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Cleverness, perhaps, would serve where magic failed.

His battle was joined now, in this very moment, and now he and his
enemy alike drew back to consider one another, to reason out what
was the feint and what was the true intent.

And Owl urged him northward, constantly northward, as if there
were no other course.

As if there were no other course.

Back! he bade Owl, and: Away! he bade all advice from wizards,
even Emuin, even Mauryl's Unfolding spell. Neither wizard had
defeated the enemy. Mauryl had never seen clearly, never understood
how little of Hasufin remained, how small a soul still yearned for life
and worked at the edges of greater, more terrible ambition: he had
had the knowledge to seek powers outside wizardry to repair the
breach, but he could not himself repair what Hasufin had done.

Mauryl or Emuin singly or together could not win past what Hasufin
had loosed, only delay its ascension.

Emuin would have had him learn the way of wizards, that being what
Emuin understood, but, his greatest wisdom, Mauryl being Mauryl
and not suffering foolishness easily… Mauryl had simply wished him
to be, grow, learn… become what he could become. And that was the
greatest spell of all.

He was not through. Not yet.

He knew, if he fell, Cefwyn would fall. If Cefwyn fell, it was for
Emuin to steal Elfwyn away, cloak him in his subtle grayness, and
carry on in whatever way he could.

And if he should fail, it was for Emuin to live as long as Mauryl, and
learn what Mauryl had known, and Summon him from a second
death…

—
No! he heard Emuin protest, far and faintly. But from the Lady of
Elwynor came a promise, a vow, a resolution that would fire the
coldest heart
.

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"Time to move, lad," Uwen said, touching him, which even Crissand feared to do.

He opened his eyes on both sober faces and hoped, for he dared not wish, that there be no more to Unfold to him, no more revelations of the sort that opened the Qenes to his memory, and gave his heart the chill of lasting winter.

"The others is summat afraid," Uwen said, "seein' how ye was overcome. They'd take better heart if ye can rouse up an' hear a man, lad."

"I do hear," he said. His heart beat as if he had run Emuin's stairs…

or the height of the web of stairs in Ynefel itself. But that beat was a comfortable feeling, and that remembered fear he understood. It was the creaks in the dark and the crack of thunder in the afternoons. It was the gray wash of rain and the perfect green leaf that blew and stayed against the stone.

It was hanging perilously from the parapets of the old tower and, stark naked and without shame, viewing the limits of the world upside down.

It was riding through the gates of Henas'amef, and meeting the aetheling, the Sun King, the Lord of Noon, as he was Lord of Shadows.

And he reached out and seized Crissand's hand in his, as he had held the aetheling once before from kneeling, as he had known—not only his friend, but his complement in the world of Men, a Man, and sighted in ways that Men knew. Crissand
saw
things, and had no magic in him to move the sunlit world to do as it ought… while
he
only learned the world of Men through others, and moving through the Lines on the earth, had the magic to overturn kingdoms.

Together… together they had a unity that only the enemy could challenge.

"That bird's scairt the men," Uwen said, "an' ain't let anybody into this tent, so's ye know, m'lord."

"Contrary creature." Tristen gathered himself to his feet, and found the weariness fallen away from him, not in any natural sense of having rested. His body had become lighter than his spirit, as if one held to the other very lightly. He was aware of Owl, just outside, and fortress of dragons.html

aware of creatures winging their way above the road, above the forest, not far, silly, fleet birds with the sheen of violet and green and gray about them, the colors of storm and twilight.

Go! he wished them in a sudden rush of strength. Fly!

Owl would not obey him, but these would, the vain, silly tenants of the ledges. They flew, and wheeled away toward the east.

"We shan't do what he wills," he said to Uwen and to Crissand. "He'll threaten Cefwyn. That's where he'll bring all his power to bear. So must we go there."

"Not to Ilefínian," Crissand interpreted him.

"Not to Ilefínian." Of a sudden his heart was as perilously light as his body. "Let him have his Place so long as he can hold it. I know mine."

And it was not a Place, as wizards understood a Place to be. It was the Oath he had sworn and the banner he had raised and the Men that surrounded him. Suddenly the tactics of the enemy were clear to him, to divide him from these things.

"North and east," he said to his friends, and strode out the door of the tent as if an hour before he had not fallen fainting before them all.

CHAPTER 3

Ere's that pesky bird!" Uwen exclaimed as a shadow passed them, and, indeed, Owl glided past, a petulant, difficult Owl, who had flown behind them and now was ahead, and off to the right hand again, off toward the hills, granting them only a brief sight of him.

So Tristen's own thoughts ranged out and abroad, following Owl for a time, searching the near woods. Owl was put out with him, perhaps, after he had refused Owl's leading, yet Owl still guided him, still spied out the territory ahead… Mauryl's, Tristen was convinced, a wisp of the Ynefel that had been, still bespelled and hard to catch and hold: direction, to urge him toward one purpose.

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But he did not need Owl to move him forward, did not need Owl to extend his awareness in the world. He felt every small watcher and every bird aloft as if they brushed against him, and was reassured to feel that there was no hostile presence broken out in their immediate vicinity.

He thought he knew now where Cefwyn was, as the wedge of hills drove toward Ilefínian: he was to the east behind that stone barrier.

More, he knew where the enemy was, and knew with more and more certainty that the attack would come not at his magic-defended force… but at Cefwyn. If only Cefwyn would hold back and let him come at Ilefínian and deal with this threat as he could, but no, the Guelen lords must have their honor… and Cefwyn was deaf to magic as to wizardry, Cefwyn had sent away his one advisor who knew a wizard-sending when she heard it and knew when to regard what Uwen called premonitions. There might be others with minor gifts that might at least feel the currents of the gray space and mutter to their comrades in arms that they had this or that worry, but the question was whether their lords would believe… whether Cefwyn would if they brought their premonitions to him. It lent a Man a certain peace of mind, Tristen supposed, to ride through threats and terrors unhearing: it even lent a man a certain real protection, for he could not hear temptation and bad advice to be swayed by it, but it was no protection at all when power reached out with tangible results and brought down the lightning.

So it was his to make what speed his force could, without tents, the wagons left behind at the camp with a garrison of Imorim, Olmernmen, and a dozen Lanfarnesse rangers, men set to assure they had a bridge open if they needed to retreat. That was prudence, for the sake of the men he led, if matters went utterly wrong. Some might make it home.

But for the rest, down to the Imorim, even Umanon had resolved to bring his men along Ivanim-style, each man with his warhorse and his relief mount, his shieldman and packhorses, each man with his own supplies: beyond the habits of Guelenfolk: they came with only muted complaint, learning new ways, foraging in the meadows at their rests, making progress through woodland with their heavy horses and heavy armor faster than any heavy horse company had ever moved, so Umanon swore in his pride in them.

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So Tristen rode, and so did Uwen, both of them armed after the Guelen fashion, in brigandine and plate. Dys and Cass, who were accustomed either to their paddocks or their exercises of war, were not accustomed to a long journey under saddle, and after their first burst of anticipation and high spirits, sulked along the brush-encroached road, the same as the Imorim horses. Owl's swooping appearances invariably drew a sharp lift of both massive heads, a flare of nostrils and a bunching of muscle, but Dys would give a disgruntled snort and Cass another, learning to disparage the sudden apparition out of the trees.

In the same way Crissand and his guard and the Amefin Guard, lighter-armed, rode sturdy crossbreds of Petelly's stamp, while the Ivanim light cavalry, near the rear, fretted at a far slower gait than their hot-blooded horses were accustomed to keep. With them, sore and swearing, rode Sovrag and his handful of house guard, armed with axes—intending to turn infantry the instant a fight was likely, and sore, limping at every rest: they endured, being no woodsmen, either, and accustomed to a deck underfoot, not an overgrown road, and not a saddle. The Lanfarnessemen, however, moved as they always did, which was to say no one saw them at all. Lord Pelumer, who rode a white horse among his light-mounted house guard, said they were both ahead and behind the column… out as far as the hills and as far south as the river and across it.

On that account no one, Pelumer swore, would surprise the column on the way, and because of them Tristen himself dared reach out a little farther than he might have dared: Pelumer's men were indeed within his awareness when he did so, furtive and quiet as the wild creatures of the woods, the badger and his like, who also knew their passage and themselves served as sentinels.

Their enemy waited, that was the impression he gathered, the breathlessness before storm, but to an unwary venturer there might appear nothing at all opposing them. And it hid something, he was not sure what: it hid something as Emuin could hide things, by creating a fuss elsewhere, by simply being silent.

That was the subtlety of what they faced: for as he apprehended now it was magic they faced, he could only think it was something like himself, whether cloaked in flesh or not… and increasingly, thinking of Orien's example, he asked himself how Hasufin had turned from fortress of dragons.html

Mauryl's student to Mauryl's bitter enemy.

He had met Hasufin. He had driven Hasufin in retreat, not without cost, but not so that he feared him in any second encounter. He had seen all his tricks, dismantled his wards, and of Hasufin he was not afraid.

Of what he had suspected in the Quinaltine… of that, he had been afraid.

Of what nameless fear had chased him through the mews, he had been afraid.

Of the wind at his windows, he had been afraid, the insidious Wind, against which he had warded the windows of the Zeide, as Mauryl had warded his, at Ynefel, warning him to be under the roof when darkness fell, when storm raged, when the wind blew.

It was not of rain and wind that a wizard of Mauryl's sort needed be afraid.

All along it had been something else whispering at night against the shutters.

And it was even possible Mauryl had not known what to call it, except as it turned Hasufin against him, and took his teachings and turned them, and took Hasufin's heart. Mauryl might not have known all he faced, but his remedy, to bring Galasien down, to bring down the Lines… and to invoke magic from the north…

More, to
gain
that help, which he did not think had come to everyone who sought it…

… to bring down the walls and the wards and the Lines, so that nothing of any great age persisted in the world… what did Mauryl think to do?

What were the faces in the walls of Ynefel but a sort of Shadow, bound to the Lines and the wards, protecting what became a fortress, from which Barrakketh had ruled… had redrawn its Lines, made them to stand against all its enemies… but not everything had Barrakketh redrawn. He had laid down the Lines of Althalen, built the Wall at Modeyneth.

But Men called the Quinaltine hill their own, and defended it, war after war, until a great fortress grew there, and all those Shadows went into the earth.

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He drew a great breath. For a moment to his eyes he could see Ynefel as it had been. He could see the land as it had been when there was no Ylesuin and when Elwynor's name was Meliseriedd, and a chill breathed over his nape.

He led Men not all of whom were deaf: Cevulirn and Crissand were very close to him no matter where they rode, the one half their column distant and the other at his very knee, no difference at all.

They maintained a quiet, wary presence, learning, but not, perhaps, apprehending all he feared. They were in the greatest danger, and it wrung his heart that he could find no words that would both tell them and restrain them from the curiosity that would plunge them over the brink into a fight they could not win.

All the friends he loved and most regarded were in danger. Every one of them was in danger of his life; but the wizard-gifted went in peril of their souls and their honor… and for them he was increasingly afraid.

Go back now, he might say; and he might try to face it alone. He might survive. He might drive it in retreat.

But to take this army back left Cefwyn with no help against the Men that had joined this Shadow of magic, and collectively, if they did not fight the Shadow and win, then none of them would wish to see the rule that presence would impose.
He
was the only barrier against the attention it wished to pay the world: Mauryl and the Sihhë-lords had stood against it as long as anyone remembered, and now he did, and he knew now beyond a doubt that this contest was for his life and its existence.

And oh, he loved this life, as he loved these men, as he loved the world and he would not yield it while there was any will left him, but when the battle came, he knew how far it would take him. Knowing how thin the curtain was that divided the gray space from the world, and on how thin a thread the present order of time itself was strung, he cherished the voices around him and the creature under him.