Fortress in the Eye of Time

CHAPTER 7

The water was brownish green and fast-running beneath him, as Tristen crossed the Bridge in the earliest glimmer of dawn, not trusting the middle of the boards — the loft had taught him that wisdom. Stone felt far safer, and he kept to the rim with the railing to hold to, where the planks lay on the stonework.

Owl had left him at some time last night and he had no guide in this crossing. But no stones fell. That heartened him. And oh, the other side of the river beckoned him, greener than Marna and lit in dawn sun. He was shaky with hunger, but he wanted to run, to rush whole-heartedly toward that green, bright place. Instead, he proceeded as carefully as he was certain Mauryl would advise him, all the way to the endmost span.

But only the width of the arch from a sunnier, younger forest, he asked himself, looking back, what if there were no way back, or what if he were, after leaving the bridge, at the end of all Maurylʼs instructions?

He went. He saw no choice. The Road led him onto solid ground and up to a forest that smelled of life. The wan sunlight itself seemed greened by the leaves through which it came. The Road vanished momentarily beneath a thick blanket of gold-colored leaves, but beckoned reassuringly further on.

Marna Wood had indeed stopped with the bridge, every sense told him so as he walked onto that solid ground, and smelled a fresher, warmer wind. He heard a bird singing to the rising sun, and another Word flickered into memory, Wagtail, although it flitted just far enough he could not see it.

And desperately thirsty as he had been since last night, his first venture in this new feeling of safety was down to the water, among green reeds, where, having reached that edge, he stood and looked back a second time at the far side of the river.

Marna stood as gray and as black as it had felt when he had traveled it last night.

Then he saw a lump in a tree branch on that other side, down where the woods met the water.

“Owl!” he called, loudly, so Owl could hear across the river. He waved his arm. “Owl? Do you hear me? Iʼm here!”

There was no answer, and he was disturbed at the thought of leaving Owl. He hoped Owl knew he had crossed the bridge. He hoped Owl could find him tonight where he was going, wherever the Road would lead him.

He sank down then on the waterʼs edge to drink, dry-shod on a spot of grass between two clumps of water-weed. In the shallows he saw brown and yellow stones. And before he could drink, a living creature swam up and looked at him from under the water surface.

Fish, the Word came to him. That had been the leaper in the river last night. It was brown and speckled and he sat very still as he would with the mice, until with a flip of a tail it sped away across the stones, free and very much in its own element.

One ate fish. That came to him, too, and he was repelled by the thought. He had no wish to be like Owl, who gulped down his neighbors.

The river as he drank made one sound, a hoarse voice of strength. The trees sighed with another. But those were not the only sounds. The air hummed with bees and a thicket by him twittered quite happily. He washed his head and hands and looked up to find the source of the commotion.

Birds had gathered about a bush, just up the bank, birds scolding and chasing one another, as he thought at first — but he saw when he came closer that berries were thick on the bush, and ripe berries had fallen on the ground, where birds lay, too, hale and well, but quite silly and flopping about, or sitting with feathers puffed, like pigeons on a chill morning. The birds, though unacquainted with him, did not all flee him, being much too eager for the berries, and those birds lying and sitting about the bush scarcely evaded his feet, so he was careful where he trod. He took a handful of berries for himself — they were sweet, overripe, and stained his fingers, and he ate a double handful of them before the birds that had fled ventured back to take the ones he dropped.

He was sorry to take their breakfast. He sat on the bank and shared with them, tossing berries out where they dared snatch them. Some squabbled and fought over the ones he threw, while others, full-fed, scarcely reached after the ones he set in front of them. One let him pick it up, and he smoothed its feathers and set it on a branch, but it swung upside down, hung from one foot, and fell into his hands again. So he set it on the ground. It was quite puffed and quite silly, and very full, seeming completely healthy, except the sleepiness. He left some berries on the bush for the birds, and walked with something in his belly for the first time in days, feeling quite giddy, but very much better, thanks to the water he had drunk and the berries he had eaten.

He could have made cakes, he thought, if he had had flour and oil and fire. Cakes with berries. He had made them for Mauryl very often.

And the instant he thought of flour and oil and fire he thought of Mill, and Fields, and when he thought of Fields, then he thought of Men and Houses, Oxen, and Fences, recognitions that tumbled in on him disorderly as the squabbling birds, one thought chasing the other, one seizing a perch and fleeing or falling off in its turn, so chaotic that he struggled not to wonder about anything, and tried not to think beyond the necessity to place his feet one in front of the other and to keep moving, light-headed as he was.

But this morning, on this Road, the thoughts refused to stop coming. The whole woods chattered and rang with birdsong. It was full of Words for him, and Words brought thinking that conjured more Words. His wits wandered, his feet strayed. He turned an ankle painfully in a hidden hole in the pavings, which did nothing to stop the dizzying spate of Words — trees, mosses, leaves, stones, sky, directions, the names of birds and the track of a Badger — all these things crowded into his head until it ached, and he might have wandered in complete confusion if not for the stone Road that came and went beneath the leaves.

Long and long before the supply of Words seemed exhausted — before each had confounded the last — he knew Oak from Ash, knew Acorn and leaf and every sound that came and went. The knowing poured in on him more abundant than the recognition — but he could not, it seemed, exhaust the forestʼs store of Words.

In weariness of knowing things, in a muddle of sights and sounds, he sat down to rest and slept without intending to, until he blinked at a sky that had dimmed toward dark.

He had come through so much that was difficult and let his eyes close when the going became safer. Now he set out on another night of walking — he dared not sleep when the Shadows came, and he followed the Road as he had before.

Meanwhile the jumble of Words, though less than the rush by day, wanted to come back again, clamoring within that grayness in his mind, where Mauryl was, or might be. He knew Moon and Stars, and now he learned Marten and Fox.

But he tried to still the tumult and to hear only Mauryl, if Mauryl should send a Word to him out of that grayness.

He tried to hear Owl, who had not appeared all day long, but the creature that was singing now was, the song said to him, Frog, saying that it might soon rain.

He was thinking that when a wayward breeze brought the scent of smoke wafting down the Road — smoke, and the smell of something that might possibly be supper: he was not quite convinced that it was, but it smelled so like supper cooking that the hunger the berries had wakened in the morning became more and more urgent as he walked.

Fire was warmth and light, and fire also meant Men, his awareness informed him. Whatever seemed to be cooking — or burning, he thought from moment to moment — it might be good to eat. It smelled like that, although it certainly seemed overdone.

But he was still fearful, and not knowing how to call out to men who might themselves be afraid of Shadows in this woods, he decided it would be safer to go up soft-footed, as Maurylʼs tempers had taught him, and to know them first, whether they were in a good mood or otherwise, or whether it was in fact supper they were about, and not just wood or rubbish afire.

He left the Road, and followed that smell of smoke up the wind as quietly and stealthily as he could over the dry leaves. He spied firelight shining through the brush and branches, and treading now with greatest caution, he slipped up to spy on the place.

They were indeed men. They had a small fire going in a spot cleared of leaves. They were not old like Mauryl. They were not young like himself. They went clothed in brown cloth and leather, clothes rougher than his own white shirt and breeches. They had beards, dark and full; they were cooking something on a stick above the fire, he had no notion what, but it struck the edges of a Word, and at once dismayed him and advised him that eating living things…was permissible. It was something men did by their nature — that he should perhaps do, if they offered him a share of their supper.

“Sirs,” he said, stepping into the light, and instantly all four men were on their feet. Metal flashed — they had knives, and drew them and threatened him with them, with anger and fear on their faces.

“Sirs,” he said, quietly, “please, sirs, Iʼm very hungry. May I have supper?”

“He ainʼt no woodsman,” one said, and with a squint across the fire: “Who are you?”

“Tristen, sir.”

“Sir,” another said, and elbowed the first man in the ribs. “Sir, ye are.”

“Where from?” the first asked. “Lanfarnesse?”

He pointed in the direction from which the Road came. “From the keep, sir. Maurylʼs fortress. Ynefel.”

One changed knife-hands to make a sign over his heart, hasty and afraid. The others looked afraid, too, and backed away, all to the other side of their fire.

“Please,” Tristen said, fearing this meant no. “I need something to eat.”

“His speech,” the third man said, “ainʼt Elwynim, nor Lanfarnesse, nor any countrymanʼs, thatʼs certain. O gods, I liked it little enough beinʼ here. Lanfarnesse rangers be hanged, we shouldnʼt ever have come here, I said so, I said it, theyʼs naught good in this forest, I told ye it hove on to Marna Wood.”

The Names echoed through his bones, Words, confusing him, opening lands and fields and hills and Words Mauryl had said.

“You!” the first man said. “Whatever ye be, ye take yourself out away from here! We hainʼt no dealinʼs wiʼ you nor your cursed master. Get away wiʼ ye, ye damned haunt!”

“Please, sirs! If you could only spare a little—”

One threw something at him — it struck him and fell at his feet, a round, light something that he realized was a chunk of bread.

“Away, then!” the man cried. “Ye got what ye wanted, now take yerself away from us! Go back where ye belong!”

He picked up the bread, wary of more things thrown. “Thank you,” he said faintly, and bowed. Mauryl would call it rude, not to give them thank you.

“Ye give us no filthy thanks,” they said. “Ye got what ye asked. Now begone, away! Leave us be, ye cursed thing, in the name of the good gods and the righteous!”

“I mean no harm,” he protested. But one bent and picked up a stick of wood and threatened to throw it, too.

“Get on wiʼ ye!”

The wood flew. He left the firelight. Something crashed after him through the brush and hit him in the back, painfully.

He began to run, fearing they were chasing him, fended branches with his elbow, the bread in the other hand, as branches tore his hair and his face, snagged and broke against his shirt and trousers. He dodged through the trees upslope and down again the way he had come, and finding the Road, he set out running and running on the uneven stones until he caught a stitch in his side and his knees were shaking under him.

At least, he thought, looking back, the men had not chased him. He walked a while, with his knees still shaky and weak. A spot on his back hurt where they had hit him — the stick of wood, he decided, and was glad it had not been one of their knives. His mouth was dry, and now that he had bread to eat, between the dryness of his mouth and the lump of distress in his throat, he could scarcely swallow. Still, he was hungry enough that he tore off tiny morsels and forced them down, still walking, only desiring to be far away from the men and their anger as soon as possible.

They had had no cause to throw things at him.

They had had no cause to be afraid of him — unless they took him for a Shadow. He thought they should have been able to see he was not.

They called him Names, like Cursed, and Haunt, and spoke of Hanging, all of which made terrible pictures in his thoughts. They were angry with him for no reason at all, but he supposed that they were afraid, and perhaps having had no experience of Shadows, took him for something as dire and harmful as the worst ones, the noisy, hammering kind.

They might, truly, have thrown the knives. The stick had stung, but the knife might have—

Killed him, he thought, with a bite of bread in his mouth. Dead. Death.

Like the ragged black thing they were burning over the fire, Killed.

That was both Meat, and Dead.

Then he could scarcely swallow the bread at all. He forced down a few more bites and tucked it in his shirt along with his Book, and walked a long, long way before he felt like tearing off more bits of the gritty stuff and eating them to make the pain in his stomach stop.

He reached a point after which he no longer feared the men following. He kept walking, all the same, because he was certain those men were not what Mauryl had sent him to find, and because, all the same, they had waked important Words in him — Lanfarnesse, and Rangers, and Elwynim, that echoed and kept echoing and would not let him sit down and rest. They feared Shadows, which told him the Shadows did come into this place, and therefore he still had them to fear.

He heard frogs still predicting rain. He listened for Owlʼs return, and he had a great deal to tell Owl, who, however sullen, was far friendlier to him than men had shown themselves, and whose presence he felt as a bond to Ynefel itself.

If those had not been polite or proper men, there must be better ones. Words had shown him Houses, and he had not found that sort of men that lived in Houses, not yet, and certainly not at that fireside. Words had shown him Fields, and this thicket was certainly not that place.

Most of all — the thought of Fields had shown him great Walls, and a keep very like Ynefel.

That was what he looked to find. That was what he suddenly believed he was searching for.

He walked until he could scarcely keep his feet under him, rested and walked on. He smelled nothing more of men and heard nothing more of Owl, but he was looking to find Men of gentler kind, and most of all a Place and a Tower like Ynefel.

With a room and a soft clean bed, and a supper, and most of all a wizard who would know what to do next.