Fortress in the Eye of Time (51 page)

The world became pearly gray. The walls stood, still burned, still broken, and Petelly and he moved all in that gray place, in a shifting succession of broken walls, less substance than shadow here. The burning and the smell of smoke was true in the gray world too. Only the Fear that Emuin had named to him…Hasufin…rolled through his attention, and seemed to have power here, power like that tingling of Mauryl's cures for skinned knees and bumped chins
.

That tingle in the air might, he thought, be wizardry, and if it was, he reminded himself staunchly of things as they ought
to be: he thought of Ynefel, and, feeling a sudden chill and a sense of dreadful presence, drew back out of that gray light
.

Then a wind sported through the grass, an ominous, tree-bending sort of wind which swept in a discrete line across the ground.

—
Child!
he called out in warning—because that gust made him think of the wind in the courtyard, that had raised the shape of dust and leaves, and he heard the faint wail of a frightened voice, as a breeze skipped behind him, at Petelly's tail.
Be still, child
, he said to it.
Go back. Be safe. I know my way now. Go back to your fountain. There's danger here!

—
Very noble
, the Wind challenged him, blowing up a puff of leaves.
Elfwyn would have done that sort of thing. And see what it won him
.

—
Hasufin?
he challenged it.
If that is your name, answer me
.

—
Why? Are you lost? Could you be lost? Or confused?—You're certainly in the wrong place, poor lost Shaping
.

The wind whirled through the brush, whipped leaves into Petelly's face, and Petelly reared, not at all liking this presence.

Neither did Petelly's rider.
Begone!
Tristen wished it, and the wind raced away, making a crooked line along the ground, raising little puffs of dust among the stones very much as the child had done, but far, far more rapidly
.

It was no natural wind, no more than the other had been. It retreated as far as an old foundation, and a heap of stones, where it blew leaves off the brush.

Then the line of disturbed dust swept back toward them.
This is Death
, it said.
All the Sihhë in this place died, even the children, should you find that sad. Mauryl and Emuin conspired to murder us. I was a child, did you know? I was a child of Althalen. But it did not stop the Marhanen. They murdered all the children in the presence of their mothers and fathers. And Mauryl was one of them that did the murder. Were you here?

He expected wickedness of it. Now it lied to him. Mauryl would not have killed children
.

But the gray place filled with halls lit with pale sunrise fire, and children and all the people were running from the flames. They did die. They burned. They ran like living torches, their clothes set ablaze with that faded light and arrows shot them down
.

A young boy lay sleeping on a bed. A man came, one thought, to rescue that child. But the man stabbed the sleeping boy, and that man's face was Emuin's
.

“No!”

It was wickedness. And a lie. He had pulled at Petelly's mouth by accident, making Petelly back and turn as he cleared his eyes of dream and wished the brush and the stones back into his sight. Petelly smelled something, or heard something still: even after he had resumed his even grip on the reins, Petelly kept bending his neck this way and that, trying to turn, backing a step at a time, showing the whites of his eyes and flaring his nostrils; but an even hold on the reins and a firm press of his knees steadied Petelly's heart and kept him moving.

That the enemy would lie and deceive—why should it not? What could a lie weigh against murder?

So he argued with himself, refusing to believe, having learned deception, and having used it himself.

The wind blew dust into his eyes, making him blink them shut on that gray space, but, tears running on his face, he doggedly watched the space between Petelly's ears, refusing to start at the Shadows that urged on the edges of his sight. He saw the taunting breeze skirl along the dust. It performed wild antics in his path, it danced in the brush, and turning, blasted him with chaff and grass.

—
Tristen
, it said to him.
Tristen, you dare not blind yourself. These are not lies. I do not lie to you. You've believed the Guelenfolk, and Emuin. Very foolish of you, though you might not know it. Shall I tell you what Mauryl called Emuin?

He smelled the smoke still. It seemed stronger. He saw shadow-shapes flitting to the stones and through the brush, shapes which he might have believed, except they passed the most delicate thorn-boughs without disturbing them
.

—
Mauryl called him weak. Mauryl called him timid. Mauryl called him many names. And you rely on him. Not wise. Not wise at all. You surely died here
.

—
Go away!
he cried.
Begone!

—
Oh, but you haven't Mauryl's force, have you? And you should indeed listen. Mauryl was my teacher. And Emuin's. Dear Mauryl. Do you remember how he served the Sihhë Kings? He betrayed them: they would not let him have his way—so he dealt with Guelenfolk, and conspired with the Marhanens, who were mere servants to the Sihhë. Do you know how I know? I—I was that murdered child, I was the great and fearsome enemy Mauryl dared not face alone, and all this ruin and all this death he made for me, for me, do you hear me? Because Mauryl feared me, he opened the gates to the Marhanen, he pent me in my room, and sent Emuin to do murder. Would you hear more?

—
Heryn Aswydd seemed an honest man
, he said, struggling to find resistance to the voice that now seemed so aggrieved, and so reasonable.
Heryn twice tried to kill us all
.

—
Oh, seemed, seemed. The Marhanen
seems.
Did Mauryl ever bid you trust the Marhanen? I think not. I know Mauryl's advice. He sent you on the Road, but at Ynefel is your answer, Shaping. I have your answer. All you have to do is ask me
.

The voice roared close and swept about him, a rush of wind along the ground. It blasted a growth of brushwood, and laid bare a slab of stone whereon something had burned
.

—
Oh, many of us, many of us
, the Wind said
. Hasufin…
said.
They burned the dead. They burned the living, did your precious Marhanen. They meant to leave no charred chip of bone to anchor us to the earth. But I have found that anchor. Ask! Come! Temporize with your fate. Ask me all your questions! Shall we search for your Grave, Sihhë soul?

Petelly fought the rein, turning and turning, pressed back by his knees. He saw the gray light, and the towers of Ynefel under shadow as the blackness arced across toward him
.

—
Then where and when was I born?
he asked it, he knew not by what impulse, but it was his question, it was the question only Mauryl knew.
Tell me that, or own you are ignorant and tell me nothing at all!

The Wind whipped away from him, breaking branches as it went. It poured across the sky in a scream of frustration and rage
.

Then was quiet. Utter quiet. Foolish, he thought, striving to hold Petelly from a wild rush across the ruins. He was aware of another, subtle presence, so faint and so far he all but missed it. He had not driven away the danger alone. This presence had helped him. This presence had given him steadiness when he most needed it
.

—
Young man!
it said, ever so faintly, now.
Young man! Be aware. Be away
…

—
Master Emuin?
he asked. It felt very much like Emuin's presence, but it was too elusive to see or to catch in this place. In that other world darkness had enclosed the area of silver gray where he and Petelly stood—all but that place and a patch of brightness ahead of him, and he saw it glow and falter like the guttering of a candle-flame
.

—
Emuin?
he asked, again, not certain that it was, but not daring leave his ally weak and faltering as he seemed to be
.

But it was a plump, kindly-seeming man who came toward him from that guttering light, a man he did not know in life—a man who called to him and held out hands in urgency—but the winds caught him away and their reaching fingers missed before ever he thought that there might have been a chance to catch him. He was gone. The encroaching Shadows flowed like water, broke like waves against the pearl-gray of the world
.

He felt—afraid, then. Bereft of help. He shook himself and tried to come away from that gray place, fearing tricks
.

He sat, trembling, on a shivering horse. Petelly stood with feet braced and head up, sniffing the wind.

He might have done the right thing, he said to himself. He had set the spirit aback. It was unable to answer that simple question, who he was, and what he was—and somehow that prevented it—Hasufin—from mischief. He thought that the child had gotten away from danger. He no longer saw the flitter in the leaves that betokened her presence.

But he thought, strangely, that he knew direction—amid the vast maze of lines of mostly-buried stones that was Althalen. There was presence at the heart of it: he thought so, from time to time, but it was a presence he did not think harmful. He thought rather the contrary, now, that the old man was someone he needed to find, another who had the right and the ability to travel in that gray space.

Petelly had not liked the Shadow that had come near them, but Petelly was not quite terrified, for he had the presence of mind to snatch a thistle-top, went, walking along through ripe grasses, along a line of stones that had been a wall.

Some distance he went, down a stream-course he thought might have been the same stream bent back again, perhaps tributary to the Lenúalim, who knew?

“Hold there!” someone cried.

He looked up atop a wall, at a man with a bent bow and an arrow ready to let fly at him. It was a man in gray and brown, and another, appearing in front of him.

Woolgathering, Mauryl had used to call it, when he let his wits go wandering.

“Sirs,” he said, in the courtesy he hoped would prevent arrows flying. “Good day.” Neither of these was the presence he had felt. He supposed they thought him quite foolish, being where he was, so unaware; or perhaps they thought him a danger.

The one man came closer. “Your sword,” that man said.

“I have none,” he said. “Nor any weapon. Have you a master, sir? I believe I've come to see him.”

The man on the rocks relaxed his draw and leaned on his bow. “And whose man would you be?”

“Cefwyn's,” he said. “And you, sir?”

“Men of Uleman,” the archer said. “The lord Regent of Elwynor.”

S
ullen, dejected men rose from their seats near the one tent of a fireless camp to lay hands on weapons and stare as, through the deep dusk, Tristen led Petelly in, with the archers walking behind him. Besides the tent, he saw the wagon to carry it, and some number of horses grazing within the ruined wall which surrounded the small camp, a ground with pavings here or there breaking surface amid the trampled grasses: it was some former room, or hall, and of men there were thirty or so, hardly more.

“What's this?” a man confronted them to ask.

“M'lord,” the older of the archers said, “m'lord, he came unarmed. He claims to be Cefwyn's man.”

“A bedraggled sort of emissary. And no attendant? No ring, no seal? A scout, far more likely. Where did you find him?”

The archers gave a quick and slightly muddled explanation, how he had come walking up to their post, how he had not argued with the request to go with them.

The man was not convinced. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Sir,” he said, “I am Cefwyn's friend, and I'm fully willing to carry messages to him.” He did not add that they were strangers in Cefwyn's land, and that, absent the weapons, he should most properly be asking them the questions about their intentions and their right to be where they were. “But I came to speak to your lord.”

The man said nothing to his offer, nothing at all, as he turned and went away into the only tent, a tent improbably pitched, its guy-ropes running to the ruined walls, and its pegs driven into earth where they had pried up paving-stones to accommodate them. The Elwynim had been at some great
pains to set their tent here, when there was far softer, deeper soil just across the ruined half wall. He found it curious and significant that they had been thus determined to have it inside rather than outside the walls. Lines on the earth, Tristen thought. Someone here knew.

And if the Regent of Elwynor was camped at Althalen, he might well be the one who had killed Cefwyn's father—and he might be the very lord of the Elwynim with whom Heryn Aswydd had conspired, which cast an even more unpleasant light on the situation.

Of all troubles he had gotten into and of all mistakes he had made, he said to himself, falling into the hands of the Elwynim might be the worst and the most costly to Cefwyn, although so far he could not complain of his treatment. By the archers' general behavior they were honest men, well-spoken, and not, at least, bandits who fired from hiding and without asking.

The men otherwise stared and talked among themselves and did not venture closer or threaten him. He was wearing Cefwyn's cloak, with the Marhanen Dragon plain to see: that was one cause of the talk; and he was equally aware of the coat beneath it, which had the Sihhë arms, not plain to see at the moment, but there was no hope of pretending to be other than what he was, and he did not intend to try, thinking it could only make matters worse if he seemed to deceive them.

Finally the man came back out of the tent and beckoned him to come inside, or for someone to bring him, he was by no means certain. He went of his own volition and the archers walked behind him, into an interior warm, lit by oil lamps and partitioned by curtains, one of which was folded back.

He had expected a vigorous and powerful lord—but the two lords present were attending an elderly man who lay on a cot against the back wall of the tent: two other men stood by, guards, or servants; and a dark-haired woman was kneeling by the old man's side, holding his hand.

“My lady,” said the lord who had summoned him.

The woman glanced around and up. He saw painted ivory,
a cloud of dark hair, a crown of violet flowers—and in the selfsame moment he saw on the cot the round, kindly-looking man who had reached for his hand through the light and the advancing shadow.

This was not a wounded leader of soldiers. This was an old man who should be safe under a roof, not out in the elements, and on the wrong side of the river.

And he had not strayed amiss in his riding. He had found the object of his search after answers—he had by no means known what he was looking for, and least of all that he was looking for the Regent of Elwynor; but he had found him all the same, and on an impulse of the heart moved toward him in this world of substance and that of Shadows.

The men behind him pulled him roughly back. The clasp at his neck parted, and the hard-used cloak came off and fell.

“Marhanen,” the young woman said angrily, and then looked up at him. “Oh, dear
gods!
”

It was his black coat, ruined as it was, with the Sihhë arms embroidered in silver thread.

“Sihhë,” exclaimed the man on the cot. “I hoped, I did hope.”

The old man's eyes had opened. The look on his face was the same he had had in the gray light, a man of such uncalculated kindness, such affable, cheerful goodness that Tristen wanted at once to take the old man's hand and draw him back from the dark brink that threatened him. On that thought, gray was suddenly all about them, but the soldiers moved to prevent their touching, although the old man, in this world and that other, reached out his hand.

The woman intervened, caught the old man's hand instead and pressed it to her. “Father. Father, do you hear me?”

“He—” the old man said, with the gray light of the other world streaming past his shoulders. Tristen could scarcely get his breath, the urgency of that request was so intense, and the shadows were forming patterns in the light, seeming like faces gathered about them, listening. “Lord of Ynefel. Who are you?
Who are you?
”

It was the very question Hasufin had asked him in seeking power over him. It was the central question about himself that he could not answer and that Hasufin could not answer. But he had had no fear of this man, on what evidence he did not know, but that his presence in the gray place was most like Emuin, and not at all like the enemy.

“My name is Tristen, sir. I was Mauryl's student. And lord of Ynefel, yes, sir, I am, so Cefwyn says.”

“Cefwyn,” the daughter said, and clenched her father's hand tightly, tightly, trying to compel his hearing. “Papa, no more. Send him away. It's too late for Marhanen tricks. This is no one. Look at him! He's all draggled and muddy from last night's rain. He's just a man, Father, just a man.”

“Lord of Ynefel,” the old man echoed him, seeming to hear nothing of his daughter's protest. “Are you? Are you in fact Mauryl's successor in the tower?”

“I suppose I am, sir. But Hasufin holds the tower, so far as I know.”

“Hasufin.” The old man struggled up on an elbow. “Look at me, young sir.
Look at me!
”

“Father.” The young woman interposed her hands. “Tasien, he mustn't tire himself. Take this man away from him!”

“I am still Regent,” the old man said, in a voice that trembled. “Lord of Ynefel, I know you, do I not? Did I not meet you just now?”

“He dreams,” the daughter said, but Tristen said quietly, wary of the angers and the grief running wild in the close confines, “Yes, sir. You did. You helped me. Dare I try now to help you?”

“You cannot draw me from
this
brink,” the man said faintly. “Far too dangerous to try. But I hoped for you. Oh, gods, I hoped—hoped you existed. I dared not believe it. I feared it gave the enemy purchase on us all.”

“My father is ill!” the daughter said bitterly. “He is in no state for this.—Father, please, send him away. These are all dreams. They're only dreams. Cefwyn's scouts have found us,
that is all this proves. We have to move from here as soon as we can.”

“No. Not dreams. Not dreams, daughter. No more than it was dreams that brought us here. Hasufin's tomb. Hasufin's burial-place. So that I do battle with him—I must not leave here. I must never leave here!”

“Hasufin is dead!” the daughter cried. “He is
dead
, Father, Mauryl saw to that here in this very hall. You dream, you only dream. And the Marhanen dares send us this mockery. I will not marry him, Father! I shall never marry him!”

The Regent's white hand lifted, trembling, and smoothed back the hair that fell about her face. “Daughter, but you see, you see, I'm not mad. Is it not the Star and Tower?”

“Wrapped in the Marhanen Dragon. This man is nothing but Amefin—even black Guelen, for all we know—”

“No, the rumors—the rumors—are all true. And this is their evidence. Look at him, indeed.” The Regent lay back on the pillows. “Mauryl's student. But not only Mauryl's heir. You are—Mauryl's. Are you not?”

“They say so, sir. Master Emuin said—”

“Emuin the traitor,” Tasien said.

“Let him speak!” the Regent said. “Go on, my lord Sihhë. Where have you lived? Where have you hidden from us?”

“With Mauryl. Then Hasufin came and took the balconies down. He put Mauryl into the stones, sir.”

“He knows,” the Regent exclaimed. Breath was coming hard for him. His eyes wandered from one to the other face hovering near him. “You see, he does know. He was there, just now, in my dream,—were you not, Lord of Ynefel? You drove Hasufin away!”

“I think it was quite the other way, sir. He fled when you appeared.”

“He fled
you
, young King! I dared tread further then, to find you. Oh, gods, I've found you, Majesty. I have found you!”

“Take him
out!
” the daughter cried, and men seized him by the arms to hasten him away, but the old man cried out, “No!” and motion ceased.

“I am Uleman Syrillas,” the old man said. “I am Regent till I die. And I have waited—I have waited all my life for my King. Are you not that King, Lord Sihhë?”

“Mauryl never said I was a king. Mauryl said I was not all he wanted.” He saw the dark closing about the man and tried to see only the gray light. He fought for it, desperately insisting to see it. “But when Hasufin came Mauryl knew I couldn't help him. He said I was to leave Ynefel and follow the Road. And the Road led me to Cefwyn. But I think it led me here, too.”

“Mauryl called him,” the old man said. It was scarcely a voice. “Ninévrisë, daughter, do you hear? Mauryl called him, and he has the Sihhë gift. I see him clearly in the light. I see him. He shines—look, look at him! He shines!”

“Father,” the woman said. “Father?—Tasien, please, please, take him
out!
He's making him worse! He dreams. He doesn't know—”

He wished to take the old man's hand. He thought he could hold him. The old man was all in shadow now. He reached, and the guards held him by force.

“He's fading,” the one man said, looking at the Regent's face; and the archer at Tristen's ear said in a low voice, “Just you come along, Lord Sihhë or whatever you are, sir. You come along gently, now. We'll find you somewhere to sit, something to drink, anything you like.”

They were afraid of him, and of their lord's illness, and had no choice but to do what the lady said.

The lady. Ninévrisë. Cefwyn's offered bride.

 

“You granted her Amefel?”

It was very rare that one took Idrys entirely aback.

Cefwyn shook his head and started down the steps to the lower hall, Idrys in close accompaniment, with the other guards. “I see no other course. The lesser lords are all a tangle of Amefin allegiances we do not understand, of blood-relations, disputes of inheritance, jealousies and feuds, one
district against another. Worse than a united Amefel is one fragmenting under us in civil strife, with this business on the border. The lady, of course, well knows that point.”

“Why not add Amefel to the grant of Ynefel?” Idrys muttered as they went down the stairs, banquet-bound.

“I did consider that. But Tristen's off chasing moonbeams and Orien asked so prettily.”

“You jest in both, I hope, Your Majesty.”

“What? That she asked politely?—A basilisk, seeing that woman, would seek thicker cover. But I have a sure hold on her. When she weds, her title in Ylesuin passes to her husband, whatever the Amefin hold to be the case. I swear if she crosses me once, I'll give her one who'll cut her throat if she crosses me or him. Sovrag, perhaps.
There
would be a match.”

“Take my advice and unsay this thing.”

“I am looking for any excuse, I confess it.”

They came down together into the lower corridor, and, by the back door, in among the lords gathering and milling about in the Ivory Hall. The herald required attention, the lords bowed and swept a path before him, a storm going through a field, more rapidly than recent habit—it was his dour countenance, Cefwyn thought, and, facing the lords, he tried to better that expression. He took his chair at table, in a room that smelled of food and ale waiting to be served. He still found his appetite lacking, not alone by reason of the Aswyddim: the leg was swelling again, and he looked askance at the food as pages and cooks' helpers carried in two of the four meat courses, braided breads, dark beer, southern wine, and strong ale. There would be six cheeses, favoring the southern provinces, summer cabbage and sausages, pickled apples, broad beans and buttered turnips, green herbs and peas and pickled eggs. He did not favor the delicate fare of the east and north. He had a peasant's taste for turnips and cabbage and inflicted it on the court—the King could decree such things. The Amefin lords held out for partridge stuffed with raisins and apricots—which he had ordered to please
them and Umanon, who tended to such luxury; Cevulirn particularly favored the pickled apples, and figs from the southern Isles; Pelumer had a fondness for the famed partridge pies, and Sovrag for ham and sausages: cook had searched out their several weaknesses, and was under orders to keep them content.

While Efanor and his Quinalt priest dined by choice on Llymaryn beef and the locally disdained mutton; and Duke Sulriggan of Llymaryn—who had ridden in this afternoon with said priest, two cousins, six men-at-arms, twenty-nine stable-bred horses for which they had no stalls, and a useless handful of servants and grooms who had already antagonized master Haman's staff—claimed distempers gained of an excess of red meat and brought his own supplies, his own cook, his own pots. Doubtless Duke Sulriggan was surprised to find Efanor
not
in possession of the province, and Efanor's brother not in disfavor, but King.