Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 33

All about them now were meadows and forest-crowned hills, low rolls of the land that rose toward Althalen — treacherous land, which, like that around Ravenʼs Knob, could mask an entire army. They had had that message last night that their way was clear — but that condition could have changed ahead at any hour an Elwynim army appeared on the riverside.

Cefwyn shifted his weight in Danvyʼs saddle both to ease the throb of his healing wound, and to see whether, by standing a handspan higher, he could see significantly more. They were behind their schedule. He did not want to order the column stopped prematurely, short of their planned camp; but he was beginning to ask himself was it wise not to stop sooner, and whether they had not overestimated their rate of march altogether, which would affect their ability to meet their other contingents and which might turn very serious indeed, if their army was going to move more slowly than their plan all along the march. The heavy horsemen rode today with their shields and weapons, but not in their full battle armor, and the heavy horses all traveled under saddle, in the hands of their grooms, though they as yet carried no riders and did not carry their full armor or caparison. That had been the plan they had made, that once they passed beyond the first encampment and especially as they rode in the vicinity of Althalen, they would count themselves in hostile if not imminently threatening territory. The light horse had carried riders all day, the destriers at least a slight weight all day; the infantry had marched with shields and spears since noon rest instead of having them transported in the baggage — and they might have to revise that plan to make the speed they needed. But going without defense was increasingly a risk, in territory uneasy in more than the sense of Althalenʼs haunted precinct. In the rolling land not only was the rear of the train out of sight in the distance, hours behind the front ranks, simply because of the length of the column, but even nearer ranks were often lost to view in the rolls and windings of the road. The wagons for baggage and supply had a small rear guard and the whole line of march, foot as well, was interspersed with horsemen who could ride for help in the event of attack, which could otherwise have cut off the tail of the army without the head even aware an attack was in progress.

If the enemy could cut them off from their equipment, their tents, their supply — they would be in a very grave situation, in which many of them would never survive retreat and regrouping near Henasʼamef. It was not a risk to run lightly, to have the men lighter-armed, because there had been incursions such as Caswyddianʼs, and the Regent had camped at Althalen completely unknown to men searching the hills. It was rough land out there. Tristen warned that Aséyneddin did know their intent and their schedule, and they were racing with all the skill and strength they had against an enemy doing the same with the help of Tristenʼs mysterious enemy, an enemy capable of killing Mauryl Gestaurien, chilling thought.

They had to start earlier tomorrow morning. They had to reach Lord Tasienʼs encampment at Emwy Bridge in order to hold Aséyneddin in Elwynor; at very least, if they were too late, they had to do something to keep from meeting Aséyneddin on ground Aséyneddin or his wizardly ally chose.

Wizardry. Sorcery, rather. It was the first time he had ever used that word advisedly; if it ever applied, that dark art which Emuin had named in the necessary lessons of a prince of a land with such a history, it should apply to this ghost, this — whatever it was that Tristen feared.

But they faced mortal enemies too, and it would be fatal to panic, to tire his forces, or wear down either the horses the heavy horsemen used for travel, or the warhorses who would, over much shorter distance and under all the weight of their armor, carry them into battle. Nor dared he have wagons and draft teams broken down under rushed and imprudent handling: that would be as fatal as losing them to the enemy.

He looked across at Tristen to ask what he thought…and saw that Tristen gazed as often he did toward the west, toward Marna.

Toward Ynefel, Cefwyn thought. Now the nature of Tristenʼs lapses seemed transparent, which they had never been to this degree before, with walls to mask their direction.

“If it will satisfy you,” Cefwyn said to him, fearing that attention of his to the west, “once we have settled with the Elwynim matter, next spring, I shall agree we must concern ourselves with Ynefel. So I plead with you, my friend, as you swore to be my friend, delay what you can delay. Sovragʼs boats can provide you and what forces you need a safe way to Ynefel, if go you must. No walking that end of Marna. You may have done it once under Maurylʼs protection, but never think of going there alone. Never think of leaving us. I shall stand by you at your need — but now I have need of you. You are my eyes toward that enemy. If you fail me I am blind. Do you understand that?”

Tristen looked at him, lifted his hand to the northwest, between forest edge and plains. “He will meet us before Emwy.”

It was possible Tristen had heard nothing of what he said. “Are you certain?” he asked Tristen.

“Yes,” Tristen said distantly. Then: “Yes. I have feared so all day. Now I know. I wish not.”

It meant Tasienʼs annihilation, almost certainly. Cefwynʼs heart sank, and he glanced aside to see who rode in hearing of them. Idrys was. Ninévrisë was speaking with one of the Guelen guards he had assigned to guard her, and could not have heard. “More of Maurylʼs visions?”

Tristen shook his head. “Mine, sir.”

“Is Lord Tasien fallen, then?”

“I think he is, sir. I feel it certain. I have feared it for hours.”

The news was maddening. He did not want to believe it.

“Then Aséyneddin has crossed the river. That is what you are saying.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Donʼt say it to Her Grace, and donʼt say it to anyone yet. Even Uwen. Not until I say so.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Across the river. — Then, damn it. — ” He looked where the scouts had ridden over the hills to the south. “Where is Lord Cevulirn? — And when will we find him?” he asked, with his fatherʼs irreverence for visions and, still, a hope that wizardry would fail or find exception. “Vision me that vision and save my scouts the hazard.”

Tristen gave a visible shiver, a drawing in of the shoulders. “No. I would not venture to say, lord King. I donʼt see them. But I do see a shadow on the land…westward and north, that is not good. That is not at all good.”

“A shadow. Wizardry, you mean.”

“It is, sir. But itʼs all the same a Shadow.”

Cefwyn scanned the western horizon and saw nothing. “You can see bad news but not good? Is that it? Or what do you see?”

“Things that a wizard touches. My enemy is with Aséyneddin. He is at Ynefel.”

“Oneʼs at the bridge, oneʼs in the heart of Marna! How can he be two places at once?”

“I donʼt think heʼs at Althalen. I hope, sir, I do hope for Althalen to be safe. If it isnʼt—”

“If it isnʼt, weʼre destined to camp there tonight. We rely on camping there and passing that place without being engaged. If there was a possibility of this, you might have told me before now!”

“I would have told you, sir, if I thought he was there. I donʼt think so. And going overland is far slower. — But where Lord Cevulirn is, I donʼt know.”

Wizards. It was enough to give a man pause. And when Tristen was rapt in thought he forgot all instructions of protocols, all agreements, all that was between them — he simply told what he believed; and increasingly he did believe it. He had a sudden vision of himself, a man of practical Marhanen blood, pursuing Tristenʼs will-oʼ-the-wisp enemies across two provinces of ancient superstitions, elder gods, and demonstrable wizardry.

Scratch an Amefin and wizard blood bled forth. And if he fought for Amefel against what tried to claim its ancient soil — it was most reasonably a war of wizards. By his own choice, a Sihhë standard, black and ominous, fluttered beside the Marhanen Dragon. By his own choices the Amefin rural folk, emboldened by the fall of the Aswydds and the impotence of their own lords, had flocked to Tristenʼs standard. He could bear with that.

But in Guelessar and the northern provinces were honest and good and loyal men who would shrink in horror from what their King had allied with, even if their King won.

If their King lost a province — and retreated into the heartland of Ylesuin, with sorcery let loose in Amefel and the Elwynim in its employ — he would have failed his oath to his own people. The wailing of slain children had haunted his grandfather to his dying hour. In the godsʼ good name — what might haunt him hereafter?

“A rider,” Tristen said, and he saw it at the same moment: a scout coming back full tilt down the hills toward them.

More bad news? he asked himself. He braced himself for it. Idrys swung closer, clearly seeing it. Gwywyn and Ninévrisë came near.

The man — of the Princeʼs Guard, as all their scouts were of that regiment — slid to a walk alongside them. “Your Majesty,” the scout breathed, while his horse panted and blew. “Your Majesty, — dust on the south — all along the south, mʼlord. My companion rode ahead to see.”

“Fall back and find Qwyllʼs-son. Have him inform the ranks. Pass it back by rider.”

“Yes, mʼlord.” The man drew rein and fell back in the line.

“It may be Cevulirn,” Cefwyn said. “That would be very good news.”

“Certainly better than such sightings on our north,” Idrys muttered. Idrys had been close on Tristenʼs other side, close enough to have heard his exchange with Tristen. And Idrys believed bad news before good. Always.

“Coming from the south, they must be ours,” Ninévrisë said.

Tristen said, solemnly, “They are ours, my lady. But we are to their north. Best they be certain who we are.”

Tristen said such a thing. Something else had clearly unfolded to him, in only so few days.

Possibilities unfolded to the Marhanen King, too.

What if it were the writer of the Art of War Mauryl had brought back? His mentor of that long-ago text, riding unguessed beside him?

It was too cursed poetic. And, no, Tashânen was an engineer and a strategist.

He recalled their last council before the barons had left. He said to himself as they rode side by side looking for that encounter, Tristen knows strategy — Certainly he knows the sword. Uwen says he knows the lance, that he will ride Dys, and that he has no doubts of him. The Sihhë brought the heavy horses with them to the land: how should he not know them?

Tristen counseled us no earthen walls. He spoke out against fortifications. Everyone will die, Tristen said, and we didnʼt heed him — when he was counseling us, damn it, on the one answer I could never find in Tashânenʼs book, the one question I most wanted to know, and I didnʼt hear what he was saying.

Tashânen didnʼt write it in his book because the Sihhë of his age knew that answer. It was the art of siege Tashânen invented — against enemies who used other Sihhë tactics as a matter of course. Tashânen had all prior lore — books burned at Althalen — and why should he write down the use of magic innate in his kind? Other texts would have held that — whatever a manʼs born with, thereʼs always a cleverer way to use it: that would have been his object in writing: what he wrote down was the new thing, not the old. Why should we expect a Sihhë or any man to write down the obvious?

What held me from hearing Tristen?

Are we all so blind? Or is it another blow his enemy has struck us, through Orien Aswydd?

What did one do, he went on asking himself, without that knowledge innate (Emuin had said it) in Tristenʼs kind?

Strike at flesh and blood? That he could do. The other possibilities — he did not even see. And in his blindly following a Sihhë text, he had not regarded Tristenʼs warning — he had seen only the dangers of Tristen confronting him in council; and in his infatuation with Sihhë skill in war, he had sent men to an untenable, fatal position against wizardry.

He had let his brideʼs kinsman make a deadly mistake. Tasien had acted the best he knew against his enemy, in the absence of any trust of Guelen kings. But as King, he certainly could have argued with Tasien with more force, rather than accept Tasienʼs plan as he had done and (gods forgive him) embroider it with his own boyhood fancies.

Trenches in the herb garden. Good blessed gods, why had he not used his wits?

But without sending Emuin, or Tristen, neither of which was possible — what could he have done against a wizardous attack? What could he do against the one he knew was coming at them all?

And how did he break the news of Tasien to Ninévrisë?

In a plume of sunlit dust the remaining scout from the south came riding up over the swell of land. “The Ivanim!” that man called out as he came near. “I saw their banners, and the sun on their helms!”

Even as that rider came, the sun was picking up color in the west, and they all could see a second plume of dust on that horizon, farther away, behind the first.

“That is Umanon,” Cefwyn speculated aloud, his heart lifting.

Idrys, quick as his own thought, pulled back in the column and gave orders, and two more scouts immediately rode away from the column and overland in that direction, this time to welcome the lostlings in.

Within the hour the riders from the south had crested the rise along the road, a rolling tide of the swift-moving Ivanim light horse, and behind them, their slower-moving allies of Imor, a dark mass of riders and warhorses at lead. The banners were plain in the sunset, and Tristen drew a deep, glad breath when he saw it.

“Two of them,” Cefwyn said in Tristenʼs hearing. “Now, gods save us, if now Pelumer will come in…”

Olmern had perhaps succeeded, Tristen thought when Cefwyn made that wish. He could in no wise tell for certain, but he felt none of the hostile influence to the northeast, and that said to him that their enemy had not gone that way. The way they had left open to Aséyneddin had cost them dearly, those two bridges eastward of Emwy district, which Cefwyn had hoped would make an incursion from the forest-edged west the only answer if Aséyneddin wished to cross quickly into Amefel. Tasien was gone. The Elwynim had crossed and committed themselves. No second rebel force could threaten Henasʼamef without coming by way of Emwy, and without passing them.

That portion of the plan was, he hoped, working. Cefwyn had designated reciprocal messengers that daily came to Henasʼamef from the east reach of the river, upstream, and one would have reached Henasʼamef last night. After that, Efanor should have sent the regular relay out north to the river and sent another courier west after them, bringing Cefwyn word of the riverside and Sovrag.

Cefwynʼs system of messengers, Tristen thought, was very well done; it had freed him personally of the necessity to try to reach Emuin, which was the most dangerous thing he could do short of speaking to Hasufin himself. Cefwynʼs couriers had gone out from the army directly north this morning, to reach Sovrag directly and to bear Ninévrisëʼs second messages of reassurance and encouragement to the Amefin riverside villages, jointly with Cefwynʼs, to assure them they were not abandoned, that Sovrag was not a threat to them, and to urge the villages to report to them directly overland in the now remote chance Lord Aséyneddin should cross somehow — on that matter, the defense of the province might have turned.

But now the bonfires they had lit on the hills had brought them Cevulirn and Umanon, and that was another wonder of Cefwynʼs forethought: the simultaneous muster of the barons and their being able to join Cefwynʼs column on the move had all relied on measuring distances, which Cefwyn had done in advance, and knowing very accurately how fast the various forces could move, granted they saw the signal fires and moved at all.

If one had no way into the gray space, it was a very clever way of doing things. It was a way of getting around wizards — and it was important to know how that could be done. He marked it always to remember, and never to become complacent in what he saw.

And the gray place was constantly urging at him. It was full of shadows and lights and whispers. Now with the sun taking the light from the land and making the hills gold, and with their allies riding toward them, he felt that the missing pieces that had to exist had now come together.

But he did not have that feeling of inevitability about Pelumer that he had had all along about Cevulirnʼs coming and Umanonʼs. Marnaʼs dark edge was Pelumerʼs route — and he had no wish to look deeply or long in that direction.

Cevulirn came riding up in the sunset with the White Horse flying, leading his own warhorse with him, as every man in his company had a remount with him and his lance and shield and a small amount of provisions packed on the warhorseʼs saddle.

That was the way the southern horsemen had done forever, constantly changing from mount to mount. So Cefwyn advised him as the riders came, and it unfolded in Tristenʼs thoughts that it had indeed been that way, that on their longest marches they had two and even three horses in their string. He saw it so vividly that a Name almost came to him, and he felt comfortable with the Ivanim, and knew their thinking, for reasons he did not clearly know.

Cefwyn told Cevulirn his place in line and his place in camp from memory — a precedence in line behind the Amefin, whose province it was, and ahead of Umanon, whom he had beaten in — Cefwyn told Cevulirn where his warhorses should be, and where his wagon was and where his tents would be, which they had brought for him.

“Your Majesty leaves no work for the scribes,” Cevulirn said with the mild lifting of a brow. It had seemed a point of amazement among the barons in all the preparations that Cefwyn did remember such things in very certain detail.

“Join us this evening!” Cefwyn wished him in sending him off. “Weʼll take a cup of wine together — and explain this haste!”

Umanon also came riding up, his men traveling in the same style as the Ivanim, leading a contingent of heavy horse. “Majesty!” Umanon called out. “A short stay at home. Iʼd scarcely built a fire in the hearth!”

“I shall explain tonight!” Cefwyn said. “But things are as well as they can be. Thank the gods for your meeting us. Weʼre in good order, with you here, Your Grace! See me when first youʼve set your tents!” And Cefwyn told Umanon the numbers and place of his camp as well, after which Umanon rode off to his assigned place in the order, and to claim his personal baggage.

The day had worn hard on Cefwyn. He had started the day as he had started yesterday, riding strongly, but now despite the good news of a moment ago, he seemed to Tristen to be clinging to his courage and to his composure even at Danvyʼs sedate walk. Danvy had given a couple of quick steps as horses came up to him, and Cefwyn had corrected that, but at a price.

“Not far,” Tristen said to him, the only encouragement he could offer, for if there was one road in the world he knew it was this one and if there was one thing he could now sense like his own bonfire in this night, it was Althalen.

It was deepest dusk when they came to their projected camp, in that area of the road respecting Althalenʼs perimeter and across the road from any accidental encroachment on what Cefwyn called the cursed precinct. Tristen was very glad, himself, to get down. The wagons were yet to come and the least essential ones, with the units of horse that guarded them, would be arriving long into the night.

“Set the unit standards with their units,” Cefwyn called out, pointed warning against any such carryings-on as yesterday night. “Bid everyone keep their standards in good order. From this place on, there is danger of the enemy at any hour!”

Ninévrisë had not gotten off her horse, and Tristen walked over to see if she needed help; so did Cefwyn, at the same time.

“My lady?” Cefwyn said.

“My fatherʼs grave is here,” she said. “I wish to ride just to the edge of the ruin, my lord, to stay only for a moment, if I can do it without endangering the camp. But I feel — I wish to, my lord.”

Tristen stood by, having been ready to offer Ninévrisë a hand down. He knew that Cefwyn did not want to grant such a request, and that Cefwyn out of his willingness to please Ninévrisë would get back on Danvy and take a guard and go, though he was in pain. He would not send Ninévrisë only with an escort.

“I shall go with you,” Cefwyn said, with never a protest.

“My lord,” Tristen said. “My lord King, this is a place where I can see things others may not, and defend against things others cannot. I can take Uwen and my guards.”

Cefwyn looked at him, seemed to consider, and let weariness and gratitude touch his face. “Half yours,” he said. “Six of the Dragon Guard. Weʼve tents to raise. — And be careful. In this matter, I trust you as no other, but for the godsʼ own sake, for the godsʼ sake and on your oath to me, be careful.”

“Yes, sir.” He went to get Petelly and gave orders to Uwen, glad that Cefwyn had been reasonable — but most of all feeling now in his heart, as clearly as he saw the sun sinking, that Ninévrisëʼs request was both urgent and advised.

He mounted up and by that time Uwen had collected the men Cefwyn lent him. They crossed the road, on which a seemingly endless line of riders and men afoot stretched on out of sight, and they entered the meadow on the other side, riding up through a screen of trees to another grassy stretch, farther and farther then, out of sight of their camp, and up into the area where they had met Uwen that dreadful night, in the rain, and with Caswyddianʼs forces behind them.

Uwen grew anxious. So did the men with them. And perhaps, Tristen thought, he should be apprehensive himself, as he saw streaks of wind run through the grass, and one little one, following a thinner, very erratic course. He knew the child, saw her frolic without seeing her at all.

Ninévrisë said, “Something is there.”

“It is,” he said. “But donʼt look too closely. She doesnʼt like to be caught. — Uwen, itʼs the witch of Emwyʼs child. Sheʼs a little girl. Iʼm glad to see her. Her name is Seddiwy.”

“That old woman?”

“I donʼt think the child died when Emwy burned. I think she might have died a long time ago. I donʼt know why I think so, except the Emwy villagers are here, too, and theyʼre not so friendly, or so happy as she is. — But they wonʼt harm us. Sheʼs stronger than she seems.”

“Gods,” Uwen muttered, as four distinct marks flattened the grass ahead of them, leading where they had to go. “Is it those streaks in the grass?”

“Yes, those.”

“Mʼlord, I do hope you know where weʼre going.”

The light was leaving them very fast, now, and none of the men looked confident — they were very tired, they had been two days now on the road, and they might, except for this venture, be sitting at the fires and drinking wine with their friends and waiting for their suppers; but on Cefwynʼs orders they came, and fingered amulets more than weapons.

Petelly snorted and twitched his head up as the little spirit darted beneath him — and then right under a guardsmanʼs horse. It shied straight up, and the man, most anxious of their company, fought hard to hold it from bolting.

“Behave!” Tristen said sternly, and that stopped.

They were coming among saplings that had been all broken off halfway up their trunks. Rocks lay shattered in the grass.

Then one of the Dragon Guards reined aside from something lying in the grass, and said, not quite steadily, “Hereʼs a dead man, Lord Warden.”

“Caswyddianʼs men,” Ninévrisë said calmly enough, though her voice was higher than its wont. “Are we in danger, Lord Tristen? Might their spirits harm us?”

It was to ask. But—“No, I donʼt think so. The Emwy folk seem to hold this place to themselves.”

They came up that long, difficult ridge, where two men had fallen. The rains had not quite washed away the scars they had made on that climb.

They reached that place that overlooked the ruin, and it stretched very far under the cover of trees and brush and meadows. Despite the chill of the winds below, the air on this exposed ridge was quite still, even comfortable. There was a sense of peace here that had not existed before, tempting one who had the power to look in that different way — to stop and cast a look in this fading last moment of the light.

Ninévrisë said, in a shaken voice, “Father? Father, is that you?”

Then a change in that other Place caught Tristenʼs attention, as certainly a presence would: and in that instantʼs glance he saw pale blue, and soft gold. He risked a second look and saw the Lines of the ruin, the lines on the earth that had grown fainter and fainter in the hour of the Regentʼs death now spreading out brightly far and wide. Brighter and brighter they shone in the dusk as the worldʼs light faded, until they blazed brightly into inner vision. Other lines glowed where those lines touched, and those touched other lines in their turn, like fire through tinder, blue and pale gold, each form in interlocking order, as far as the eye could make out, one square overlaying the other — all through the grass, and the thickets.

It was the old manʼs handiwork, he thought, astonished and reassured. Late as it was, the earth was still pouring out light. Shadows flowed along the walls, but respected the lines of those walls now. The men about him glowed like so many stars to his eyes; and then his worldly vision said it was not the men, but the amulets they wore, the blessed things, the things invested with their protection against harm — as Emuinʼs amulet glowed on his own chest, in the midst of the light that was himself.

That glow seemed the old manʼs doing, too — yet none of the men with them, not even Uwen, seemed to see all that had happened. Only Lady Ninévrisë gazed astonished over the land.

“Your fatherʼs work!” he said. “Do you see, my lady? He is not lost!”

“I see it,” she said, holding her hands clasped at her lips. “I do see!”

“What, Lord Warden?” a guardsman asked; but Uwen said, quietly, “What mʼlord sees ainʼt bad, whatever it is. Just wait. Heʼs workinʼ.”

“No,” Tristen said, for the menʼs comfort. “Itʼs not bad. Itʼs safe. Itʼs very safe here.”

The Lines, as they had that night, showed him what Althalen had been, bright as a beacon, now, advising him here had been a street, here had stood walls, here was a way through the maze, though brush had grown up and choked the open ground.

And when he thought of that, a Name the old man had not been able to tell him seemed to sound in the air, unheard, that Question to which the old man had known the answer resounded through the grayness, and Lines on the earth rose into ghostly walls and arches, halls full of people who walked in beautiful garments, and ate delicate food, and laughed and moved in gardens and a river ran near that had boats sailing on it, boats with colored sails and with the figures of beasts and birds on their bows. He did not know whether he could say it as the old man did — but he had almost heard it ringing through the world.

Not Althalen, he thought, then, aware he was slipping very rapidly toward the gray space — but not — suddenly — at Althalen.

There was a murky river. He knew where that river ran — he was in sudden danger. He had risen into the gray space — and gone badly astray, trapped, by an enemy old and clever, and still able to have his way.

He met the attack. He set himself to the fore of Ninévrisë, approaching the enemy on his own, but not taking the enemyʼs vision—

When he thought that, immediately he found a vantage he knew, outside, on the parapet of Ynefel, in the sunset. He knew his loft, the high point of a vast hall across the courtyard, highest point in the keep.

He could see his own window, with the horn panes glowing with light in the twilight, as if he were there himself, reading by candlelight — but with the shutters inside open. That was wrong, and dangerous.

It was his window, and it was his home, and he knew the study below, in which he kept his books, many, many of them — not Maurylʼs books, but his own books. He was puzzled, and thought, That was never true.

The height of Ynefel rang with a Word, then, which he could hear, but not hear, in the curious barriers of this dream; and at that Word, all of this glorious building trembled and fell quiet.

He stood on the very parapet, where he had gone — or would go — naked in the rain.

He watched all the buildings from there — the illusion of a living city widespread about Ynefelʼs skirts, streets busy as the streets of Henasʼamef.

But it had not been Ynefel on that day. It had had another Name. So had he. And he had come there with Maurylʼs help to cast all that citadel down.

He was angry, he knew not why or at what. That anger grew in him, and as it reached the point that he must loose it or die, he let it loose.

In that loosing, a wind swept the halls, swept up the men in their elegant clothing, and the women in their bright gowns, and the children, alike, with their toys, and whirled them all about the towers, tumbling one over the other, out of the bright world and into that gray space where they hurtled, lost and afraid.

Some, more determined and more powerful, found their way back to their former home, and peered out of its walls, frozen in the stone.

Some became Shadows, angry ones, or fearful ones, or simply lost ones, wailing on the winds that carried them through that gray light, until darker Shadows hunted them down, one by one, and ate their dreams and their hopes and their substance.

But all such shadows as came to him for refuge he breathed in and breathed them out again with his will, and by them he mastered the anger that threatened his reason. By them he learned…better things.

A young man in gray had stood by him, but that man was gone. He possessed securely the walls, the woods, the river, in all the vacancy he had made.

He had done this. All the City was gone. He remained. The Tower of Ynefel remained.

The faces watched from the walls, and the lives flowed through him with a heat like too much wine. He was trembling now. He wanted to know — who had done such a thing, and could it possibly be himself who had begun it?

But of his own countenance and his own reasons he could discern nothing.

He had lived — or would live — in that small room with the horn-paned window. He had come at Maurylʼs asking, and he knew at once his enemy was the man who had stood beside him, the young man in gray, against whom he had fought with all the resources at his disposal — even binding the lives of the people of Ynefel to his effort.

He wanted to know who he was. He wanted to see the face of the one who would have drunk up all the world only to cast out the man in gray.

He had asked Mauryl — or would ask one day — whether Mauryl could see his own face. He thought it clever of himself to wonder that in this dream, a trick by which he could make the dream reveal itself — and him.

But in this dream he had no mirror, nor were there any such, until, still in this dream, suddenly standing within his own room — or what would be his room — he found on the bedside table a small silver mirror. Threads of shadow formed about it, resisting, strands clung to it as he picked it up, and shriveled when he would not be deterred.

He had been clever. He had gained in this dream the mirror Mauryl had given him; but once he had found it, he was back in the courtyard by the kitchen door and the rain-barrel. Daylight was behind him and even with the mirror he could see no more than he had seen in the rain-barrel that day, only his own outline, an outline with a shadowed face.

So the dream had tricked him, and would not at any trick he could play unfold more than he had seen.

He was sitting on Petellyʼs back again. He had his hands locked before his lips. He was aware of the men watching him. He had come all that distance through the past, alone of those living, and alone of the dead — but he knew nothing. Nothing.

He had found reason to fear — and out of his fear, and in revulsion at Hasufinʼs cruelty, he thought now, had flowed his terrible anger.

And when his anger broke loose — at least in the dream — he had used lives for the stones and anger for the mortar of his fortress.

It might be illusion. Mauryl had said not to fear dreams, that there was not always truth in them. He thought that Mauryl had had a part in what had happened.

The old man had said — Hasufin would use even his dreams.

The old man had proposed to hold Althalen, and everywhere around him, now that he had broken with Ynefel, was the evidence of the old manʼs power. Surely Hasufin could not make something seem so fair — more—feel so fair, and so safe, and so familiar.

But the faces of Ynefel lately in his memory were a truth he could not deny.

They moved on certain nights — or seemed to, when the wind blew, the balconies creaked, and candleflame wavered in the drafts.

Ynefel, which held always a warm, homelike feeling for him — was a terrible place, where he — he! — had done something unthinkable and destructive.

“Mʼlord,” Uwen said, moving his horse close. “Mʼlord?”

He could not move. He could not look aside from that structure of glowing lines, feeling always less than he needed to be, less wise, less kind, less — able to create something like this, so fair and so bright in the gray world.

His handiwork — was other than this.

Men feared him. All men did well to fear him.

Uwen took the reins somehow, and turned Petelly about, and once they were faced the other way he realized that Ninévrisë was close beside him on one hand, and the guardsmen had gathered about them, hands on weapons and yet with no enemy against which they could defend him.

He put his hands on Petellyʼs neck, and patted his neck. “I can manage, Uwen,” he said as steadily as he could.

“Mʼlord,” Ninévrisë said — frightened, too, he thought. He had taken her into danger. “I saw nothing — nothing amiss here.”

“Then the harm, if there is harm, is in me.”

“No such thing, mʼlord,” Uwen said firmly, and, leaning from his saddle, managed to pass the reins over Petellyʼs head again, which required his help to straighten out. Petelly lifted his head, making the maneuver more difficult; but he secured the reins, settled Petellyʼs anxious starts in one direction and the other, and as their small party began to ride home, went quietly, reasonably back the way they had come, among the hills, shadowing with night, and finally across the road, down the busy center lane of the camp, where wagons and men continued to come in.

The leg ached, ached so that a cup of wine was Cefwynʼs chief wish, far more than a supper, no matter the servantsʼ efforts. It was past dark, there was no sign of Tristen and Ninévrisë, and he had debated with himself whether to offend Ninévrisë by sending men out — or whether to sit and worry.

But the mere sight of Cevulirn and Umanon was reassuring, and persuaded him he had so many men in the vicinity that no enemy scouts would be too daring, and that the Elwynim rebel that tried Tristenʼs mettle would find that small band no easy mark at all. Sit still, he told himself. Let them learn what they can learn in their own way. Sending someone into wizardous doings was not wise.

Sending two most valuable persons to seek out wizardry worried him intensely.

But he had trusted Tristen too little so far. He could not rule by hampering his best counselors, whatever the frightening nature of their investigations.

Outside the royal pavilion, the White Horse of the Ivanim and the Wheel of Imor Lenúalim were snapping in a stiff wind alongside the Dragon and beside them, the Tower and Star, the Regentʼs Tower and the Amefin Eagle. The wagons belonging to the Guelen regulars were disgorging their supplies. The Duke of Ivanor and the Duke of Imor had pitched their tents alongside his, with Tristenʼs on the other side, next Gwywynʼs tent, which was the command post for the Dragon and the Princeʼs Guard. They made no individual fires tonight, in the tents of the common men, so as to give any spies that did venture onto surrounding hilltops no convenient way to count their number. But fires were starting outside, and cooks were hard at work with the big kettles, boiling up soup and unpacking hard bread they had brought from town. The common men would not fare at all badly tonight, mutton stew and enough ale to wash it down, very good ale, he had ordered that personally. But it would not be enough to become drunk.

There was a grimmer and very businesslike feel to this camp, from which they would set out on their final march either to fight or to establish a camp in the face of the enemy, from which they would launch a more deliberate war.

There was more and quicker order, for one thing, so Idrys had reported from his latest tour about. Untaught peasants, accepted into Amefelʼs line, followed lordsʼ and officersʼ orders and soldiersʼ examples tonight in the not unreasonable confidence that their lives very soon would hang upon what they learned. So from a slovenly behavior at the outset, things were done remarkably well this evening among the Amefin, and two of the Amefin village units, of Hawwy vale, were at drill even in the dark and by lantern-light, an excess of zeal, Idrys said, and he agreed: they dared not have the men exhausted.

Meanwhile, Kerdin Qwyllʼs-son said, the Guelen regulars moved among the Amefin, impeccable and meticulous in their procedures, instructing those who would listen. A few officers had gone about near the fires and had eager and worshipful entourages of wise Amefin lads who wanted to live long lives.

Among them, too, in the attraction of the bonfires, were Cevulirnʼs riders, drilled from boyhood to ride the land and teach the young village lads what time they were outside the service of Cevulirnʼs court. They had set the small Amefin section of the horse-camp in good order very quickly, and joined the tale-telling around the fires. So did Imorʼs men, mostly townsmen, well-ordered and well-drilled; merchantsʼ and tradesmenʼs sons, they drilled on every ninth day, and of those merchantsʼ sons every one that afforded his horse and attendants was proud and careful in his equipment — a haughty lot, more so than Cevulirnʼs riders, who, if the ale did start flowing, might grow less reserved than their gray, pale lord.

But they had not heard from Pelumer and they had not received Olmernʼs messenger.

He had made his third venture to the door, and to the fire at which his own cook was preparing the lordsʼ fare, when horses came down the main aisle of the camp, and he saw Ninévrisë and Tristen and their escort coming in safe and sound.

Then he could let go his anxiousness, particularly when firelight lit the arriving partyʼs faces, and Ninévrisë leapt down and ran to him saying that things were very well at Althalen.

“It was beautiful,” she said, accepting his hands. “It was beautiful. I wish you had seen—”

“I doubt that I could,” he said, conscious of Guelenfolk about and wondering what she might have said or seen out there that might find its way to orthodox ears; but he had not meant to make it a complaint.

“The lord Regent protects us here,” Tristen said. “I was right. He has won Althalen. Heʼs held. Men loyal to the Regent died there, and so did his enemies — but most of all is Emwy village. Theyʼve sided with the lord Regent. I think they have, all along.”

“They fed us when we were camped there,” Ninévrisë said. “They kept us secret from Caswyddianʼs men. They were good people, in Emwy village.”

“Then the gods give them rest,” Cefwyn said, though he thought perhaps the wish was ill considered. They were uneasy dead, by what Tristen claimed, and would always be.

But Tristen was looking downcast as he turned Petelly off to the groom. He stood gazing off into the distance at the moment, and comprehension seemed to flicker in those pale eyes, cold and clear in the firelight, as if he had heard from some distant voice.

“What is it?” Cefwyn steeled himself to ask — as he should have asked in council before. He had determined to mend his faults. And to tell Ninévrisë what he did know.

“Trouble,” Tristen said, “trouble. My lord, I very dangerously misstepped tonight. He carried me to Ynefel. I was very foolish. I almost lost everything.”

“What did he gain?” He did not need to ask who it was Tristen meant; and he had no room for charity. “Tristen?”

“Little, I hope. Perhaps knowledge of me. I — do not think lord Pelumer will join us. My enemy is moving. He is well ahead of us.”

“Tasien?” Ninévrisë asked in alarm, and looked at Tristen.

Tristen had spilled it. Gods knew what else he had let loose. “We fear Lord Tasien may have fallen,” Cefwyn said, gently. “My lady, — Tristen only fears so. At this point—”

“It is certain,” Tristen said; and anger touched Cefwynʼs heart — he bore with all Tristenʼs manners, but he could not accustom himself to interruptions especially on important points.

And something happened, something clearly happened, then. Tristen had looked at Ninévrisë and Ninévrisë looked at Tristen, her clenched fists against chin an instant, and then — then something else was there — all he himself could have done, the knowledge, the comfort — all that passed in changes he saw, and could not touch, and could not feel.

Anger welled up in him.

And yet — yet how could they do otherwise, and how could Tristen not be the gentle creature he had always been, with all his impossible questions and his impossible ways.

He could not rebuke Tristen. He turned and began to limp into the tent, and Ninévrisë came hurrying after, to walk beside him, to offer a gentle, almost touching hand, respectful of his royal person, at least, when his friend would have had no such good sense.

Tristen said, from behind him, “Sir, I know now. He has Tasien and all his men, my lord King. If we defeat him — there might be help for the men.”

He turned. “And what will you do? Raise them from the dead?” He was angrier than he had known. He wished it unsaid an instant after. He feared what he had said.

But Tristen said, quietly, as if anger could never touch him, “No, my lord King.”

“The leg pains me,” he muttered, and turned and went inside the tent, with Ninévrisë. He looked back at Tristen standing by the fire. “Come. Come. Sit with me. Share a cup. Bear with my humors. I was in desperate fear for you.”

“Yes, sir,” Tristen said mildly, and came into the tent, in its shortage of chairs — but before they had gotten to that difficulty, from one of those arcane signals that provided such things, two boys of Tristenʼs service had come in with his chair for him.

So, close on that, came Umanon, with his page, and bearing a chair, a cup, such necessities as even the Kingʼs pavilion did not manage to provide all comers.

Came Cevulirn, and Annas had the royal pages hurrying about, harried lads, pouring wine into any outheld cup — Tristen lacked one, but Annas provided it.

“My lords,” Cefwyn said, sat down with a sigh and extended the aching leg. “Supper will be coming. In the meanwhile, sit, ask any comfort — I would you had had your season at home, but we had treachery in Henasʼamef, plans were betrayed, and tonight the enemyʼs overrun Lord Tasien, gods preserve his unhappy soul, so Tristen informs us, by sources — I donʼt think dismay you gentlemen.”

“Treachery,” Cevulirn said. “Of the Aswyddim?”

He gave a rueful nod. “Clearer-sighted than your King, sir, and hence I limp, gentle sirs. Which does not hamper my riding. Nor will it keep me from answering this incursion. Thus the summons. Which you answered in excellent order. Tristen says that Althalen is made safer than it was.”

“Itʼs safe to leave the tents here,” Tristen said. “And we must move, before light.”

“Our men have ridden hard,” Umanon protested. “If theyʼre across, theyʼll loot the camp. And weʼve Pelumer to find.”

“Pelumer will not reach us,” Tristen said, “and the enemy will not delay. They are closer. Theyʼve camped, I do think, but not — not longer than they must.”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the tent. The servants had begun to bring the food in, and stopped where they stood.

“A disciplined army,” Umanon said, frowning in clear disbelief, “that can move on its forces past a chance for loot even at a fallen camp. This is not what Iʼve heard of Aséyneddin. The Lord Warden is venturing a prediction — or has he certain knowledge? And whence the news of Lanfarnesse?”

“Late,” Tristen said. “We dare not wait for him. We must not, sir.”

“Sorcery,” Cefwyn said, and said to himself he had no knowledge. “If heʼs met ambush of some kind — Lord Tristen might say.”

“I cannot see through it,” Tristen said.

“What,” asked Umanon. “Through Marna?”

“I dare not,” Tristen said, “reach toward it. But Aséyneddin will face us. Tomorrow. And all Hasufinʼs wizardry aims at that. These men will move because Hasufin wills them to move. They will not do as men might do otherwise.”

“We,” Cefwyn said quickly, before Tristen could say more to terrify sane men, “we found treason, sirs. And sorcery. Orien Aswydd betrayed our plans, so we made new ones.”

Suddenly Tristen stood up, staring elsewhere, toward the northeast, though the blank walls of the tent were all anyone could see.

“For the godsʼ sake,” Umanon said, and even Cevulirn looked alarmed. Cefwyn quickly rose and took Tristenʼs arm.

“Tristen. Sit down. Is something amiss? Is there something you should say?”

“No,” Tristen said shortly. And without leave or courtesy he drew aside and left the tent.

Uwen looked distressed, gathered up his sword and Tristenʼs, and rushed after him. The servants stood confused, with dishes in hand.

Cefwyn rose, and went to the door of the tent.

“My lord King.” Idrys met him outside, and was in clear disapproval of such mad behavior, but he had done nothing to prevent him. Tristen was beside the fire, calling for his horse, in the aisle of the camp, then running past the tents, toward the northern end. Uwen had overtaken him — trying to press weapons on him, to no avail.

“The manʼs quite mad,” Umanon said, behind Cefwynʼs shoulder.

“Idrys,” Cefwyn said, “for the godsʼ sake stop him.” But then he knew in what bloody fashion Idrys might prevent an act that endangered him or the army, and caught Idrysʼ arm before he could move. “No. Get my horse and the guard.”

“No, my lord King. You should not!”

“I said fetch my horse, damn it!”

He went back inside, limping, swearing as he struggled back into his armor while the guard and the horses were on their way; Erion Netha helped him, doing Idrysʼ ordinary service, for Idrys was ordering the guard, and Cefwyn endured the mistakes of unfamiliarity with impatience; but Umanon and Cevulirn, who had not entirely disarmed before arriving for supper, were on their way after Tristen. Ninévrisë was directing the anxious pages to take sensible action to save the supper — practical, in a descent into chaos: whatever fell out, men who had run off to what might be another hard ride would come back wanting something in their bellies.

He is not mad, Cefwyn said to himself, sick at heart. He is not mad, and all that he does has our interests at heart. He could break Amefel out of the army if he wished. He could be king of Elwynor tomorrow if he wished. But sometimes his wits go muddled. Damn him!

But he had no sooner come out the door of the tent than a Guelen man came running up, saying, “My lord King!”

At the same moment he saw riders coming down the dark aisle of the camp, and Tristen returning with them—“My lord,” said Erion, but Cefwyn could see from where he stood that there was no use chasing out into the dark, now, as sore as he was, after all the trouble of arming. Tristen, and Uwen, Cevulirn and Umanon all were riding back with several other men in accompaniment.

“What is it?” Ninévrisë asked, peering past him into the dark. Then: “Oh, merciful gods,” she said, and went past him, running, while, in a sore-legged and kingly dignity, he could only watch and ask himself what in the good godsʼ name they had found.

But Ninévrisëʼs recognition of someone in the company could tell him something, if it was not some wizardly notion of hers to do with Tristen or her fatherʼs grave — and he thought not, for her concern was for one rider in the company, a man whose horse was walking, head hanging, coughing. A crowd had started about the rider and the company, men rising from their campfires and gathering in the aisle. In the next moment it was a matter not only of escorting a stranger in, but of clearing the manʼs and Ninévrisëʼs path. Tristen led them through — a messenger, it seemed certain now, and a leaden foreboding had settled into Cefwynʼs heart even before they brought the procession to a halt in front of his tent.

The rider slid down, but his legs would not bear him. Guards, Uwen among them, caught him and carried him, and Ninévrisë came with him, trying to help, and finding no means.

“Lord Tasien,” the man began his account, straining to see Ninévrisë. “My lady, — Lord Tasien is dead — they are all dead — the winds — the dark — came over the river—”

Uwen slung off his own cloak and put it about the man, who shivered and could scarcely, but for his and other help, stand on his feet.

“The rebels,” the man said, shaking as if in the grip of fever. “My lady, my lady, I was to ride — ride for help — for mʼlord — when it began — the winds—”

“Inside. Inside,” Cefwyn said, conscious of the men gathered about, common soldiers who had heard enough to send fear into the army. Gossip was inevitable. The men had to know and it was going to run through the camp on the fastest legs. “Deal with the matter!” he said to Gwywyn. “We know the message already. We are marching early to meet it. — Damn it!”

They had borne the young man into the tent, into light and warmth, and set him at Tristenʼs bidding into Tristenʼs own chair. Annas gave the man a cup of wine to drink, and Tristen steadied the manʼs hands, while Ninévrisë, all dignity aside, knelt down and had her hand on the manʼs knee. “Palisan,” Ninévrisë said. “Are they across? Have they crossed the river? Have any lived?”

“They—” The man lifted his head and stared in fear into Tristenʼs eyes, and went on gazing, Tristenʼs hands holding both his hands on the cup. He had a gulp of wine at Tristenʼs urging, and only then seemed to catch his breath.

“Sorcery,” he said. “I saw this camp — I was not certain — I was not sure it was friendly.”

“What did you see?” Cefwyn asked. “Speak it plain, man. Your lady is listening.”

“I — grew lost. I didnʼt know which way about on the road I was. I couldnʼt tell east from west, though the sun was up. — I lost the sun, my lady. It changed.” The man struggled to speak amid his shivering, and he took a third gulp. “It was noon. And the sun was dark. And they were coming across. And the winds were blowing. Mʼlord canʼt have held them. They were so many—”

“When did you leave the battle?” Idrys asked coldly.

The Elwynim turned a frightened glance on him, and began to shiver so his teeth chattered, and Tristen set his hand on his shoulders.

“Where did you ride?” Tristen asked him.

“My lady.” The Elwynim looked to Ninévrisë. And she drew back. “My lady—”

“You could not have come so far so fast,” Ninévrisë said, “without help.”

“He had help,” Tristen said.

“What help?” Cefwyn asked. A King should not be caught between. His men ought to inform him. “Damn it, what do you know? — Tristen. What more?”

Tristen walked away from him and stood looking at the canvas side of the tent.

“Answer the King,” Idrys said, “lord of the Sihhë. You swear yourself his friend. What are you talking about?”

“A Shadow.”

“Itʼs another of his fits,” Uwen said in anguish. “Mʼlords, itʼs another one. He had one out there, and they pass.”

The messenger cried out, and the wine cup left his hand, sending a red trail across the carpets that floored the tent. He fell, sprawled on the stain. And he had wounds — many wounds.

“Gods!” a page whimpered. “Oh, blessed gods.”

“Sorcery,” Umanon muttered, and others present, even servants, were making signs against evil. Ninévrisëʼs face was white.

“Tristen,” Cefwyn said. “Whatʼs happening? Tell me what you see! What is this Shadow?”

“Evil,” said Cevulirn.

“Tristen.” Cefwyn seized his arm, hard, compelling his attention.

“Aséyneddin provided a Place,” Tristen said, “and it must have a Place. Shadows are coward things. But this one…this one…is very…”

“Tristen!”

“The lord Regent denied it a Place here. But…it can find others — even here. Itʼs trying. Men in camp mustnʼt listen to it. Hasufin sent this man. He helped him through the gray place, to see us. To see us, and know our numbers.”

“Tristen!” Cefwyn shook at him, aware of the fear of the lords near him, and the priest-fed superstition and the palpable terror this messenger had already engendered.

“It shifts,” Tristen said faintly. “It moves. The trees of Marna are its Place. The stones of the river are its Place. The Road changes and moves. The things that are — change from moment to moment. Itʼs advancing. But it much prefers the trees.”

“What is he talking about?” Umanon asked. “—My lord King, do you understand him?”

“I should take him to his bed, Your Majesty,” Uwen said.

“No!” Tristen said. “No, Cefwyn. Hear me. We must ride and stop them.”

“Now? At night? Men are exhausted, Tristen. We have mortal limits.”

That seemed to make sense to Tristen, at least. But he made none to anyone else.

“We will have panic in the camp,” Cevulirn said, and cast a fierce look about him, lingering on the servants. “Say nothing of this death, do you hear, you!” It was a voice very loud and sharp for Cevulirn, and it sent cold fingers down the backbone. “Sire, we must send men through the camp, to quiet rumors. Very many saw this man come in.”

“We must advance,” Tristen said with a shake of his head, and in a voice hardly more than a whisper. “Nothing can help Tasien. The enemy is advancing. Thereʼs a Place we must meet it. But that Place could become closer, and worse for us. We must go.”

“Now?” Umanon asked sharply, and Tristen left that hazy-eyed look long enough to say,

“Emwy would help us.”

Cevulirn was frowning, Umanon no less than he; and pressing exhausted men on this advice, in the chance of catching the Elwynim at some sorcerous disadvantage — it might be their only hope. It might be their damnation. Tristen knew no common sense at such moments. What Tristen might do — other men might not.

“No,” Cefwyn said, then, deciding. “Weary as we are, we cannot. In the morning, before dawn, we will move, with horse and foot, as fast as we can, and still arrive fit to fight. Lady Ninévrisë will command the camp. — Tristen?”

But without a by-your-leave, Your Majesty, Tristen had simply — left, with Uwen close with him.

That Distance came on him, and he could not breathe. He went to his tent past startled guards and servants.

He had not reckoned that Uwen had followed him; but when he reached the shelter of his own tent, he caught his breath and wiped his eyes, and turned to find Uwen staring at him.

Trembling, he shrugged as if it had been nothing.

Then the shadow came on him again, so that he caught for the tent pole and leaned there, half-feeling Uwenʼs hands on him. Uwen gripped his shoulder hard and shook at him; and he saw the two boys had somehow retrieved the chair from Cefwynʼs tent.

“Uwen. Ask them to go. Please.”

Silently Uwen braced an arm about him, and said to the servants what he wished him to say, in kinder terms than he could manage, and steered him for his chair. He sat down. He saw that, clever as his servants were, by whatever means they knew such things, they had his armor laid out ready for him — the suit of aged brigandine, of all that the armory had had, the one that best pleased him, because of its ease of movement. That was as it should be. And he already wore the sword he would use.

He took the sword from his belt, and sat with it in his arms.

“Mʼlord,” said Uwen, and knelt by him, hand on his knee.

“Uwen,” he whispered. “Go away.”

“Mʼlord, ye listen to me, ye listen. What am I to do wiʼ ye? Out wiʼ the army and one of your fits come on ye — what am I to do? What am I to do when some Elwynim aims for your head and ye stand there starinʼ at him? Nothinʼ ye done has scairt me, mʼlord, but this — this does scare me. I donʼt like ye doinʼ that on the field. If we go to fight tomorrow — ye canʼt do this.”

“It will not happen.”

“I didnʼt like goinʼ out to them ruins. I had bad feelings.”

“It will not happen. — Uwen!” Uwen had started to rise and Tristen gripped his shoulder hard enough Uwen winced. “Uwen, you will not go to Cefwyn. You will not.”

“Aye, mʼlord,” Uwen muttered reluctantly, and Tristen let him go.

“Please,” he said carefully. It was so great an effort to deal with love…that, more than anything, distracted him, and caused him pain. “Please, Uwen. Believe me. Trust me that I know what I do.”

“Ye tell me what to do, mʼlord, and Iʼll do it.”

He held the sheathed sword against him, rocking slightly, gazing into the fire as he had done at Maurylʼs fireside. “When the time comes, tomorrow, I shall know very well what I must do. Never fear that.”

“And Iʼll take care of ye, whatever, gods help me. But, mʼlord, give me the sword.”

“No.”

“Mʼlord, I donʼt like ye sittinʼ like that when ye hainʼt your right wits about ye.”

“Please,” he said, for the grayness was back and he could not deal with here and there together any longer. “Please, Uwen!”

Uwen tried all the same to take the sword from his hands, but he clenched it to him, and Uwen abandoned the effort.

Then he felt a manner of peace, a time in which his thoughts were white dreams, neither past nor future, only a sense of warmth, with, now, the consciousness of Emuin hovering near him in the grayness, a presence as safe as the shadow of Maurylʼs robes, anxious as he had become about venturing into that gray space.

Puddles and raindrops, circle-patterns, and the scudding clouds…Pigeons and straw and the rustle of a hundred wings…Candle-light and warmth and the clatter of pottery at suppertime…

The dusty creak of stairs and balconies, gargoyle-faces, and, seen through the horn window, golden sun…

“Silver,” he murmured, coming back from that Place, remembering the black threads and the silver mirror. He wondered where he should find silver other than that — then put a hand to his chest, where the chain and the amulet lay, which Emuin had worn, before he gave it to Cefwyn and Cefwyn had given it to him.

He took it off, silver and belonging to two people who had wished him well, one of them not unskilled in wishing. He eased the sword from its sheath.

“My lord,” Uwen said in a hushed and anxious voice, and stirred from his chair. “What in the godsʼ good name are ye doinʼ, there?”

He could not spare the thought to explain. He took the Teranthine circlet on its chain and held it in his hand while he passed the blade of the sword through it. He saw no way to anchor it but to bend it, and he bent the circlet until it met on either side of the hilt — with all the strength of his fingers he bent it, and shaped it, and bound the chain around it.

When he looked up at Uwen then, Uwen was watching in mingled curiosity and fear. “Silver. And what beast would be ye hunting wiʼ such a thing, mʼlord?”

He had no idea why silver should have effect — only that in that Place the dark threads evaded it.

And it shone. It soothed. It felt right. Mauryl had done such odd things. The pigeons had known. The old mice in the walls had known. He had known. Could living things not feel, smell, breathe, sense such things when they were right? He would ask Emuin how that was, but Emuin had faded away into distance, having, perhaps, prompted him: the touch had been that slight.

He fingered the worn leather hilt, the iron pommel. It was an old hilt, but a new and strong blade, so the armorer had declared; and so he felt with his hands and his sense of what should be: it was a blade forged in fire for honor, carried in stealth for murder and taken for defense of a dead king and a living one, by a man himself neither dead nor alive. There was enough improbable about it to satisfy whatever oddness he could think of, and whatever demand there was in attacking a Shadow without substance.

“Uwen. You have that little harness knife.”

“Aye, mʼlord,” Uwen said, and pulled it from his belt and gave it to him, a very small blade. And with that sharp point, as if it were a pen on parchment, he began to work on the surface of the blade while Uwen watched over his shoulder.

Designs: letters. On one side he scratched laboriously the flowing letters of Stellyrhas, that was Illusion; and on the other face he wrote, in severe characters, Merhas, that was Truth. What speech it was, he did not immediately know, but in one world or the other it had meaning. It was hard to make any scoring on the metal. The knife grew blunted. His fingers ached. But he persisted, while sweat started on his face.

Then he began to work, slowly, painstakingly, to widen those letters, though scarcely could the eye see them.

Uwen watched in silence, perhaps fearing to interrupt him, although he would not have objected to interruption now: it was only a task; his thoughts were at peace. Sweat ran on his face and he wiped at it with the back of his hand and worked on what had now become elaboration in the design, for beautyʼs sake, because he did nothing haphazardly, on what became determination, because he would not abandon the small idea he had of what he faced, in substance and in insubstance.

Perhaps Uwen expected some magic. After a long time Uwen gave up and sat down on his cot.

“You should go to sleep,” he said to Uwen. “You should rest.”

“Are you going to do something, mʼlord?”

“Not tonight,” he said. He rubbed the design with his hand. Marks on the metal wove in and out, and it at last seemed right to him.

— Finished? Emuin asked him, at cost, and from two days away. He had known Emuin was there — or at least knew Emuin had come close for the last several moments. The letters shone under his fingers, bridging here and there, as though he could thread one within the other.

— Am I right? he asked Emuin. Or am I foolish? — I was afraid today, master Emuin. I saw Ynefel. I was almost there. I fell into his trap, and I had no weapon — I could not take it there.

— The edge too has a name, Emuin whispered to him, ignoring his question. Emuinʼs presence in the grayness very quickly became drawn thin, scarcely palpable, and desperate. He will know. An old Galasieni conundrum. The edge is the answer. I cannot help you further. You are Galasienʼs last illusion, Man of the Edge, and, it may be, its noblest. I hope for what Mauryl did. I hope — Boy, — boy. Did he show you — did he show you—?

— What, sir? What should he have shown me?

Emuin began to say. He thought so, at least. But the presence had gone. Deeply, finally, the weak threads of communion with Henasʼamef were pulling apart, the fabric unweaving in little rips and gaps. He could not reach it now. He tried, and was back at that lattice-work of Lines and light that was Althalen. It answered to him. But Emuin did not.

Not dead, he thought. But at the end of what strength Emuin had mustered for himself. He feared for the old man, who, not brave, had found courage to fight not for his own health, but for Cefwynʼs. He feared for all of them — and he did not know what Emuin meant — or even how he had come here, except that Henasʼamef still stood untroubled, and that Althalen had become safe, sheltering all of them within its reach—

It was Althalen that gave him respite from the Shadow and rest from his struggle.

It was Althalen that would keep Ninévrisë safe tomorrow. It was Althalen that had taken the messenger to its rest.

But he himself could not hide in it. Resting here was not why Mauryl had Summoned him into the world.

He drew a deep breath. He plunged his face into his hands and wiped his eyes, then flung his head back, exhausted, not knowing, save from Althalen, where he was to get the strength — not the courage, for tomorrow, but simply the strength to get on a horse and go, knowing that Cefwyn relied on him, that Emuin relied on him, that the lady relied on him — and that, in a different and far more personal way, Uwen did.

Uwen was sleeping — Uwen dropped off so easily, and slept so innocently: he envied that ability, only to sleep, and not to find the night another journey, to worse and stranger places than the day, and another struggle, that did not give him rest.

But he had hours to spend before the dawn, and if he could do more than he had done, he had to try. He had Althalen, if he knew how to use it, if he dared another vision such as he had had on the brink of the ruin.

He knew of himself that he was not good — or had not been, once and long ago.

He knew of himself that such as Ynefel was, he was responsible for it being.

He knew of himself that he had more than killed his enemy, he had used the innocent.

Or — he thought that he knew these things. He had no map to lead him through the gray place. He had no Words written there to say, this is Truth, and this is Illusion.

Here he had made a sword to divide them. Here he had Maurylʼs Book, and Maurylʼs mirror — though only the sword seemed of use to him, he did not think it was Maurylʼs intention. It was not, it occurred to him, Maurylʼs gift.

He had a few hours yet. He had not failed until those hours were gone. So while Uwen slept, while the servants slept, and even his guards drowsed, he moved his chair closer to the tent-pole, where the lamp shed its light.

He sat down with his Book, then, and opened it to the place the little mirror held — blinked at the flash of bright, reflected light, and moved the mirror so that it did not reflect the lamp above him, but the opposing page.

The letters were backward in the reflection — no better seen in that direction than the other, though it seemed to him a small magic in itself. He wondered if all letters did that in all mirrors, or whether it was a special mirror, or whether, after all, just to reflect his face.

It was a changed face the mirror cast back to him. A worried face. A leaner face, not so pale as before. His hair he never had cut, and it fell past his shoulders, now. He had not realized it had grown so long. He had not known his face showed such expressions. He knew all the shifts of Uwenʼs expression — while his own were strange to him. That seemed — like inspecting his elbow — an inconvenient arrangement.

Silly boy, Mauryl would say. Thereʼs so little time. Donʼt wool-gather.

Reflection in the rain-barrel. Light coming past his shoulders. Reflection of sky. The shadow of a boy who was not a boy. He had not known how to see himself, then. He had not had the power.

He wondered what he was in the gray space. And as quick as thinking it, he saw — he saw—

Light.

He shut his eyes and came back, his heart pounding in his chest. It was so bright, so bright it burned, and burned his hand.

It was hard to hold the mirror. But he could call the light into it. He could see his own face, blinding-bright, and frightening in its brightness. He could take the silver mirror into that Place.

He wondered if he could take the Book — or reflect it there — and when he wondered, a light from the mirror fell, a patch of brilliance, like sun off metal, onto the page of the Book.

Moving the mirror into the gray place, and calling the light back onto the page was the first magic he had ever worked that succeeded, just to move light and the reflection of light from place to place.

So he did know something now that he had not known before; and he tried, though it was hard, to manage both Places at once, the one hand with the Book, the other with the mirror, until, out of the gray world the mirror drew into the world of substance, and looking only at the mirror, and reaching into the gray place, he saw the Book appear in the reflection the mirror held.

But the mirrorʼs image of the Book was blurred to him, until he could manage the mirror with one hand in the gray place, and angle it just so, and the Book in the hand that was in the other world, so that he could see the reflection of the page in that gray world.

Then he could see the letters. Then he knew what they were:

It is a notion of Men, it said, that Time should be divided: this they do in order to remember and order their lives. But this is an invention of Men, and Time is not, itself, divided in any fashion. So one can say of Place. That there is more than one Place is a notion of Men: this they…

…this they believe; but Place is not itself divided in any fashion. Who understands these things knows that Time and Place are very large indeed, and compass more than Men have divided and named…

He was no longer reading. He was thinking the Words and they echoed ahead of his reading them. He thought ahead, further and further into the pages, and knew the things the Book contained. He had written them. Or would write them.

That was what it meant — to one who could move things between the gray space and the world of substance.

He let down the Book and folded it on the mirror, and took up the sword again, not for a sword, but only for something to lean on while he thought.

That was how he waked, bowed over the sword, Uwenʼs hands on his; he lifted his head and Uwen took the sword from his fingers and laid it carefully aside.

“Itʼs time, mʼlord,” Uwen said. “The lamps is lit next door. His Majesty is arming and heʼs ordered out the heavy horses. Weʼre leaving the camp standing and going on. The ladyʼs seeinʼ to that. Scouts ainʼt seen nothing, though that ainʼt necessarily what we want to hear, may be. I hate like everything tʼ wake ye, but there just ainʼt no more time.”

In the sense Uwen spoke — there was no more time. But things he knew rattled through his thoughts. He bent and took off his ordinary boots. And stood up.