Free The Door into Sunset by Diane Duane Page A

his mother’s.
    A long time, She held him through the weeping. And when it was done, and She was Mother no longer, but Bride—
    “You’re up late,” said a voice right by his ear.
    Freelorn jerked upright and slapped his left hip with his right hand, uselessly, for Súthan was not there any more, and it was a good question whether it ever would be again. The Darthene mastersmiths said its metal was probably too old to successfully reforge. He glared at the source of the interruption. Beside him on the parapet was a North Arlene hunting cat—or at least it would have been, if hunting cats had pelts that glowed a dull grey-dusted orange like coals in a banked fire, and black-irised eyes with pupils that were slits of molten yellow.
    “Is there something I can do for you,” Freelorn said, breathing slow to quiet his heart, which was now pounding for different reasons, “or are you just looking for something to burn, as usual?”
    “Herewiss is wondering where you are,” said Sunspark.
    “Mmf,” Freelorn said. His feelings about Sunspark were mixed at best. But this much he knew, that he didn’t want a fire elemental as a go-between... especially when that fire elemental was sometimes Herewiss’s loved. Not that he was precisely jealous, of course, but— “Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
    “He didn’t send me,” Sunspark said, tucking itself down in a housecat-by-the-hearth position on the parapet. Only its tail hung down over the edge behind, and the tip of it smoldered as if thinking about bursting into flame. “And as for yourself, do your own errands, mortal man. I have one master only, and you’re not he.”
    “Look,” Freelorn said, upset by the coolness in its voice, and unsure why he was upset, “wait a moment. I’m sorry. You startled me, that’s all; sometimes people are rude when they’re startled.”
    Sunspark blinked slowly. “The way we burn things when we’re startled?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Well enough. But you people do about fifty other things when you’re startled, as well; I wish you would make your minds up.” And it sighed, so genuinely human a sound that Freelorn felt for it. Sunspark was studying to be human. Sometimes this was funny, but sometimes one came away after a lot of time spent “helping” with one’s hair singed for the trouble.
    “Different reactions from different people,” Freelorn said. “We’re all one people, but not one kind, like elementals. —I take it you just heard him, then. Underheard him.”
    “I always hear him. How not? He’s my loved.”
    “There’s more to love than just hearing.”
    “I know,” it said. “Compassion. He is teaching me.”
    If the look in Sunspark’s burning eyes was affection, it was of a dangerous sort, and Lorn wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with it. Something else slightly out of the ordinary, he thought. I’m in a threesome with a brushfire ....
    “You’re not, indeed,” Sunspark said, and lazily stretched out a paw, flexing the claws; they burned white-hot. “You’re interesting in your own way, but you’re most unlikely to master me as he did. And I doubt I’ll ever give love save where I’m mastered. This much I’ll say, though, for your sake, since he loves you: I would not have him in pain. Please watch what you do.”
    “I’m trying,” Freelorn said, surprised. He had never heard Sunspark say “please” before.
    Sunspark gazed out over the town, calm, or not noting the look. “So I heard. It’s well; for otherwise, king or no king, I would certainly have you for nunch.” It tucked the stretched paw back in again, serene. “Most of all, I won’t have him tamed; so watch your heart, for it was trying, just then.”
    “What?” He looked at it, too alarmed even to be angry for the moment.
    “Oh, you’re trying to tame him, all right,” it said. “Who should know the symptoms better?” It regarded him with dry amusement. “Many another has tried it with me,