fortress of dragons.html (27 page)

He blinked, still dazed, and was aware of Uwen in the dark. Through a seam in the curtain, he saw the banked fire that had broken forth into flame where wood jutted from the ash. A gust of wind must have wakened it.

The wind outside moaned around the eaves.

"What a blow!" Uwen said, "It's woke the fire up. Gods!—D' ye see somethin', lad, where ye're lookin'?"

He shook his head, hearing the murmur of the guardsmen wakened from their sleep. He was still dazed from the vision of other places, convinced he could reach the Zeide from here as easily as wishing: he could walk through the old mews; he could stand in Ynefel's ruined hall between one blink and the next, and truly
be
there, and touch and be touched.

Had he fallen asleep within such a place as the mews in the Zeide, and not known it?

Or was it within his dream that such possibilities existed?

And suddenly his waking mind made sense of the memory of that third place he had seen in his vision, which was the Quinaltine, beside the Guelesfort—and his heart beat fast to think that he could come that near Cefwyn.

It beat faster still to feel the trouble he felt in that place, and to know danger moved in it, danger which Cefwyn might not see. He himself had stood in the Quinaltine before the altar. He had seen the tangled shadows mill behind the Lines the Patriarch had drawn— he had pitied them, unhappy, angry shadows, Quinalt souls laid to rest above Bryaltine and Teranthine, all jumbled together, all within walls raised contrary to the Lines earlier masons had made. The Patriarch had seemed utterly unaware of what screamed and strained at the barriers: it was all silent to him. It was utterly outside the priests' awareness how later masons had laid down contrary Lines, blind to the proper Lines of the earth, blind to what earlier ma-sonwork had stood there—these later builders, Quinalt builders, for whatever reason, had laid their own structure over that place and crossed the Lines in impossible tangles, pockets, dead ends, traps, from which the anguished souls could not escape.

Oh, there was power there, but it was not any power Efanor's little fortress of dragons.html

book described as godly power. It was a terrible place, like the hell of Efanor's book.

And far from curing it, the priests before that altar had walked one principal Line, over and over, deaf to the pain and anguish which roiled just behind it, souls in torment, imprisoned for all eternity in spaces too small for their smallest longings.

That was the place that third passage went.

And with a breath and a wish he might cross that distance tonight and find Cefwyn.

But disturbance among the priests would not serve Cefwyn: he foresaw panic among them if he stepped out of the stonework, by magic, in the place these men called holy. He feared to do it, and was unsure, moreover, what he might disturb there.

It was a chance. A risk. It was nothing to undertake inconsiderately.

"It's eased way off," Uwen said with a sigh, meaning the wind.

"At least the roof is stayin'.—Are ye all right, m'lord? Ye wasn't havin' a dream, like?"

"Somewhat of a dream," he said faintly, but he did not say what he had learned, not even to Uwen. He doubted it would reassure Men in the least to know that their wards both intersected Althalen and reached to Henas'amef, though they were leagues apart. He saw possibilities in it. He saw a way he dared not take yet.

He ought to ask Emuin, among other matters he had discovered here.

A blast of wind made the wooden beams groan, and woke the fire to full life in the heart.

"Damn," he heard one of his guards say, and knew honest men were afraid of the violence in the dark. More, he knew in himself the power to mend that fear, and he knew it was time to mend it.

Calm, he wished the heavens. Be calm.

And in his own heart he was sure now, sure that it was time to move the war against Tasmôrden, sure that he must move, even if it made things more difficult for Cefwyn to explain to the other lords… and sure now, reaching out through the maze of the wards, that he could reach not one, but three Places and perhaps others.

He had seen the Lady walking the hills hereabouts, and knew the fortress of dragons.html

secret traces between the wards: walls were no barrier to the Old Power. She had asked admittance to the wards of Henas'amef, and he had granted it—to the good, he was sure now, for now the Old Power ran as it had been accustomed to run, between here and there, between here and Guelemara, until the priests' Line dammed it—on purpose or otherwise.

He had said he ruled in Henas'amef, and in Althalen, and on that hill above the river, where stood ruined Ynefel: and now, having laid his head on the stones of Althalen, having dreamed here, he had found the Lines as apt to his hands as the reins of his horse. He drew in a deep, deep breath, sitting disheveled in the dark, amid his blankets, knowing all these wards at once, all the work of Masons and all the Lines on the earth, all the lives of common folk at their work and all the nobles and wizards who had ever ruled—

And these Lines, often walked over the generations of Men, often worked, these graven paths of habit and deed… all were his. They were not his by Cefwyn's grant, although that had confirmed his lordship for Men; they were not even his because Mauryl had meant him to rule them, though that was so, too.

They were his because they obeyed him. And they did, now. It seemed that the power in them ran through his veins, and stood the hairs on his arms and the hair on his head on end. He could have lived without breathing, for the power that ran through him needed no such thing.

But breath was what he chose, and the solidity of the lives around him. He strove to make out some detail of Uwen's presence in the dark, desperate for it of a sudden, for he had strayed that far, that remote from Men. And when his eyes had searched out the least hint of Uwen's shape, and his hand had found Uwen's solid, strong arm, then he told his heart it could beat again.

"Go back to sleep," he said to Uwen.

It was quiet now, all the moaning of the wind stopped, the wards quiet and not in evidence. Uwen was all shadows, and all loyalty, and all love, and if there was a moderation to the power that ran through the air and through his bones, if there was a caution and a reminder in his heart, it was Uwen's.

Perhaps it was not a good thing to wish too hard, too absolutely.

fortress of dragons.html

Perhaps, he thought, considering Uwen, it was well to do his weather-wishing not absolutely, but with regard of Men, and with love of the men around him, and of the men who were his friends: there was his safety. There was the assurance he would do good and not harm.

In that thought alone he could lie back down and let his guard deal with the fire and the questions what that storm might do outside. It would abate. In time it would abate as a storm should, and the weather would moderate, and he would have done no harm with the power that ran through him to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. He would still be Tristen. He remained as Mauryl named him, and as he named himself, and nothing could tempt him out of that choice, no offer of the enemy, no pure sensation, no curiosity.

Tristen, he said to himself, and summoned that youth who ran naked on the battlements of Ynefel, that young man who raced Dys across the pasture, chasing dying leaves.

Being Tristen, and flesh and blood, he could sleep.

And in the morning, in the silence of all the world, Aeself's men opened the doors and they all walked out into a strange sight.

"It ain't snowin'," Uwen exclaimed. "Gods, I forgot what the sun is!"

The sun glanced off the recent fall as if jewel dust had been the last sifting from the heavens. And Tristen looked about him at the still edge of winter and drew a deep breath. When he looked carefully into the gray space, he saw the soft blue fire of wards not only about the old buildings, but the new.

That
had happened in the night, and not, he thought, of his doing.

"Lord Uleman," Tristen said softly, for he realized for the first time in the clear light of this morning, and without the driving snow, that Aeself's camp included the tomb they had made. The Lord Regent's burial place stood within the wall just outside their makeshift great hall… Ninévrisë's father, walled into his grave by the devotion of his last remaining men, on a night when Caswyddian's hunt was closing on them and all their lives had been in jeopardy.

Tristen walked across the untracked snow and laid his hand on those stones he had last seen the night the old man had died; and within them he felt no threat such as Auld Syes could send, but rather a sense of peace and great strength and safety.

fortress of dragons.html

"Sir," Tristen said, just for the two of them. "Is it you who've stopped the snow this morning? I take it very kindly if you have. Your own people live here, now, have you seen? I think you must have. Protect them."

There was no clear answer to his touch, so he thought at first, but when he drew back his hand he saw the blue fire running on his fingers and tracing its way up his arm.

Owl, wretched bird, came and perched on the crest of the ruined wall, and asked his silly, persistent question.

"Foolish bird," he said, not ill meant, and Owl swiveled his head remarkably far about and glared at him from eyes like black-centered moons. He was not a creature of the daylight… but he was here, ruffled, looking like Emuin with too little sleep. "Why do you follow me?" he asked, and then knew that was a wrong question: Owl never followed him. Owl preceded him, like a herald.

He turned around again, unaware he was observed, and met the awed faces of the whole of the people that had gathered, marveling at the snow and now at another strange sight.

"This is the Lord Regent's grave," he said, for it was Uleman who deserved their reverence. "Did you know?"

"We chose this place by chance," Aeself said. "Or believed we had.

But could we settle in such a place by accident?"

"It was his accident," Tristen said. "The Shadows in this place can be dangerous. He's remade the wards all about your building: I saw them last night, and I couldn't improve them. The Shadows here respect the Lord Regent above all. And if you do see an old woman or a little girl, respect them. They always give good advice."

"My good lord," Aeself said in a hushed voice.

"Might there be breakfast?" he asked then, for he hated the awkwardness of their reverence; he wanted only to have a warm cup and a friendly converse, and to be on their way. He had seen so much he wanted to think about, and so much he thought he should report to Emuin, and now for no reason in particular his thoughts, skittering like mice, had darted toward Tarien and toward Cevulirn and all there was yet to do. "We should be on our way."

There was breakfast first, porridge and honey that lent a comfortable fortress of dragons.html

warmth all the way to their fingertips, and the men were glad to be setting out toward their own home in the evening—toward a place, perhaps, where the wind was less noisy and less threatening.

They were glad to saddle up, on this bright morning: even the horses seemed eager to be under way.

But as they were mounted and about to set out, Aeself, reaching up, pressed a small and much-used paper into Tristen's hand. "We had but two scraps of paper, my lord, in all the camp, and forgive me the condition of them. The one is the muster of Althalen, for your use; and the other… the other is a letter to Lady Ninévrisë, on our behalf.

I know you sometimes send to the king in Guelemara; and if it please Your Grace, send it on to her. The burden of it is the news we have of Ilefínian, such as we put together by all our accounts: you know from last night all we have to report, but read it: I send it unsealed. I'm her remotest cousin. She may know my name; to that end, I signed it. But I ask you put your seal on it, my lord, if you approve it, and recommend me to her."

Aeself had never confessed before that he was in that degree Ninévrisë's kin, never claimed rank in the Regent's house, and in the tangled nature of the noble houses, perhaps he had never held it.

But now he held the post of seneschal of Althalen, at very least, the keeper and the protector of all the loyal Elwynim who made it across the river. He was the defender, and the man who saw to the commonest, most necessary things to keep alive the folk who came to him, against weather and Tasmôrden's men. Auld Syes herself had taken Aeself under her protection, and perhaps safeguarded Crissand, too, against the worst they could do.

"You will have all I can give," he said, "when we come into Elwynor."

"To bring my lord into Elwynor is the honor I want," Aeself said, looking up at him. "Grant me that."

"When you see the fires alight," Tristen said, "then ride to the bridge."

"My lord," Aeself said fervently, and Tristen took the two precious scraps of paper and put them in his belt as he rode away. The well-wishes of all the folk of Althalen were at his back, the banners out in front, and the Amefin guard about him, and a clean, clear sky above fortress of dragons.html

all.

" 'At were well done," Uwen said. "Well done, on your own part, m'lord. 'At's a good man, that."

Owl turned up, flying across their path. And Uwen blessed himself, and so, Tristen guessed, did many of the men in his company, but he did not turn to see.

In time, on the way, to Dys' rolling gait, he read the unsealed papers, written with a crude pen in a fine, well-schooled hand.

There were the number of men Aeself had said in the muster, by name and quality, as fairly written as any such account his clerks brought him. The message to Ninévrisë was respectful and sadly informed her of the death of very many of the family, by name, and of the execution or death in battle of friends, by name.

And it told her of the fate of the treasury, put away in cisterns deep in Ilefínian, so, the missive said,
the Usurper will have hard shift to
bring it out again in the winter
.

Aeself Endior, your cousin.