Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 30

The next was one of those silken satin mornings, the sort with puddles in the yard, the air smelling fresh, and clouds of pink and silver trying to be gold — it was impossible, in Uwenʼs cheerfulness, to be down-hearted; and Uwen was right: it was a good morning to nip down the back stairs and through the warm and noisy kitchens, to beg their breakfast still warm from the ovens, bread too hot to hold, with abundant butter, and mugs of tea the kitchen girls brought them on the steps. The bread and the tea alike sent up steam in the nippish morning air and the warm air from the kitchens carried smells almost as good as tasting them.

He decided not to worry Uwen about the bird. Uwen wanted to talk about horses, excited and trying to contain it. So was he looking forward to the trip down to the pastures, and once the mugs went back to the kitchen, they headed out to the stables in the morning chill.

He rode out on Petelly, and Uwen on a bay, Gia, that was his favorite — but today-Gia was Uwenʼs horse, for good, as Petelly was his; and the pleasure Uwen had in the fine-looking bay was that of a man who, Uwen said, had never owned his own horse, and never looked to own one at all, let alone one so fine as this.

“So ye brought me luck, mʼlord,” Uwen said. “Tell His Majesty, because he donʼt share converse much wiʼ me, of course, that Iʼm glad, Iʼm very, very glad, and I wonʼt for the life of me make him sorry he was so generous.”

“I shall tell him so,” Tristen said. They rode down through the gate and down the main street, among the first abroad on this all but eerily quiet morning. The Zeide court had been cluttered with business yesterday, but now they rode all the way to the main gate seeing nothing but a handful of early wagons and the craftsmen opening their shops.

They rode out the gates and there was nothing but trampled ground and a small camp of wagons and horses where the camps of the lords had stood. The mud was deeply tracked, showing the tracks of all the horses taking out in their various directions home, some south, some east.

But strangest of all, the trees — the trees had gone overnight to red and brown, as the grasses had already gone to gold and pale browns.

“The border lords are all leaving,” Tristen said as they rode along the wall eastward, toward the pastures. “It looks so bare. It frightens me, Uwen. The leaves — the leaves are all dying.”

“Why, lad, of course they die. Itʼs autumn.”

“Autumn?” It was a word of brown and falling leaves. Like Winter. Like snows white and deep.

“Aye, lad. Of course.”

“But they come back.”

“In Spring? Of course they do.”

Uwen laughed and he felt foolish. Of course they did. He suddenly apprehended that they did. It was far rarer nowadays that a Word that vast came leaping up at him out of something constantly underfoot and never, till then, comprehended. But of course it was autumn, and the nip that had been in the air was part of those changes, and Snow might come. He was fascinated by the thought.

And there, in a set of stallion paddocks insulated from each other by tall hedges and strong fences, they had brought in the heavy horses, huge creatures with platter-sized feet and heads the size of apple baskets — wonderful, powerful creatures he had seen hitherto only in scant numbers: Cefwynʼs big black, Kanwy, and Umanonʼs gray, both of which the grooms had exercised in the practice yard.

They dismounted at the stables that lay alongside the paddocks and some distance down the lane, leaving Petelly and Uwenʼs bay in the care of one of Hamanʼs boys, and walked down the high-hedged lane in the direction the boy told them, deep into the maze of paddocks separated by old hedges. In the paddocks they passed, boys with buckets were grooming and clipping and braiding the manes of several of the horses; and in one, a farrier and a number of apprentices and grooms were tending feet and seeing to the immense shoes the heavy horses wore — not an easy job, as it looked: the horse in question was not wanting to put his foot up.

They were watching that, when an old man on a pony rode up behind them to say the horses they wanted were right along next, and to come with him.

The next hedged paddock, that at a crossing of lanes, held a horse so like Kanwy that Tristen at first thought that was the horse he was seeing — a huge black fellow with abundant feather over vast feet. The horse looked up, and there were no eyes, just a nose under a huge fall of hair, with ears coming through it. He had to laugh.

“He wants clipping,” the man said, having slid down beside them. “His name is Dys…Dysarys, but we call him Dys. His Majestyʼs Kanwy is his full brother, and their sister, Aryny, sheʼs staying up in the hills: His Majesty donʼt risk her, no, Lord Warden. Iʼll hail up his trainer.”

The old man led the pony down a side lane on that errand. Tristen put out his hand, and Dys came over to smell his fingers and look him over from the secrecy of his fall of bangs.

“Gods, heʼs fine,” Uwen said reverently. “Pretty, pretty lad.”

He knew Uwen most wanted to see what they had for him. He reached out his hand further, and Dys went off with a flip of a thick tail, kicking up immense heels.

The trainer came walking up from the paddock next, a middle-aged man who introduced himself faintly as, “Aswys, mʼlord. I come with ʼim, and hopinʼ to stay with ʼim a while, courtesy of His Majesty. Iʼm trainer to Dys, here, and to Cassam, next over, whoʼs to be your manʼs horse.”

“I would be very pleased, sir,” Tristen said. “Thank you.” The horse had come over again, clearly accustomed to the trainer, who patted the huge neck that extended across the rail at this gate-end of the paddock. He did not think, regarding taking Aswys along with the horses, that he needed doubt Aswysʼ skill: Cefwyn would not have a man who was not competent, and he saw nothing in the way the man looked at the horse that told him otherwise.

“Heʼs hard mouthed,” Aswys said, “if ye have a hard hand, mʼlord, but if ye go a little easy, heʼll heed ye far better.” The trainer was worried, Tristen heard that, and saw it on his face. “Should I saddle him up, mʼlord, by your leave?”

The trainer wished him to ride and not wait until later. The trainer hoped he would like the horse and appreciate him. The man was, if anything, very proud and fond of this horse that he could never own, and Cefwyn had given Dys away to a lord with no land and — Sulriggan had said it yesterday — no good reputation.

“Do, please,” he said, and the trainer looked at least moderately encouraged, and ordered the boys to fit Dys up with his tack while he showed them the other horse in his charge.

That pen held a blue roan gelding that Cefwyn had bestowed on Uwen, a bow-nosed fellow with a beautiful satin coat; Cassam was, their guide and now trainer said, also of the Kingʼs stable, not related to Kanwy or Aryny, but out of a Marisal mare and a Guelen stallion.

“Can we have ʼim under saddle, too, sir?” Uwen asked hopefully, and while they arranged that, Tristen went back to the other paddock, where at that very moment the thump of large feet hitting the mud beyond the hedge told him Dys was not accepting saddling quietly.

As he came back in view, Dys was snuffing the air, then came across the pen at a run, appearing to move slowly, by the very size of him, but carrying himself lightly all the same.

And the boys went over the fence.

Then the trainer came back and whistled at him, ducked through the fence and whistled again. Dys came trotting up and let himself be caught. The trainer buckled a chain to his halter, jerked it as Dys snapped peevishly at the boys that brought the tack through the fence, not intending to strike them, Tristen marked that as he leaned on the top rail. Dys did not like strangers in his paddock; and Dys was a fretful horse even while the saddling went on in the hands of a man he trusted. Dys observed everything about every movement around him, and wanted to keep all strangers including the one at the fence where he could see them: his skin shivered up his forelegs, his nostrils were wide, and even from where Tristen was standing he could see that Dys had begun to sweat.

And the trainer had known it when he sent the boys in — arranging to show mʼlord what a young and stubborn lord might not heed in the way of warnings.

This lord heeded. The trainer called him over. Tristen ducked through the fence, keeping clearly in Dysʼ sight, and Dys, snorting and snuffling as he walked up, lowered his head and stretched out his neck to smell him over. Dys was interested in his fingers and his coat as they brought up the mounting block.

He did not believe the calm for a moment. “Give me the brush,” he said, and took it from the trainer and went over Dysʼ shoulder and neck and patted him. He ran his hands over Dysʼ legs and, trustful at least of the mail shirt he had on under his coat, let Dys smell his back and around his face.

Then he quietly took the reins and with a quick use of the block, rose into the saddle.

Dys moved out a few paces and turned a quiet circle, wanting more rein, maneuvering to have his way. And did not get it.

It was different than riding Geryʼs light, quick motions. But a Name almost came to him, a Name, not a Word; and as they picked up speed around the enclosure, Dys answered his call for this lead and that, shaking his neck when the pressure went off the reins. The boys opened the paddock gate and they went off down the lane between the pens, the boys and a stray, yapping dog chasing after.

Trees passed in a screen on either hand. They went as far as the sheep-meadow beyond, and he asked turns of the horse, while the foolish dog, outdistancing the boys, nearly came to grief: Dys kicked out unasked, clipped the hound, and turned, and the dog after that kept his distance as Dys made long passes and turns across the meadow.

Then Tristen gave him a free run, which happened to be to the west, toward Ynefel, and the thought came simply to run and run and run, and somehow to escape, and to take Dys, too, where he need not do what all his existence aimed at doing — to be safe, and free, and doing no harm. He began to like this horse — but not what his training had made him; and what they both were created to do.

But they reached the end of the meadow, and a fence; and when he rode back again, Uwen was out with the roan gelding.

Dys accepted his stablemate quite reasonably. There was a little to-do, a little fighting the rein; but they rode out together for some little distance, and Dys began taking the rein very well, changing leads with ease, making nothing of rough ground, quite willing to have the roan behind him or beside him on either hand.

They were out for long enough for the horses to work up a good sweat, and, mindful that the horses had been moved in yesterday, and on the road for days, they rode back again, the horses breathing easily, shaking themselves and seeming to have enjoyed the turn outside.

The trainer did not doubt either of them now, Tristen thought, when he turned Dys back to him at the paddock gate. And one of the boys said, not intending to be overheard, Tristen was sure, that the Sihhë were known to bewitch horses, and he had bewitched that one.

After that, for, in anticipation of dealing with horses and mud, neither of them had worn their best, they took a hand in the unsaddling and the brushing-down, to the amazement of the boys who usually did such things for lords and their men.

But by then Aswys was talking to them both, going on at length about how Dys had been foaled late in the season and how Cass, for so they called the blue roan, had been one of those horses into everything — had gotten himself up to his neck in a bog when he was a yearling and fallen in a storm-swollen stream the next year: “Keep ʼim away from water,” was Aswysʼ advice on Cass. “Heʼll drown, but heʼs too stubborn to die.”

Tristen liked Aswys. Aswys had gone from guarded, worried, and unhappy to a man, as Uwen put it, theyʼd drink with: a Guelen man, moreover, Uwen said. Not that the Amefin lads hadnʼt the knack with the horses, but, Uwen said, Guelenfolk and the heavy horses talked a special language.

And Uwen was very pleased with Cass, as he himself was with Dys, though he was still taken with Petelly, and made it clear to Petelly, as they rode up to the gates again, that he was still in good favor. Uwen said, regarding Cass, that he was the best horse heʼd ever had under him.

“I do like the big ʼuns,” Uwen remarked as they rode through the streets. “There ainʼt no foolery about ʼem. But if you ever get one hard-mouthed, gods, I rode one once in my foolish youth, the grooms was tryinʼ to saddle and he took down a shed with both heels and dragged me anʼ four boys through the fence. Gods, I hated that horse. I rode him four years, till a damn Chomaggari ran him through the heart. And I cried me eyes out.”

It was, Tristen believed, all the truth. And they went up to the hill for baths and a change of clothes, and talked horses for hours.

Uwen was the happiest he had ever known him. And Tristen sat down while Uwen watched and wrote a note to Cefwyn, saying how pleased they were, and how fine the horses were. The door guards when Uwen delivered it said that Cefwyn was sleeping, which was good, and that Emuin had given him a sleeping-potion to achieve it — which was not good.

But Tristen thought that Cefwyn would be glad to have the note, or any other expression of cheer, and for what it was worth, he sat down by the fire and wished Cefwyn well, as hard as he could.

That evening he shut his inner doors again, wanting quiet — and leaving Uwen the chance to come and go on his own business. He had saved a little bread from yesterday, and set it out for the pigeons that frequented his window — but they were shyer than usual, and perhaps afraid. There might be the smell of blood about the window, for all he knew. He waited a little while, then gave up and in the fading sunlight laid out both his Book and Maurylʼs little kit on the table.

It had occurred to him that Mauryl had given him both gifts, and that more than the Book might be magical — or, a new thought, it might take both gifts together.

But the mirror was only a mirror, silver polished bright; and it reflected only himself, Tristen no-oneʼs son, and not any dreadful Sihhë lord, and certainly no potent magician.

He mused over perhaps going to Emuin with Book and mirror in hand and asking him — if he knew precisely what he would ask, or in what way the two might be connected. He had been foolish once today, although Uwen had laughed at him very gently about the falling leaves. Certainly he couldnʼt take for granted that he understood things as ordinary folk did.

But no understanding came to him — and the mirror, reflecting the evening sun, made no sense. He stared at the Book, and he leafed through it, and all it did was call back, in its aged parchment and battered, worn leather, memories of Ynefel, which he told himself were dangerous in the extreme.

He caught then what he thought was Emuinʼs presence, although Emuin had been very strict and at him instantly if he transgressed into the gray space. He had an impression of many candles, and of pain in the joints, and thought that Emuin might be at his prayers, somewhere nearby, perhaps just a slippage.

But underlying that, he caught the touch of some other presence, and guessed that it was Ninévrisë thinking on what he was not sure, but he feared she was thinking of Althalen, which was dangerous.

— Be careful, he wished her.

And the presence went away, either afraid or guilty.

She was very beautiful. She was very sensible, for as young as she was, and she was brave. He wanted to see her. He wanted to talk with her, even to tell her about the horses, and — to talk to her about the gray place, and about discovering the hazards there, because he knew that she had good sense, and he wanted the opinion of someone else who had something in common with him. He found her his safe doorway to the mysteries women posed him — he wanted just to sit and look at her very closely, as he had begun, today, to look at the autumn; he wanted to listen to her, and let unfold to him, in what seemed a far kinder, more truthful person than Orien Aswydd, all the things she was.

But he could not go visit her. Propriety did not allow that: he was a man, and she was the Kingʼs betrothed; and that was the way things would be — men could not, apparently, be alone with the lady. Even Cefwyn could not be, until they were married; and after that, he was not certain. She would always be Cefwynʼs: that was the way of men and women getting together—natural men, he said to himself with a wounded feeling of which he could not rid himself. Natural men — not, as Sulriggan had said, grave-dust and cobwebs.

And what could Ninévrisë or anyone really see in him but that? What could anyone see, who did not, for reasons of what he knew, like Cefwyn, or for reasons of being ordered to attend him, like Uwen, forgive what he was first off? Those who knew him long enough seemed to get over their fear; but all men were afraid of him. Ninévrisë had been afraid at first.

And once she was with Cefwyn — Cefwyn had so little time, he would surely give a great deal of it to her. So possibly he would lose both of them — or at least they would have very little time to spare. So Cefwyn was giving him gifts and making it possible for him to be on his own.

It was good that he would have Uwen. But did everybody go away, always, in an abundance of gifts, just when things seemed most settled and happy?

Maybe it was the morose and distracting character of that thought, maybe it was just general distraction, but something was nagging at him as he tried to read, and he could not make up his mind what it was.

It did not feel quite like Ninévrisë. He feared it was something much more to do with Ynefel and Althalen, and he tried on that account to ignore it — although — if he could judge at all, it came from the east rather than the west, where Althalen was: it felt easterly the way Emuin had always seemed to have direction in his thoughts.

Then — quite a sharp hurt pierced his skull, right at the base of his neck, and he clapped a hand there, jolted forward against the table-edge by what became a sickening pain. He had never felt anything quite the like. He felt ill, and smelled candle-wax, as if candles had spilled over. He felt hazed, and scarcely able to breathe.

There was stone. Gray stone. A silver eight-pointed star.

— Master Emuin, he asked, daring the gray space, for it was not ordinary, what was happening to him, and it involved candles. He seemed to hear voices echoing. He saw blue lights fixed at intervals. He saw the Sihhë star blaze with a white, ominous light, and he heard footsteps echoing in some stairwell.

He caught breath enough to stand, steadied himself against the table, and went out to the other room, past the startled servants, and to the foyer. Uwen had gone down to the kitchens, the guards said, when he went outside and inquired.

“Is something wrong, mʼlord?” one asked.

“I donʼt know. Do you know where master Emuin is?”

“He hainʼt been by here, mʼlord. The brothers was about, but they went back downstairs and he wasnʼt with ʼem.”

Emuin had no constant guard, such as he and Cefwyn did. Emuinʼs rooms were just down the hall, under at least the watch of the guards at his and Cefwynʼs doors, and he went and rattled the latch, hoping the old man was all right, perhaps only having a bad dream. But no one came to the door, and he opened it, his own guard quickly getting before him to make a quick search of the premises.

“Ainʼt no sign of ʼim, mʼlord,” the guard said.

By then he was very concerned. “I think we should set the downstairs staff to looking.”

“Is summat wrong, mʼlord?”

“A pain. A hurt. — A place with candles, many candles.”

“A shrine,” one said, which was perfectly reasonable. “We can send down to the Teranthines, mʼlord.”

“Do,” he said. “Ask the brothers. They might know.”

The brothers did not know. The Teranthines in the courtyard shrine didnʼt know. By the time the guards had come back with that upsetting report he had long since asked the guards at Cefwynʼs door what they had seen, and, none of them wishing to rouse Cefwyn from his scant rest, one of them had gone to Lord Captain Kerdin, who set a more general search underway, and who came to ask questions of him as to what he had seen or heard or what reason he had to fear for Emuinʼs well-being.

The pain in his head was constant, and disturbing. So was the smell of candles and damp, where it was not the surroundings about him.

Then Idrys came upstairs, and heard what was happening.

“The Bryalt shrine,” Idrys said the instant he heard the word candles, and sent one of Cefwynʼs guards, Denyn, running downstairs and out in that direction.

Idrys went down the stairs more deliberately, and Tristen tagged him, his skull aching with that stabbing pain. He was beginning to be very afraid, in a way he could not explain to Idrys, who had never been over-patient with vagueness and bad dreams; but Idrys was at least heeding him, and led the way down the east main stairs, and down again to a door he had not found in all his early explorations. It led down two turns and outside to a little courtyard that must be almost within the shadow of the — he had been told — unused East Gate. Inside that courtyard was a very old building, modest and plain: the granary and warehouses he had once visited towered over its courtyard wall.

They entered a cool, dank interior, with voices echoing in just such a tone as he had heard. “This is the place,” Tristen said, “this is where,” as a handful of Bryaltine monks came hurrying along a columned aisle that disappeared down a narrow, dimly lit stairs.

“You!” Idrys said sharply, and the monks flinched and bowed, their faces largely hidden by their hoods.

“Lord Commander,” one such shadow-faced monk said, opening hands in entreaty. “Master Emuin — heʼs slipped and hurt his head. Please. One of your men—”

Idrys was past them before the man finished. Tristen followed him, down and down the stone steps, where the smell of damp and candles matched exactly what he had been smelling. The pain in his head was acute, all but debilitating, so that he had to follow the wall with his hand to know where he was. He could scarcely see, at the bottom of the steps, where Emuin lay in the arms of a Bryaltine monk — awake, he thought, but there was a great deal of blood about, and blood down the shoulder of Emuinʼs robe, blood all over the monk and the guard — the guard Idrys had sent was there, trying to help.

“Master Emuin.” Tristen dropped to his knees and touched Emuinʼs hand, saying, in both worlds at once, “Sir. Do you hear me?”

The Shadows were close about, dangerous and wicked. Emuin was trying very hard to tell him something. He gripped Emuinʼs hand, and it seemed very cold in the world of substance, hard to feel in that of Shadows.

“Tristen,” Emuin said faintly. “The Shadows. A wicked — wicked — thing—”

Idrys knelt, seized Emuinʼs shoulder and turned him to see the back of his head, moving the bloody hair and a wad of blood-soaked cloth out of the way. What he saw made him grimace. “Get the surgeon. Damn it, fool — run!”

The guard ran. There was so much blood. There was so very much blood.

— We have sent for help, Tristen said, holding to Emuin in the gray place. Master Emuin, be brave. Stay with me. Stay. I shall not let you go.

In that place Emuin was listening to him. Emuin said, I saw it coming. I was trying to find a way — trying to find what his attachment is — he has a Place. Heʼs found his open door. Be careful, be careful.

He would not let Emuin die. He had lost the lord Regent. This time he recognized that black brink and the threads of darkness for death itself, and he fought with all that was in him.

Men came and men went, and finally Uwen shook at him, saying he had to let go of master Emuin because the surgeon had come and had to sew the wound.

He let go. He had difficulty even yet seeing through the murk. The little chamber with all its candles seemed unnaturally darkened. Candle flames burned with all ordinary vigor and yet did not shed light onto the stone around him. When they went outside Uwen kept hold of his arm. When they took Emuin into the Zeide and upstairs he walked behind. When the surgeon worked, he sat outside and tried to think of Emuin being well, that being all that he could do.

Emuin never quite lost awareness, but it was very low. When the surgeon let them all come in, Emuin looked so very pale, so very weak. He had a bandage around his head. The surgeon talked to Idrys in quiet tones and said the bone was broken and most such did not heal.

But Emuin was listening, lying in his bed, and looked very weak, and very pale. Tristen paid no attention to the surgeon and Idrys. He went to the bedside. Emuin was distraught — afraid, he was aware of that, and kept reciting poetry, or some such thing.

— Prayers, Emuin gave him to understand, then, and there was something bitter and something frightened about him at the same time. I gave up wizardry. I gave it up to find another way. And Iʼve grown old in the world. I let myself grow old to find some sort of holiness, and Iʼm not what I was. I canʼt fight your enemy. Forgive me, boy. All thatʼs left now is to step off that brink and hope thereʼs something there.

— No! he said angrily. No, master Emuin. I need you.

— Youʼve no damned right to need me! To hell with it, to hell with it. I grow so weary — so very tired—

“Ask him,” a cold voice said — Idrys, he thought—“ask him if he fell, or if it was an accident.”

— Was it an accident, master Emuin? he asked faithfully, and:

— Hell if I know. Thatʼs just like the man. Master crow, always picking bones, looking for trouble. Cefwyn and Efanor. Clever boys. Both — very clever lads…damned brats. Did you know they loosed three sheep in the great hall?

“He doesnʼt know what happened,” Tristen said quietly to Idrys, unable to see him, but knowing he was there. He grew afraid, and squeezed Emuinʼs hand until he feared it hurt, but the brink seemed nearer to both of them. Youʼre too close, sir. Please come back.

— Itʼs my peace, damn you! Iʼve earned it. Let me go.

— No, sir. No! Cefwyn needs you. Listen to me.

— I am, I confess it, are you satisfied? a very bad wizard. Iʼm old, Iʼm out of practice, out of patience, I canʼt do these things any more, that is my dreadful secret. No, the worse one is, I never was any good. Mauryl knew it. Donʼt look to me. Iʼve one chance — one chance, that the gods do exist, that salvation is there, and itʼs my only hope, boy, itʼs the only hope I have left. You heard them. By nature, I shanʼt get well from this. If I heal myself, I can only do it by wizardry — and I should be damned. Iʼve done murder, and Iʼm old. I shall be damned.

He knew nothing of damnation. He saw Death coming, a black edge Emuin was willfully seeking, and he would not have it. You will get well, sir. You are the only one. I tried to help Cefwyn. I could do nothing! I could never—

There was a tumult somewhere outside. He could not tell what it was. He ignored it until he saw, in the world of substance, Emuin look toward the door or attempt to. “Fire,” someone was crying, and Idrys was on his feet. “Fire, captain, thereʼs smoke all through the hall!”

“Damn,” he heard from Emuin, an exhalation of breath as much as a word. The next was stronger. “Cefwyn?”

There was a smell of smoke, however faint, that he had taken for a draft from the fireplace. He heard doors open and close. He saw Idrys leave in haste. He felt disturbance from master Emuin and even through the closed doors heard Idrys shouting at someone in the hall. Emuin was afraid. Emuin was aware, through him, if no other way.

He left Emuinʼs side and went out through the several doors to the hall, where Uwen was. Servants were standing up and down the hall, all looking anxiously toward the endmost, servantsʼ stairs, where smoke was billowing up. The kitchens, it might be: that was where most chance of fire was, down below and on that face of the building.

“Mʼlord,” Uwen said, looking, it seemed, for orders, but he had no idea what to do. It was too much disaster at once. They perhaps should move Emuin and Cefwyn to safety — but Emuin could scarcely bear more jostling about; and he had no idea which direction was safe.

“Where is it?” he asked, and no one seemed to know. He headed for the main stairs, which were still free of smoke. Uwen wanted to come with him, but he said, “Stay above. Donʼt let the servants leave. We may have to carry Emuin and Cefwyn downstairs. Iʼll find out.”

He hurried alone for the central stairs, those past Cefwynʼs room, supposed Cefwynʼs guards, absent from their posts, were inside with him, perhaps preparing to take him to safety, and he was halfway down the steps when he heard Cefwyn call out to him from above.

“Tristen! Whatʼs burning?”

Cefwyn, without his guards, was standing in a dressing-robe, holding to the newel at the landing. He began to answer, but all of a sudden Cefwyn just — fell down, and his hand slipped on the steps, and he kept falling.

Tristen raced up the steps and stopped Cefwyn in his arms, but there was blood on the steps and blood on him, and Cefwyn had fainted.

Booted feet came running down the steps from above him. “Mʼlord, — ” Uwen began, bending to offer help.

“Where are his guards?”

“I donʼt know, mʼlord, Idrys—”

“Find Idrys!” Too much was going wrong. He feared to take Cefwyn downstairs, exposed to a confusion without guards, without the protections that hourly surrounded him. “Wherever the fire is — Idrys will be there. Find where itʼs burning. I can carry him. Hurry!”

“Aye, mʼlord!” Uwen said, and ran past him down the stairs.

He tried to pick Cefwyn up. He almost could manage it, though Cefwyn was utterly limp, and the wrong way about on the stairs. But by then Cefwynʼs guards had come running down the steps from above, and helped shift Cefwyn head-upward so he could get his knee and his arms under him and rise on the steps.

He carried Cefwyn up the steps as the guards attempted to help, white-faced and trying to express their contrition, to him, since Cefwyn heard nothing, but he turned his shoulder and went past them, fearing that his carrying Cefwyn might hurt the leg further. Cefwyn was a still, loose weight, hard to keep safe as he maneuvered through the doors of Cefwynʼs apartment. His boot slipped a little on the floor and he realized it was blood that made his foot skid. He maintained his hold on Cefwynʼs yielding weight, the air hazing dark about him, maneuvered him through more doors, into his bedroom and with a last, difficult balance and rending effort, laid Cefwyn down carefully on the bed.

At that moment Annas appeared, took one look and began calling out rapid orders to pages to bring water and linens, while the guards attempted to explain to Annas they had been trying to assess the danger from the smoke coming up the other stairs, that they had believed Cefwyn asleep, that they never otherwise would have left.

Pages came running with towels. Then Idrys arrived on the run, smelling of smoke, his face streaked with soot. He had a quick look at Cefwynʼs leg, and ordered tight bandages.

“The physician is on his way,” Idrys said.

“He fell on the stairs,” Tristen said, still out of breath. “He heard the alarm—”

“Where in hell were the guards?” Idrys demanded, pressing a linen wad against the wound, and the guards again attempted to explain — but Efanor came through the doors, cursing the guards and demanding to know what was happening.

“The kitchenʼs afire,” Idrys said shortly.

“—Happening to my brother, sir!”

“Stupidity!” Idrys said. “Damn it, where is the man? Annas! I need linens! — He fell on the stairs, my lord Prince. Weʼve sent for the surgeon. If you would help His Majesty, Your Highness, see if you can stir the surgeon out of hiding. He only lately attended master Emuin, of another fall on the stairs — heʼs probably in his residence. He wasnʼt at the fire.”

Efanor, without another word, turned and left.

“Weʼll have the damned priest in here next,” Idrys said. He had a pad of linen pressed to Cefwynʼs wound. Blood soaked the sheets. The endmost stitches had burst. It was not all red blood that came out. “Damn it! Lord Tristen! Go out into the hall, set a guard over Emuin, Prince Efanor, and the lady Regent — gods know, it may rain frogs next.”

“Yes, sir,” Tristen said, and went out and caught one and another servant of his own and had them find out what was happening downstairs. He sent one of Cefwynʼs distraught guards upstairs to order the guards watching over the lady to be alert and to make no such mistakes — he thought that the guard might be especially passionate in urging the point. He had one of his guards to fill out the number at Cefwynʼs door and sent another to put extra guards with Efanor, who was searching, he hoped, for the physician.

Rain frogs. Idrys meant ills of every improbable sort. It was too much calamity. He tried to reach Emuin. He called to him, in that gray place, from where he stood; but Emuin was waging his own struggle — and when he would have joined it, Uwen came up to him in midhall. “His Majestyʼs come awake,” Uwen said. “But heʼs not well, mʼlord, heʼs not real well. The captain said you might ought to come quick.”

He all but ran to Cefwynʼs apartment, and Idrys was still at Cefwynʼs bedside. Cefwyn was absolutely white, but his eyes were open. The physician had arrived, the same that had stitched up Emuin.

“Tristen.” Cefwyn reached out his hand and Tristen took it, wishing the pain to stop and for the wound to be well, but clearly it did no good. Cefwynʼs mouth made a thin line and sweat broke out on Cefwynʼs white face.

“I canʼt do what Mauryl did,” he said in a low voice, only for Cefwyn. “I wish I could. Mauryl could make the pain go away. And Iʼve tried.”

“Emuin says youʼre not a wizard,” Cefwyn said. His grip was painfully hard. “I donʼt call on you to be. Is the fire out?”

“Kitchen grease, Your Majesty,” Idrys said.

“Iʼd at least expect something more exciting,” Cefwyn said. Cefwyn all but fainted, caught a breath and several more, before he asked: “Emuin. Where is Emuin?”

“Stairs have lately turned hostile,” Idrys said. “Master Emuin fell, mʼlord King. He will mend, but heʼs in no better case than you.”

Cefwyn seemed to have fallen asleep, then, but he was so pale, so waxen-looking.

“Itʼs as well His Majesty should sleep,” the physician said. “Close the curtains. All of you. Out. Away, mʼlords.” He set out a jar on the bedside, full of something noxious and something white and moving.

“You,” Idrys said, “take that from this room, sir.”

“The wound is suppurating, Lord Commander. The flesh is corrupt. The maggots will keep it clean.”

“There will be no damned maggots, sir. Out!”

“The flesh is corrupt. I tell you that you are trifling with his life!”

“Get him out of here!” Idrys said. “Get master Haman.”

“I shall go to the prince.”

“Go to the devil!” Idrys said. “Iʼll not have your hands on him! Heʼd have been well by now if youʼd the talent of your damned maggots. Out!”

Tristen drew a long breath as the man gathered his bottles and left.

“His Majesty donʼt like the Lord Physician, mʼlord Commander,” Uwen ventured, head ducked. “He wouldnʼt let ʼim near Lord Tristen again, he swore not.”

“With good cause,” Idrys said, and adjusted pillows under Cefwynʼs knee. “Go! Out! The lot of you! Annas has business here. The rest of you — out!”

They had gotten the fire in the kitchen out, so Uwen said, by flinging sand on it, which had been Cookʼs notion. Cookʼs hair had caught fire and three of the boys were badly burned: there was sand all over, brought in buckets from the smithy, and every pot and wall was blackened with soot. The fire had broken out, the report was, while the night-cook was asleep.

“Wasnʼt nothing going on,” Uwen said, “except the morning bread risinʼ, and then by what they say, the grease-pot was overset and it run down into the coals. After that, it was merry hell, mʼlord. They donʼt know if it was some dog got in, that knocked it over, or what, but Cookʼs just damn lucky. Itʼs sausages from the courtyard, campfires and kettles for us tomorrow. Itʼs a rare mess.”

Tristen paced the floor, with nothing better to do — there was nothing he could do. Emuin was holding out on his own and cursed at him for a distraction, saying there were untoward influences. The ether is upset, Emuin insisted, which he did not understand, but he remembered the pigeon and the latch rattling, and with the dark outside the window-panes, he paced and he looked for the intervention of the enemy in all that was going on — he feared to attract Hasufinʼs notice, but feared Hasufin was laughing at all of them this moment. If a window-latch could rattle, he said to himself, a pot might rock and go over.

He had not prevented calamity, he with his little attempt at magic. He felt his failure keenly, and wondered whether he was not in fact responsible for the calamity. And from time to time he went across the hall and asked the guards how Cefwyn fared, but there was no news, except that master Haman had come and looked and said he could bring up a poultice they used on the horses, and he could stitch it up, but that was all that lay in his competency.

According to the guards and the gossip in the hall, Idrys had then said, “Do the horses generally live?” and Haman had said, “Yes, sir,” and Idrys had had Haman bring what he had.

It did not please Prince Efanor, who sent the physician back with two of his guard and ordered Idrys to accept his treatment. Idrys had told the guards and the physician they were in danger of their lives if they meddled further.

So they had gone back to Prince Efanor to report that.

A long time went by, in Hamanʼs comings and goings, in the drift of smoke from the downstairs — many rooms had their windowpanes ajar, letting it flow out, but the smell of smoke clung to everything, and the servants were bundling fine clothes into linen wrappers and sealing the doors of chests and such with wadding. Emuin seemed better, at least so his servants reported, and had called for tea, but had headache and did not want to be moved, cursing his servants and telling the good Teranthine brothers that he wanted them to go light candles in the sanctuary.

What good would that do? Tristen wondered when he heard it, and wondered whether Emuin was in his right mind, or hoping for this salvation of his. He went down the hall to see Emuin, and Emuin was indeed better in color, but seemed to have lost substance, if that were possible.

“Sir,” he said. “Did you want more candles in here, or what can I do?”

“I want the brothers to light the candles,” Emuin said, and confided to him then so faintly he could hardly hear: “to get them out of here before I go mad. Is it dawn?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you feel it — no! donʼt look there. Stay out of that Place. Somethingʼs prowling about. Itʼs here. Gods, itʼs here.”

“I feel something dreadfully wrong. The air is wrong, sir.” He went down to his knees and caught Emuinʼs cold hand in his — but Emuin did not move his head at all from where it rested, and seemed in great pain, perhaps not hearing him, as no one else ever had heard him when he tried to say the most desperate dangers. “It doesnʼt ever stop, sir. Itʼs getting worse. I had my window rattling. And one of my birds killed itself.”

“Heʼs reaching out,” Emuin whispered, so faintly he might not have heard if he had not had his ear close. “He wants me. He wants me to die, apostate from the order — he wants me very badly. He wants me to die here, in this place — and damned to hell. Useful to him. Another stepping-stone.”

“Mauryl used to speak Words, and the tower would feel safer, at least. Do you know any of those Words, sir?”

“I havenʼt the strength right now to think of them. Let me rest awhile. Let me rest. My head hurts so.”

He brushed his fingers across Emuinʼs brow, ever so gently, wishing the pain to stop. But it was impudent even to try with a wizard such as Emuin was. “If my wishes help at all, sir, you have them.”

“They are potent,” the whisper came, but Emuinʼs head did not move, nor his eyes open. “They are more potent than you know, young lord. Potent enough I could not die. Damn you!”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and took it for an old man at the edge of sleep, and in pain.

“Cefwyn,” Emuin said then, seeming agitated. “Watch Cefwyn. Young fool.”

He did not know which of them Emuin thought the fool, but he said, “Yes, sir,” and got up and left for Cefwynʼs room.

But the guards, very quiet and very correct since Idrys had had private words with them, said only that the King was in some pain, and that Idrys had said he might come in whenever he wanted.

He thought that he might visit Cefwyn, but there was a sense of ill everywhere alike, that same sense that he had had before, and he seemed to bring it with him.

There was a commotion on the stairs then, a number of men — Dragon Guard — came up the steps and kept going, to the next floor, as Cefwynʼs guards and everyone else looked anxiously in that direction.

But not just men of the Guard. Efanor. The priest, all with very determined mien. Lord Commander Gwywyn. Why to that floor? was Tristenʼs first thought, and then: Ninévrisë.

Efanor had objected to her presence. The priest disliked Elwynim. Gwywyn had begun with his loyalty to Ináreddrin. “Uwen!” Tristen called out, and to the guards:

“Tell Idrys. Efanor is going against the lady. With Gwywyn. Quickly.” He ran for the stairs, following the guards, who reached Ninévrisëʼs floor just ahead of him. He hurried along behind them, overtaking Efanor and the priest, who were among the last, along with other priests, some carrying candles and some silver and gold vessels.

“Lord Prince,” Tristen said. “What is the matter?”

“Sorcery,” Efanor said, and a disturbed look came over him. “But you would know.”

“Yes, mʼlord, I would. And there is no need to disturb the lady.” He saw the Dragon Guardsmen, with Gwywyn, sweep the mere sergeant of the Princeʼs Guard aside from Ninévrisëʼs door, along with the rest of the guards. They were going inside, and Tristen went to prevent harm to the lady, as, past the invaded foyer, a handful of frightened Amefin servants were trying to stand between Ninévrisë and a Guelen prince, armed soldiery and a priest of the Quinalt.

“There she is!” the priest called out from among the hindmost. “There is the evil! There is the sorceress!”

“No, sir!” Tristen said, and pushed his way past the soldiers and the Lord Commander. “This is wrong, sir!” he said to Lord Gwywyn. “No. Iʼve called Idrys. Heʼs coming. Wait for him.”

“Idrys is bewitched the same as the King!” the priest cried, “and this is a Sihhë—donʼt look him in the eyes! Arrest him! Arrest the lot of them!”

Gwywynʼs face betrayed deep doubt. Tristen looked straight at him, but the priest was pressing forward and flung ashes at him, which stung his eyes, and the guards went past him, as the servants cried out in alarm.

“What is this?” That was Idrysʼ voice, and of a sudden something thumped heavily against the wall and clattered down it — a guard in Idrysʼ path. “You! Out! The rest of you get out of here! Good loving gods, have you lost your senses?”

“You have clearly lost yours, Lord Commander!” Efanor shouted at him. “I hold you accountable — I hold you accountable for my brotherʼs life!”

Idrys shouted back. “The King is not dead — damn it, put those weapons away!”

“No!” the priest said. “You have brought the King under unholy influences, Lord Commander, among them this manʼs! Arrest them, and the women!”

Idrys moved, spun about and set his back to the wall and his side to Tristen, and that quickly a dagger was in his hand. Tristen did not want to draw. It seemed to him once that happened there was no reason, and he only moved to prevent the guardsmen getting past him, men who showed no disposition to want to lay hands on him. The men of the Princeʼs Guard that Idrys had brought were pushing and shoving those of the Dragon Guard who had come with Efanor and Gwywyn. On Idrysʼ side was Uwen, who shoved his way through and stood with a drawn sword facing Gwywyn and his men, followed in rapid succession by Erion Netha and Denyn Keiʼs-son — armorless, wild-haired, with shirts unfastened, both carrying swords unsheathed. They and men behind them, all of the Princeʼs Guard, looked as if they had just waked and seized up weapons as they could.

“Hold, all!” Idrys said. “Damned fools! Your Highness, His Majesty is well enough. And he will have you to ask, sir, whence you made this ill-advised assault. This is utter foolishness! Put the swords away, I say! Put them away!”

“I do not take your orders, sir!” Efanor said. “Until I hear the Kingʼs word and see his eyes, I do not believe you — and I will have the physician, not a horse-surgeon, attend His Majesty, and other matters I shall set right, beginning with the inquiry into why an accident in the Bryalt shrine, and why the fire, and why His Majesty my brother is lying in peril of his life within hours after a betrothal that gave away far too much to an Elwynim witch!”

“Accuse me of sorcery?” Ninévrisë cried. “Oh, very well, dear sir!” She snatched up a small book from off the sideboard and held it aloft. “I have your gift, my lord brother-in-law, I am reading your gift in search of your truth and your faith! I had not known it came with such other behavior!”

“Donʼt listen to her!” the priest was shouting, and Ninévrisë:

“Oh, well, and am I so dangerous? I have dismissed all my men! I have trusted you! I have His Majestyʼs sworn word for my safety and his personal grant of these premises for my privacy!”

“This is enough!” Gwywyn was saying, appealing for reason and truth, but the words were starting to echo, with the priest shouting, and Ninévrisë shouting, and of a sudden men were shoving one another again, and steel rang on steel, as came a stabbing pain at the base of his skull, Emuinʼs presence…drawing him in, warning him…such as he could hear…

Small and angry, something in the east…close at hand. Deadly dangerous. A step in the dark, a burning of candles, candleflames, not orange of fire, not blue of amulets, but smoldering black, with a thin halo of burning white, smoke going up in thin plumes above them…above a fluttering of wings…shadows and wings…

— The east, he heard Emuin say. Harm…against the King. The stairs. The east stairs by the grand hall…

He could not get breath to speak, he could not think past the pain, except that he could not desert the lady, he needed help, and he snatched Ninévrisë by the wrist past Uwen and Erion, with the outcries of the servants in his ears, with Efanor bidding them stop him, and men attempting to do that, but Uwen and Erion were there with drawn swords, holding off a number who backed away from them, as he whisked Ninévrisë past the priest, past Efanor and Lord Gwywyn and in an instant in among the Princeʼs Guard.

But that was not where he was going, blinded by headache and so afflicted by Emuinʼs pain it all but pitched him to his knees. He reached the stairs. Ninévrisë was crying out questions. He realized he was holding her too tightly, and let her go, wishing her to come with him. Hearing Idrys and Gwywyn shouting at each other above, he ran, and she ran with him, down and down the steps—

He was aware of alarm in the lower hall, then, people staring in fright as they passed, people trying to intervene with questions. He saw the east stairs in front of him, and he did not need Emuin now. He knew. He felt it, a small tingling in the air, but a presence, nonetheless, that had taken alarm.

“What is it?” Ninévrisë breathed, hiking her skirts, trying to overtake him on the steps as he reached the floor above. Orienʼs guards looked at them in startlement as they came.

“Sirs,” he said as calmly and reasonably as he could, and hoping pursuit did not overtake them. “Open this door. Now.”

The guards did as he ordered. He had never been past the foyer of lady Orienʼs rooms. Now he went past those inner doors, with Ninévrisë and the guards, as women inside cried out in alarm. In the opening of both inner and outer doors, cold wind gusted through a window-panel wide open to the night, and carried on it a stinging, perfumed smoke. Candle flames wavered in the gale, and flung shadows about a group of black-clad women with astonished faces, horrified looks.

In front of them were candles on a table, a basin of something dark, severed red braids and a sprig of thorns. Among those women he felt presence, and chief of them he sensed was Orien Aswydd, who faced him with her face stark and hard, in the flaring light of a single candle. All the other candles had gone out.

“Damn you!” Orien said, and indeed there was a flash of gray and a tingle in the air.

“Is this Orien Aswydd?” Ninévrisë demanded. “Is this Orien Aswydd, who killed my messengers?”

“Get out!” Orien cried at her, then, in fear, “Keep away from me!” for Ninévrisë brought anger into the gray world — Ninévrisë started for her and women scattered, and Shadows scattered around them. It was not good to feel. It shivered through the air, it set all the gray to rippling like curtains, fluttering like wings. It welcomed anger.

“No!” Tristen cried, and seized the table edge, overturning it in the way of the women, and the candles and the basin and all went over in the light from the door. Fire flared in the spilled wax on a womanʼs skirts, and shrieking, the woman tried to smother it.

In that firelight metal had flashed in Orienʼs hand. He saw it, spun Ninévrisë back as Orien came past the end of the table, and evaded her as another woman drove a blade past him. She did not aim well, he thought, and in the slowness of such moments and without difficulty he caught the womanʼs wrist — in near darkness: one of the guards had smothered the burning cloth and the other stopped the women from fleeing. He took the knife and let the woman who had attacked him go, at least to the keeping of the guards.

But Orien also had gone down in a pile of dark skirts and Ninévrisë was standing on Orienʼs hand with one slippered foot. There was another knife, as the guards were finding the women in general so armed; and Ninévrisë trod hard on the hand when Orien tried to claw her ankle and tried to overthrow her by dragging at a handful of her skirts.

Tristen bent and took the knife from crushed fingers, then took Orien by the wrist, pulling her not entirely gently to her feet.

“Damn you!” Orienʼs eyes burned with rage and with fear. She fought to be free and he let her go. “Damn you!” She spoke Words, but no sound came. Wind blasted into the room.

“Good bloody gods,” one guard said.

“I think you should take her away from here,” Tristen said. They were Names she had spoken. He did not know what they attached to. He found no image of them but dark. The air felt far less dangerous after that gust, but a cold wind was still breathing through the open panel. “Shut the window, sir. I think itʼs far better shut.”

“On my soul we had no idea, mʼlord,” the chief of the guards said unsteadily, while the others held the women — there were five of them — at bay in a corner backed by shadowy dark drapes and gilt cord. The light all came from the hall, the doors open straight through, but that itself was dim. Came then another touch at the gray — but that was Emuin, glad despite the headache, glad to know what was happening, though Tristen felt a fine sweat on his skin and felt the room go around only in that instant of awareness.

“Content to be the Marhanenʼs chattel,” Orien said, nursing a sore wrist. Her face was lit strangely by the remaining candles. It seemed no longer beautiful, but ominous and terrible, the countenance she turned to Ninévrisë. “You above all others should be ashamed.”

“Your Grace of Amefel,” Ninévrisë said with utmost coldness, “you have made a very grave mistake.” And to the guards: “I would call the Bryalt. I have no intimate knowledge of this sort of thing. But I think they should see this room, these women, and these objects before they are removed. There are some of these things very surely of harm. I know what things like this mean. They are banned in Elwynor. I assure you, sirs, I have done none of this, nor ever did my father.”

The four guards were not the only ones present now. There was Lord Captain Kerdin, and Prince Efanor who came in clutching an amulet and trailing a number of Quinalt priests.

“It was sorcery,” Efanor said. “It was black sorcery. Arrest them.”

“I trust this time you donʼt mean me, Your Highness,” Ninévrisë said. “Or Lord Tristen.”

“No, Your Grace of Elwynor.” Efanorʼs expression was strained. “I fear we did mistake the source. But if you knew where to go — I ask why you waited so long.”

“Your Highness,” Ninévrisë began in exasperation.

“My lord Prince,” Tristen said. “I could not find the source, and I am Sihhë; master Emuin scarcely did, and he is a wizard.”

“He is a priest,” Efanor said harshly. Tristen recalled how Idrys had said never argue about priests with Prince Efanor, and did not argue the point.

“I think your priest should make prayers in this room,” he said, not seeing how it could do good or ill, but that it might please Efanor. “But first I think they should close this room and let wise men and Emuin decide what to do with these things.”

“This is a nest of evil,” Efanorʼs priest muttered, “and these women should be burned.”

The women some of them began weeping. Orien did not. “No, sir,” Tristen said respectfully, and added, knowing he posed them a quandary of authority, “I think His Majesty the King should decide what to do with them.”

That silenced them.

“Take them to the guard-house,” Efanor said. “Set a guard on them and light candles all around. Your Grace of Elwynor, my apologies.”

“I do accept them, Your Gracious Highness,” Ninévrisë said, and offered her hand, which Efanor hesitated to take, then kissed gingerly. “Thank you, Your Highness. If you would take me to His Majesty, please, I should much be obliged. Iʼve had a fright.”

“Lady,” Efanor said, and, which Tristen would have thought very improbable upstairs, he watched Efanor with the lady on his arm walk out past the priests and the guards, in all good and fair grace.

He looked then to the Lord Captain for wisdom in the matter. Kerdin looked quite dubious himself. But Tristen thought Ninévrisë had acted very wisely, since she had put Efanor on his best manners. More, she had not embarrassed Efanor when she might have. And Efanor knew it.

He knew when he had seen something wise. He could admire it, at least. And he saw the guard gathering the women to take them to the guard-house, for which he was very sorry: he had been there himself, and Orien would not like it.

She stared back at him with no apology. And he supposed she was angry about Lord Heryn. He thought she was very brave to have attacked Cefwyn where there was at least one wizard to have seen it, and he did not think that sorcery had broken master Emuinʼs skull.

“I think,” he told Uwen and Captain Kerdin in that thought, “that there is someone in the Bryaltine shrine who attacked master Emuin. It might not be one of the brothers, but I donʼt think master Emuin slipped on the stairs. I think there was someone helping Lady Orien, someone there and in the kitchens.”

“If master Emuin gets well,” Captain Kerdin said, “I donʼt think I would like to have been that person, Lord Warden, and I fear heʼs the most likely besides yourself to find out who. But Iʼll ask the abbot and the kitchen staff who came and went.”

He cast an uneasy glance about him, at the room, at the women. Orienʼs glance still smoldered. There was still harm in her. There was still the anger. He felt it as, finding nothing for himself to do, he thought he would also like to be sure Cefwyn and Emuin were safe, and went out into the hall and down the stairs. Uwen stayed with him, saying something about how Prince Efanor had been willing to listen to Idrys, finally, and how Gwywyn and Idrys had gone together to see Cefwyn, whether he was well.

But as he came into the lower hall he had that same feeling, that dread feeling he had had when of a sudden he had known direction to Orienʼs ill-working — and it was the same direction.

“Mʼlord?” Uwen asked, as he stopped. Uwenʼs voice came from far away. The sense he had was overwhelming, that it was there, down that hall, on the lower floor.

“My lord?” Uwen said again.

It was that end of the hall that had distressed him when he had first come, that place where the paving changed from marble to older stone.

Lines. Masonsʼ lines.

“Stay here,” he said to Uwen, and when Uwen protested regarding his safety: “Stay here!” he said, and went, alone down that hall, past other people, past servants. “Get away,” he said to them, and servants, looking frightened, moved quickly.

He walked all the way down the hall, to that place where the pavings changed. He saw the hall hung with old banners, and looked for the lines, such as he had seen at Althalen, at his very feet.

The lines were scarcely there, scarcely a pale glow. He looked up, up at the bannered hall, and heard the rustling of wings, hundreds of wings. He saw the stirring of Shadows hanging like old curtains, perching on beams, spreading wings like vast birds, and the whole hall shifting and stirring with the darkness that nested in every recess. Wings began to spread, Shadows bated and threatened him, and he stepped back behind the fading safety of the line, wishing for a Word such as Mauryl had used, a spell, whatever it was that Mauryl worked.

— Tristen, came Emuinʼs voice. Tristen! Stay back. Hold on to me…Do not let me fall. Hold me!

— Yes, sir, he said, and was aware of Emuin near him in the gray space, and was aware of Emuin growing stronger and stronger and that blue line at his feet growing brighter and brighter, until it blazed, until it turned white, and the Shadows were only banners, and the place fluttering with wings had gone away…

“Mʼlord!” Uwen said, having disobeyed him, having come, with his sword bare in his hand, to stand by him looking at a hall full of faded banners. “Is summat here, me lord? Is it somebody hiding here?”

Master Emuin was alive. Emuin had retreated until he could only dimly feel his presence, but something had changed in that presence. It was far, far warmer, far more vivid, of far more substance, if one could say that in the gray realm.

He had never seen Mauryl. He had never heard Mauryl in the way Emuin had shown him to do — and he thought that Mauryl might have been fearsome in this place. Emuin was not — at least, not toward him.

“Itʼs gone,” he said to Uwen. He drew an easier breath. “Thereʼs no one. We should go upstairs, now.”

There were a great many people gathered around his bed when Cefwyn waked next. There was sunlight coming through the window, so he had certainly slept a while; and he blinked in slow amazement to see Idrys, and Tristen, and Ninévrisë, and Efanor, all sitting or standing around him.

He could not remember what he had been doing when he went to bed, but he shifted the leg that had been giving him misery, to find it was sore, but no longer acutely painful.

“Is there some occasion?” he asked, embarrassed to be the object of such anxious attention. “My lady.” He did not at all look his best. His hair would be in tangles. He ran his hand through it, and felt his arm quite inexplicably weak.

Annas arrived with a bowl of soup, saying that the kitchen was limited at the moment until they could wash all the pots, whatever that meant, and while he was trying to think of a question, a page came and stuffed cushions behind his back and another held the bowl and spoon for him — prepared to spoon the soup into his mouth in front of all these witnesses.

“No,” he said sharply, and waved away soup, spoon, and boy. “What is this?”

“It was witchcraft,” said Efanor, who sat on a reversed chair, arm along its back.

He was not prepared to make judgments on Efanor and witches.

“Orien Aswydd,” Ninévrisë said. “Master Emuin broke his skull but he says he will be better soon.”

“I feel fine,” he said. “I keep telling you I feel fine. What are all of you doing here?”

“You should fare much better now,” Idrys said.

“I shall, if I have fewer people staring at me.” He was unaccountably weak. He had no desire for the soup. He most wanted to sleep. He decided he would shut his eyes for a moment, and said, “Did you see the horse, Tristen? What do you think?”

“I think heʼs very fine, sir.”

“Good,” Cefwyn said, remembered his betrothed bride was in the company — with his brother, which he found unlikely, and made the effort a second time to lift his eyelids to be certain it was true. “Forgive me. I donʼt mean to fall asleep.”

The eyes shut. He was aware of them moving about, and discussing him quietly, and Annas saying they would put the soup back in the pot and it could go on waiting. He had as lief escape it. But Annas was very hard to escape. He had learned that, at Annasʼ knee.

Was it porridge he should eat? He thought of the sunlight coming in a window of his childhood.

But that was silly. Or magical. On this particular morning, when he was about six or seven, he could hear all the voices of most of the people who would be important to him in his life. So it was a very important dream, although he didnʼt know their names, now; but he knew that he would, someday, and he should remember it when he grew up.