Fortress in the Eye of Time (26 page)

Wind blasted suddenly at their faces, skirling through the trees, sighing with a voice of leaves. A horse whinnied from far away. Tristen smelled smoke and heard voices raised in alarm, faint and far, but many, many of them. He thought of what Idrys said about burning the haystacks.

“Something is burning,” he said.

“Nothing's there,” Cefwyn said, sharply. “Stay with me.”

A well-worn path went along the foundations of another set of walls. The smell of burning was overwhelming. It clung to them as they went, the horses all panting with the pace Cefwyn set, white froth flying from the bits in the gathering dark.

“I surely wisht I had me a bow,” said one of the soldiers.

“Keep ahorse,” breathed another. “Ain't no arrows to touch the cursed dead.”

“Quiet,” Cefwyn hissed.

“Fire,” Tristen insisted.

The air seemed gray, then, and he knew he had slipped again into that dangerous place. Worse, it had become full of Shadows.

He saw fire spreading through the shadow-woods, pale and
dimmed, sickly orange in a white and gray landscape of shadows, and he could no longer find Cefwyn nor the men with him as he rode.

—
Stay, a
voice said to him.
Stay, fledgling. Feel your feathers singed, do you? The fire will not touch you. I would not let it touch you. Believe me. Trust me. Follow me. I'll lead you safely home
.

—
Emuin?
he called out.
Emuin, are you there?

“Stop him!” voices cried.

Hands reached, Shadows rippled and rushed through the gray and the smoke and the pale, pale glow of fire against the pearl-colored sky
.

He saw a gulf of darkness ahead of him and sent Gery flying across it, riding for the only gap in the fire he saw
.

He struck a level plane where Gery fairly flew, away from the fire, away from the flames, away from the voices and the Shadows that reached for him
.

But Gery and he went soaring through empty air, and a way loomed in front of him through breaking branches, a way of escape with fire on either hand, a path that went on and on, into the pearl-gray air
.

Darkness loomed up; the bodies of horses checked Gery's forward rush.
Catch the reins
! he heard one shout, and hands dragged at Gery, hands dragged at him, too, until Gery stumbled and slogged to a stop.

The gray was no longer clear but charged with man-shaped shadows, full of harsh voices and reaching hands…

“Stay,” Idrys advised in a voice hardly recognizable for its rawness. “Stay, damn you! Enough! M'lord Prince!”

Other shadows came up behind him. He was still on Gery's back. The whole sky spun and wove with lesser Shadows, the sort that men made: pale gray, not the deadly black of the true ones. The air echoed with voices reporting riders in the hills.

“Cursed ground,” someone said, and: “They're Sihhë dead,” which was a Name potent with their fear. “What's it to
him
?” another asked. And another: “He's right with 'em all. He'd have led us to very hell!”

“He led us to the road,” a louder voice said. “Shut your damned mouths.”

And amid all those voices he heard Cefwyn ask, “How did you chance here?” and heard Idrys answer: “The woods and damned good fortune. There was manure that no sheep nor goat made, m'lord Prince, horse manure spread about Emwy's orchard, bold as you please. I fired the hay, sent ten men after you overland and took the short way after—four good Guelen men, m'lord Prince, four good men lost on this cursed venture not counting Lewen's-son!”

He was no longer holding Gery's reins. Gery moved, and he swayed and Gery moved out from under him as someone called out warning, but he found nothing at all to hold—he was drifting in that gray place, and a hand pushed him until he was straight in the saddle and Gery moved back under him.

More men came riding up, enemies, some thought, but they were not. He knew them, not their names, but he felt their presence and knew them for Cefwyn's men. They were men Idrys had sent to track them through the countryside, and they complained of ghosts, and haunts, and swore they had smelled smoke, too, that it clung to their clothes. That they had heard voices and children screaming.

The night came clear about him, then: a place, a road, open to a sky beginning to show stars. They were on the road, and Idrys spoke of ambush. “We should be on our way, m'lord Prince,” Idrys said. “There's nothing to gain, few as we are. We've tripped something before they'd like—so let us have the advantage of it, not throw lives away in chasing ghosts. It's phantoms you're seeing.”

“A plague on Heryn's lost sheep,” Cefwyn said, and, “We'll have questions for Emwy district. If they won't respect my banner, they'll pray for me back again.
And
they'll answer my questions.”

They rode away from the place. Things came clearer as they went, the dark of ordinary night succeeding gray in his vision. But they were going, they said, back to the town, back
to safety, where they might send men to find out the truth of business about Emwy district.

“Althalen,” he heard Idrys mutter. “A fit place to murder the Marhanen heir.”

A Name, a Name that rose up and coiled along the road, a Name that cast the night into confusion and distrust
.

A Name that wrote itself on aged parchment, and shadowed with Owl's broad wings
.

The gray was more, then, and the light in that place breathed with voices all striving to tell him something, but so many spoke at once he could not hear a single word
.

He was sitting on a rock, and horses were nearby. He swayed as he sat, and a hand touched him—he reached to feel it, seeking something solid in the reeling, giddy light
.

A blow stung his cheek. A second
.

“Cold as the dead,” Cefwyn breathed. “Tristen.”

“M'lord,” he said. The world was clear, if only the small dark space of it where Cefwyn was kneeling on one knee—that was not right. Cefwyn should not do that; but all else was gray, and cold, and went and came by turns as Cefwyn fumbled at his own collar and drew out a circlet of metal on a chain.

“Here.” Cefwyn drew the chain off and pressed the object into his hand perforce. He felt the shape. He felt it as something alive and potent. Numbly he clenched it tight, pressed it to his heart and breathed, seeing the world dark and overwhelmed with Shadows and starlight.

“I was lost,” he murmured, trying to make them understand. “Cefwyn,—”

—
The Marhanen. We are betrayed once and twice, creature of Mauryl Gestaurien. You are deceived if you trust in these. Mauryl cannot have intended this, of all things else he would have done. You are in the wrong place. Leave them. Come away
.

“Unnatural,” a soldier muttered. “They's ghosts about. They's no good for a Marhanen nor a Guelen man on this road.”

“Get him up. Set him ahorse,” someone said, and Tristen tried to see, but the Shadow was around him. He knew he stood. He knew Cefwyn took the object and the chain from his hand and put it over his head, and about his neck, insisting that he wear it. It chilled him through the mail. “I am afraid,” he said. “Cefwyn, I don't know the way from here. I can't find the road home.”

“Hush,” Cefwyn said, or Mauryl said. He was not certain. Rough hands pulled him, guided him, lifted him up and across a saddle which he struggled at the last to reach, knowing it was his way to home and safety.

A long time later he heard the sound of horses. He said as much, but no one would listen. Later, after another rest, and after they were on their way again—it might have been hours—they heard them, too, and he heard men curse and some invoke the gods. He heard metal hiss and knew the sound for the drawing of swords.

He felt at his side, but he had no sword. As in the loft when Mauryl died, when others took measures against the danger, he waited, not understanding, searching through the grayness to know whether the riders that came toward them were friend or foe.

Someone hailed them in the distance. “M'lord Prince?” that voice said, then closer. And eventually another called, rough and grown familiar since a morning that now seemed a world past, a voice that had called him out of a safety amid the bedcovers, out the dark of his room yesterday morning.

“M'lord Prince? Lord Commander? Is that you?”

He trembled, recognizing Uwen's voice. He saw Uwen with a bandage about his head, ahorse and leading other horsemen toward them out of a faint coloring of dawn above the hills.

Among the riders was His Grace Lord Heryn in velvet hall-clothing. Heryn made haste to get down and kneel on the roadside and to offer Cefwyn his respects and his concern.

“Well you came,” Cefwyn muttered. “And with the Guelen guard. How kind of you to bring my soldiers. Or was it my soldiers who brought you?”

“I heard the news,” Heryn said. “Your Highness, I had no inkling, none, of any disaffection in the area. My men have come and gone there with no hint of their doings. I swear to you I'll find out the truth. I'll get to the heart of this. I'll find the ones responsible
and
their kin. Damn them all!”

It was not the last word that Heryn said. Cefwyn also gave some answer to him. But the sound of voices grew dim. Uwen had ridden close, and asked if he was well.

“I think,” he began to say, but did not finish.

 

—
Tristen
, the Wind breathed.
Tristen, Tristen
.

He felt the chill, and struggled against the touch
.

—
No
, said the Wind, and there was fear in it.
Tristen is
not
your name
.

“Uwen,—” he found wit to say. He stood on the ground. He had gotten down from Gery at the rest they took; but he stood foolishly with Gery's reins in hand, and could not manage them, he was shaking so. “Uwen. Help.”

“Aye, m'lord. Here's a stirrup clear. I got ye.” A hand reached down to him, took Gery's reins, and lingered to take his hand. “Put your foot in 't, m'lord, I'll pull.”

He set his foot in Uwen's stirrup. Uwen pulled on his hand as he tried to rise, pulled until he could catch a grip on Uwen's coat, and then on Uwen's arm, as he came astride the horse. He settled, taking a grip on the saddle, not knowing what else to do with his hands, but Uwen bade him to put his arms around him—“The horse can carry us both a ways,” Uwen said. “Ye ain't got but a mail coat, nor me much more, m'lord. Rest forward against my back, there's a lad.”

He let his head sink again, trusting Uwen, trying with all his will not to fall into that grayness again. It had become a deadly place. He knew this as he recognized Words when they came to him. The gray space, which Emuin had warned him was not their own, was not a refuge here, this close to haunted things. He had not reached Emuin. He could not
attract Emuin, only that hostile Voice that called and urged at him, and of all things else, he dared not listen to it.

But it was safety he had found at Uwen's back, at long last, after long running. Uwen offered him protection, a trusted, a kindly presence, strong enough to chase the shadows for him.

He slept, utterly, deeply slept, then, his head bowed against Uwen's shoulder.

“I
done what I knew,” Uwen said. The veteran's voice shook. And Uwen Lewen's-son, Cefwyn thought, was not a man who feared that much of god or devil—or the lord court physician. “I talked to 'im all th' way home, Your Highness,” Uwen said, “I told 'im, don't you fear, I told him, Don't ye go down, lad, and he clung on. He hears what ye say.—He ain't deaf, sir.” The latter to the physician, who tucked his hands in his black sleeves and scowled.

Cefwyn scowled at Uwen and at the physician alike, as the learned fool shook his graying head and withdrew from Tristen's bedside.

“In sleep, despite the protestations of unlearned men, there is no awareness,” the physician said. “It is perhaps a salutary sleep, Highness. There is no hurt on him that mortal eye can see, naught but scratches and bruises, doubtless from the falls—”

“A fool can see that! Why does he sleep?”

“Nothing natural can cause so profound a sleep. I would say, ensorcelment. If he would bear the inquiry—” The physician moistened thin, disapproving lips. “I should say this far more aptly is a priest's business. Or—failing that—the burning of blessed candles. The Teranthine medal—is that his choice?”

“I gave it to him,” Cefwyn said sharply, and whatever sectarian debate the physician was about to raise died unsaid. “Holy candles, is it?”

“He needs a priest.”

“He needs a physician!” Cefwyn snapped. “I engaged you from the capital because I was assured of your skill. Was I misinformed, sir?”

“Your Highness, there are—” A clearing of the throat. “—rumors of his unwholesome provenance.—And if it is true that he came from Ynefel, I understand why you have engaged no
priest. Yet I have risked the inquiry, Your Highness, and made the recommendation. Perhaps a lay member—”

“A plague on your candles. What in the gods' name ails him?”

“Not a bodily ill.”

“A priest, you say.”

“I would not for my own soul stay an hour in Althalen; the feverous humors of that place, particularly at evening—”

“Out on you! You've never come near Althalen!”

“Nor ever hope to, Your Highness.” Secure in his physician's robes, his officerships in the guild, and in his doddering age, the man gathered up his medications, restored each vial, each mirror, each arcane instrument to its place, while the patient slept unimproved and an unlettered soldier did the only things that seemed effective, kneeling by the bedside and talking, simply talking.

Baggage packed, the dotard pattered to the door and opened it.

Guards closed it after him. They were Guelen men, of the Prince's Guard, men he trusted—as he would have thought he could have trusted the Guelen physician not to be affrighted by the unorthodox goings-on of a largely heretic province.

But Uwen stayed, on his knees, arms on the bedside, pouring into the sleeper's ear how red Gery was to be let out to pasture tomorrow with his own horse for a well-earned rest, how she'd taken no great harm of the run Tristen had put her to, and how he was very sorry to have left Tristen in the woods, but he'd had the prince's orders to ride to town and he had done that.

Uwen had indeed done that. With two of Uwen's comrades dead and Uwen himself struck on the head with a sling-stone that might have cracked a less stubborn skull, Uwen Lewen's-son had ridden his own horse to the limit and roused Lord Captain Kerdin and a squad of the regular Guard in an amazingly short time. Then, instead of pleading off as he well might have done with his injury, Uwen had changed horses and ridden with the rescue, joined of course by His Grace Heryn Aswydd's oh-so-earnest self.

Uwen Lewen's-son had stayed with his charge all day and night after, besides his breakneck ride and a lump on his skull the size of an egg. Uwen had bathed the man, warmed the man from the chill that possessed him, and talked to an apparently unhearing ear until he was hoarse. Uwen had hovered and worried without the least regard to his captain's casually permissive order to retire, and not expected a prince's reward for his staying on duty, either.

“You've done him more good all along than that learned fool's advice,” Cefwyn said. “But there's no change. I'll have reliable men watch him. Do go to bed, man.”

“By your leave,” Uwen said in his thread of a voice. “By your leave, Your Highness, I had to leave him in the woods. I'd not leave him to no priest who won't stir for thunder. I'd rather stay.”

So Uwen Lewen's-son had looked Mauryl's work in the eyes, too, poor ensorcelled fool. Idrys had called Uwen a longtime veteran of the borders, a man of the villages, not of the Guelen court, but long enough about the borders to know wizard tricks and sleight-of-hand; and to know now—a shiver went through his stomach—what the hedge-wizards only counterfeited to do.

He recalled the gust of wind that had skirled around the old woman in Emwy. That was either a timely piece of luck, or it was something entirely different. Tristen had been involved. Therefore Mauryl had. Kerdin, in a moment out of Heryn's hearing, had wanted to send a force of Guelen men to occupy Emwy and poke and pry into local secrets; Idrys, having seen the area himself, had wagered privately that such a force would find bridges as well as witches, and advised them, in colder counsel and with his prince safe in retreat, that they ought well to consider how much they wished to discover, and when.

Heryn, during that ride home, had said the horsemen whose sign they had seen near Raven's Knob might have been nothing more sinister than his own rangers, going about their ordinary business and keeping out of sight.

Then where are Emwy's young men? he had asked Heryn plainly, himself, and Heryn, always ready with an answer, had said they were in fact hunting outlaws, that Emwy district had indeed lost numerous sheep, and that the prince was entirely mistaken and misled if he thought there was possibly aught amiss in Emwy.

That meant that the prince, the Lord Commander,
and
his company had foolishly panicked at the sign of friendly Amefin rangers, that they had fled those friendly forces in confusion, and outlaws—outlaws, where supposedly Heryn's rangers were thick!—had shot and slung from ambush, killing the prince's men, for which they would pay—so Heryn Aswydd swore.

The bedside candle, aromatic with herbs, not holy oil, broke a waxen dam at its crest and sent a puddle down the candlestick and down again to the catch-pan beneath it. The puddle glowed like the sleeper's skin, pale, damp, flawless.

Heryn had implied, by what he had said, that the prince and the Lord Commander of the Prince's Guard, who, himself, had led His Majesty's forces in border skirmishes before this, were fools, starting at shadows.

Or Heryn thought to this very moment that the prince and his Lord Commander were fools to be
tricked
by shadows.

Shadows of which Amefel had many, many, in its secret nooks and clandestine observances—and in its ancient alliance with the Silver Tower. Mauryl's tower, as men had called it since the Sihhë kings died.

Heryn thought the prince did not delve into such secrets. Heryn thought the Marhanen prince, out of Guelen territory, sanctified by the Quinalt, had no conduit to such strange wells as Heryn Aswydd drank from in his countryish meanderings. But the prince had had Emuin for a tutor, the prince had learned enough to safeguard himself from pretenders to Emuin's craft—and the prince, more lettered in many respects than Heryn Aswydd, he would wager, was not complacent or blind.

The prince wondered, for instance, considering the luxury
hereabouts which did not find its way to royal coffers, where Heryn had found the means. The polished stone—oh, well, there were quarries. The carvings, to be sure—the artisans of Amefel were skilled, if heretic, and the patterns traditional to the region were…ornate, and devoid of symbols nowadays that might offend the Quinalt, whose local patriarch had such carvings in his own residence, set in gold and pearls, of course. One wondered with what hire Heryn bought them, or where the gold flowed before and after.

The Sihhë kings had hoards unfound—they said. The Sihhë kings had had means to call it out of the sea—or less savory places.

The Sihhë kings had had such wealth as Heryn used—Heryn, who might, like the Elwynim, have a little of that ancient, chancy blood in his veins, as he had such ancient, chancy connections to various villages of Emwy's sort, hung about with curious charms and observing strange festivals regarding straw men and old stones.

Heryn appeared to tax the villages white—and a Marhanen prince was not certain, with all the work of his accountants, whether that appearance was as simple as even the second set of accounts showed, or whether there was a reason villagers were to this day more ready to cut the throat of the hated Marhanen than they were to overthrow Aswydd taxes. Treasure trove was due the Crown—but one could prove nothing in the damned books. Heryn appeared to pay his taxes. Amefel appeared to be richer than its fields.

“M'lord,” Uwen was saying, patting the sleeper's cheek. “M'lord, d' ye hear?” At the bedside, Uwen took the sleeper's hand, which the physician's ministrations had left prey to cold air, and, tucking it across Tristen's chest, drew the blankets up to his chin.

Like chiseled stone the face was, too perfect—and seemed older sleeping than awake, curious perception of Mauryl's creature. It was a grimmer, more hollow-cheeked visage than
when the curious, gray eyes were open, entrapping, ensorcelling the unwary eye to look into them, not at the features, not at the stature, which was tall, nor at the shoulders, which were broad—nor at the hands, fine-boned and strong and sure on red Gery's reins.

Mauryl's piece of work had fallen ill in the Sihhë ruin, complaining of smoke which only some of them had smelled before or after that warning, but which he could now imagine clinging even in this room.

Mauryl's piece of work had ridden a good mare a course that should have broken her legs and his neck, through sapling woods and over ruined walls, along starless trails, over thorn hedges and dead-on to the road they were looking for—staying just out of their reach and with uncanny accuracy arriving to meet Idrys, who was desperately looking for them.

Thereafter—an increasing swoon, moment to moment waking to be with them, then gone again, like a candle guttering out, wit and resource all spent. Uwen had had hard shift only to keep his charge ahorse; and it had taken two men to carry him, yestereve, to this room.

Tristen had not waked since that last time on the road, still far from Henas'amef; had not waked though taken through the clattering town streets and through the gates; had not waked though borne by the guard upstairs and undressed and settled here; had not waked through the ministrations of three separate physicians, the last of which had been the prince's own resort.

Cefwyn looked at Uwen and let go a breath, giving a shake of his head.

“A priest would call this a dangerous place to be. Are you a pious man, Lewen's-son?”

“Not so's I'd leave him, Your Highness. I seen wickedness. I seen it where I had no doubt. This 'un don't 'fright me.”

“They say he's a haunt, you know that.”

“Who says, Your Highness?”

“Oh, the wise, that might know. Gossips in the hall.
Servants in the scullery. Men in the guardroom.—Priests at their prayers. Some might say your soul was in danger. Some might say he'd bewitch you. Or that he already had.”

“Some might say they're full of wind.—Wi' all respect, Your Highness.” Uwen ducked his head and his ears were red. “I misspoke.”

“Idrys called you honest. I respect that.”

“I don't know that, Your Highness, but if the Lord Commander says.”

“Servants will attend tonight. Tell them if you have need of anything for yourself or for him. Anything. Do not be modest in your requests. His belongings are under guard in his own room, upstairs. My guard, across the hall, will rouse me if he wakes—or worsens.”

“Your Highness.” Uwen gathered himself up to his feet. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Bed down by him, on the mattress. You've need of your own rest, man. He'll not mind.”

“Aye, Your Highness.—I—”

“Yes?”

“The physician didn't hint at any cause, Your Highness? I seen men hit on the head, m'lord, or knocked in the gut, and I seen 'em sleep like this.” Uwen's scarred chin wobbled. “I didn't think he'd fallen, Your Highness, and I couldn't feel aught amiss, but maybe he sort of cracked his head, or one of them slingers—”

“He had a good soldier's helm till he lost it, Lewen's-son. Where was yours?”

“I guess I give it him, Your Highness.”

“So your own head is the chancy one, isn't it? No, Lewen's-son. This is Mauryl's working, and by Mauryl's working he lives or not.”

“They say Mauryl's dead, Your Highness.”

“That they do. And perhaps the old man's work is unraveling. Or maybe it isn't. If we knew, then we'd
be
wizards and our own souls would be in danger, so I'd not ask, man. I'd just keep the fool covered and pour a little brandy wine down
him if he wakes. You could bake bread in this room, gods, and it won't warm him.”

“I been thinkin' of warming stones. Summer 'n all, Your Highness, if we could once get 'im warm…”

“It could do no worse. Tell the servants.” He gave a shake of his head and walked out, through the anteroom where Lewen's-son had a bed he refused to use, and across the hall where Guelenmen stood guard over his own quarters. It was a larger room he'd allotted Tristen. It was a finer room, but that was beside the point for a man who might not wake. It was—the holy gods knew, a twinge of conscience, that he'd so failed Emuin's simple behest to take care of their visitor.

He'd sent to Emuin, last night, post-haste, a royal courier, one of twelve such silver tags which the King in his expectations of calamity had allotted his son and heir. They allowed a courier anything he needed anywhere along his route, under extreme penalty for refusal of his demands. He'd not used a one, before last night.