Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles (16 page)

More, years of priests kept attempting to establish yet another set of Lines by their observances, across a division in the building that had been a door, on one level, and yet had been a wall another time, and then yet a third time a wall, with doors and windows in that earliest age. Openings overlay walls all about this great hall. What should have let shadows flow entrapped them, and immured them, and created pockets of distressed souls that seethed and struggled behind the banners, behind the acorn-baskets of the table, especially where two of the previous efforts had made an unintended doorway.

He no longer saw the candlelit stone or the incense; he saw streaks of blue light, and shadows milling there in increasing violence, a darkness in motion, wailing, attempting to flow along the new, misaimed line the priest established, a line that failed to meet the ward of the vanished door on one side and that had only the slightest of barriers established there.

Foolish, he thought. So foolish. There was power here, although Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles nothing acute, and it was no help at all to be walking back and forth, back and forth as the Patriarch was doing, with a very weak force, luring the shadows to one side and the other like hounds following a tidbit, leading them to desire their freedom and then, with a turn, frustrating them.

Perhaps the torment of the shadows had to do with the gods, who were supposed to be five in number, and somehow bright, as shadows were not—the very antithesis of shadows, as he understood from Efanor’s earnest but vague instruction; and he wished he had had the chance to ask Emuin, who had evaded him by having his door latched, which might have meant he was asleep, or might not. Emuin disapproved in general and yet refused him the excuse that might have prevented his instruction; Emuin disapproved the penny, too, he feared, or so he gathered out of that surly silence. Go ahead, Emuin seemed to be saying by this odd behavior: I disapprove in the extreme, but neither will I counterpose my will to your curiosity or Cefwyn’s insistence.

Emuin must have known about the Lines. Emuin spoke about gods, and salvation, and Emuin must have known about the Lines. Could both things be true, this blind show, and could the gods still exist?

Back and forth, back and forth paced the Holy Father in what Tristen knew now was folly. But he judged the temper of the Lines and their jagged traps and knew that, frustrated as they were, and angry, the shadows were far from breaking loose. Most of them were weak, and had no power to do real harm even if they did break free… certainly none could do so by daylight, when they had less power. It was the sheer mass of their accumulated anger that was Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles daunting, and it vexed him that Cefwyn stood unseeing in front of this thing. Whether Ninévrisè, who was able to enter the gray place, might be aware or not… he doubted it. But his mere thought leapt suddenly to her thoughts: he felt her confusion and the oppression of the shadows around them, and was
aware
of her presence as a point of light amid the demishadows of others.

He felt another presence, too.

It was behind him. He felt three or four, enlivened points of light.

Not shadows, but wizard-fire, the sort that ordinary men never saw, and fear leapt up in him so high that he clutched the rail in front of him. He was almost aware of Cevulirn… he had never known there was wizard-talent in Cevulirn. Not even Lewenbrook had provoked it. And in being aware of that very dimmest fire, he saw Ninévrisë like a blue-white star—and Efanor with ever so faint a spark. He was aware of Emuin, high aloft and some distance removed; and of six or seven very dim presences out among the guards, or the people, and one among the banner-bearers along the sides, also in the shrine.

What was it? he asked himself. Could he have failed to see what glowed softly in Cevulirn, or had the danger at Lewenbrook, so strong, so thunderously dark, blinded him? Or had the Patriarch’s folly encouraged the faintest sparks in two in particular he knew were not the Patriarch’s followers? Was it a defense their hearts raised? And if that was so, how must
he
seem, to anyone with eyes to see him in the gray space?

You
burn
, Emuin had told him once.

He was trembling as the Patriarch finished and took up the box that Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles he hoped would hold the pennies and give them their escape. The Patriarch lifted it on high, then held it before him. The singing of women rose high and full, echoing around the hall. The sunlight speared through a heavy pall of incense, and oh, at last! the ceremony was ending. First Cefwyn, then Efanor, then Ninévrisë filed past and dropped a coin into the box as the lines of the assembled nobility began the recessional. Lord Brysaulin passed and dropped in his penny as the row emptied and Cefwyn led the procession out to the fanfare of trumpets. The Dragon banner of Ylesuin swept in from the side, the Prince’s personal standard, the black-and-white Checker and Tower of the Regency in Elwynor and the standard of Guelessar moved close upon them, the various king’s officers yet to come, and then the barons. The second rank of nobles joined the file past the Holy Father and now the column went out the door.

Then the next row was moving, last but his. How should he find Uwen? It seemed in this arrangement that the lords’ captains had to follow as best they could; and he feared making a mistake and calling attention to himself, or breaking one of those weak patterns.

He was far from sure the Holy Father would know it if he nudged something magical by mischance, but certainly if it had been intentional wizard-work, a misstep would draw attention.

Cevulirn was moving now, so it was time for him. He drew a deep, anxious breath, wished nothing ill to happen… but Emuin had warned him to wish very little. He thought very hard of being as harmless as he could be and of burning very, very dimly in the gray space as he followed Cevulirn: he wished to show no more fire than Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Cevulirn himself, and wished to do no more harm than Cevulirn did.

He had the penny, the metal warm in his hand. He followed Cevulirn’s example and dropped his gift into the slot, not looking into the Patriarch’s face as he let it fall. It hit others inside with a metallic sound, and he turned away, seeing the bright sunlight of the high arched doors as refuge toward which he walked.

He followed Cevulirn’s gray cloak out toward what had become dimmed sunlight, with the smoke overhead a haze above the door, a stinging haze stirred by the passage of the great banners. The White Horse of Ivanor swept in from the side. His own banners flowed in before him, a black transparent veil against the daylight in the doors, and preceded him as he walked out and down the steps. He was glad to breathe the clear, cold wind, glad to be away from the shadows seething at his back.

The smell clung to him. He walked still behind Cevulirn, saw Idrys shadowing Cefwyn, now, ahead of him. There was Gwywyn, captain of the Prince’s Guard, with Efanor. Then the captain of the Guelesfort, and then Lord Maudyn, commander of the forces on the riverside, and all the captains, and then the barons and their captains, and then the minor nobility of the town of Guelemara itself, all spreading out on the steps and below them. The guard captains overtook their lords, and the groups formed again, separate in colors, but not in so much sunlight as when they had gone in: clouds had swept in above the square, rendering them all shadowless, breaking down those ordinary barriers of daylight.

People in the square had surged forward as the first banners came out, and for a moment the people made signs against harm, and held Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles far back from him. The very sky seemed made of pewter, and ominous, and no one saw it.

Uwen silently joined him, a relief and a comfort as the Patriarch came out and stood on the steps above them. The old man lifted the box left and right, toward the frowning, ominous heaven.

No! Tristen wished to say, as all of them, commons and nobles alike, looked up. He saw harm. He could not say from what. But harm… indeed.

The Patriarch lowered the box, and from behind him filed two rows of priests, each carrying a bundle of sticks, out and down the steps, curious sight to behold. The priests reached the bottom of the steps and proceeded on across the square. Had not Uwen said the priests did not approve the bonfire? Yet they brought their bundles of sticks, and flung them on. Cheers attended the act.

“What are those bundles?” he asked Uwen, beneath the noise and the cheering.

“The sins of the lords,” Uwen said. “And the bad old things. All goin’ into the fire, m’lord.”

“Mine, too?” he asked Uwen, having a sudden, irrational hope of mending what he could in nowise reach, things his skills had done, things he had not done, fears he had brought to the land and hopes of others that he had not met. He knew he was flawed. Mauryl had said so from the start; and Emuin generally refused to teach him.

Between Efanor’s gods and the burning of sins, dared he hope?

But in that moment a cruel cold wind had begun to blow, a chill gust that snapped banners and tugged at cloaks.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Uwen was not instant to answer his foolish question, either. “Such sins as ye have, m’lord, which by me ain’t much. Certainly not compared to some I could speak of. ” Uwen was wrong in that: If he was the Sihhë-lord some thought, if he was Barrakkêth, then had he not sins? And if he was not the Sihhë-lord Mauryl had Called, was he not flawed? And did not the little book Efanor had lent him speak of flaws and sins as one and the same?

But Uwen took a lighter tone, as talk and merriment broke out on every hand for no reason that he could see except the tossing of the bundles on the pile. “Truth is, m’lord, I don’t know about the burnin’, but the ale flowin’ free, and the dancin’ and all, that do cure the heart. If rain don’t drown all tonight, folk’ll dance their feet bare tonight, and the ale will flow, and all. Gods bless, the sins they’ll burn tonight ain’t even committed yet.”

The trumpets sounded, and the lords all turned behind the royal company, and they all trooped toward the Guelesfort, away from the square.

Tristen felt greater relief with every step away from the Quinaltine and its tormented shadows. The ale was flowing already, as he saw along the sides of the square, where huge barrels were set up and where no few of the common folk had gathered even during the royal procession. In the distance, now that the trumpets were silent, a street drummer and a flute player struck up a lively tune. That lilting sound of the flute lifted his spirits; and if he simply looked straight ahead, he could ignore the warding signs people made against him, and that muddle of lines and trapped shadows he had seen. Could Emuin fail to see it?

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Yet Emuin was, after all, a Man. All but him… were Men.

He had the Quinalt medallion about his neck. He had never even remembered it during the ceremony. He had never seemed affected, or to affect anything at all. That was good, perhaps, but he was increasingly disappointed.

He had met no gods, after all, only poor unhappy shadows. He imagined that the shadows would stir about madly over the next few days, lent substance by the offerings and the reinforcement of the skewed line, and perhaps they would attempt escape briefly when the sun was hidden and no light penetrated that darkness.

But nothing the highest of all priests was doing could free them.

Trapped spirits were indeed the unhappiness that had troubled him about the place. They were the power in the earth there, too many dead, too much forgotten and disregarded. He could not imagine the Mason who had done the last construction, ignoring all that was done before.

But somehow the walls had not fallen down nor had the place broken out in irruptions of spirits. He supposed that the last Masons had been the very likeness of the Patriarch and the priests, blind to what they were doing, or even deliberately transgressing something they had knocked down and wished to obliterate—as the Quinalt truly tolerated no opinion but its own and evidently deluded itself that its will had more potency. In that sense the Lines might have been jumbled by choice, and the sight he had seen might be truly the Quinaltine as Efanor refused to see it, as even the Holy Father refused to see it—a site at war with shadows, a trap to the dead it professed to safeguard in holiness.

Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles Yet, he thought, did master Emuin look on such things unmoved?

Or wherein was the difference between Emuin the priest and wizard, and Efanor the devout and princely man, except one wished to
know
and the other wished to believe, and the former wished to keep all his secrets and the latter wished to spread his opinions about to acquaintances?

But dared he think… both were Men, and all he had for guides, and this was the quality of his advice now that Mauryl was gone? The enormity of ignorance directing him was beyond all his fears.

They passed through the gates of the Guelesfort, crossed the courtyard, where the servants had gathered in some number, and where lords’ men who had not been in the processional sought their particular station through a waving forest of banners. Lords sought Cefwyn’s ear, braving the cold rain that began to mist down from the pewter sky.

Tristen did not attempt the press about Cefwyn, himself, and the cold dissuaded him from lingering. Lusin and the others had found his banner in the confusion, and he had two of them at least with him as he and Uwen went toward the steps that led into the keep.

The courtyard had grown crowded with the wives and daughters of the lords, women in finery who had come out into the chill and damp, a lighter set of voices momentarily surrounding them. A gust brought drops of rain and squeals and orders to go inside.

He should have felt elated, he thought, to have pleased everyone and to have gotten through the ceremony; but before they were quite inside the rain began to pelt down. Lightning whitened the yard, and the brightly clad ladies and the courtiers alike cried in alarm and Cherryh, C J - Fortress 02- Fortress of Eagles pushed and shoved to be indoors.