, and not know?)
    (How can you be so sure? ) Herewiss said. (And if