Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  His father’s body entered first. The bearers laid it on the altar and disposed the banners on either hand, those of the 382

  Dragon Guard, the Marhanen house, of Guelemara, Guelessar and Ylesuin.

  He went inside to burn incense and make prayer, feeling the words for the first time in years. He kissed the worn silver letters set in the stone altar and rose, stopped dead as he saw a dark figure standing in the shrine door, with the flash of the silver Star and Tower on black velvet. A second figure joined it: Uwen.

  “Lo, your ally,” said Efanor, at his shoulder.

  Tristen waited. Cefwyn limped a step toward the foreboding figure, conscious of Efanor’s witness. The family curse, he thought, feeling trapped. Alive and with us.

  “Cefwyn,” Tristen said. The voice was faint and bewildered.

  He heard only terror, the childlike quality that was the gentle man he knew.

  He embraced Tristen as he could not embrace his brother at the moment, he rested his aching head on Tristen’s shoulder, looked up at him then and saw in Tristen’s eyes all the compassion and tenderness he longed for in his own brother.

  I have nothing but this, he thought. In all the world there is no gentleness toward me but this. Efanor will not reason with me.

  “My friend,” he said to Tristen. “You should not have come here.—Uwen, take him to his room. I have other business tonight.”

  Tristen lingered, but Uwen tugged on his arm and, like a tired child, Tristen yielded and went where he was bidden.

  The priests’ chanting echoed in the vaulted hall. Torches fluttered and scattered sparks of windblown fire about the bier, stinging where they chanced against living skin.

  Cefwyn turned and met Idrys’ grim stare.

  There was duty. Idrys had something on his mind.

  “The messenger,” he remembered then. “Heryn.”

  “Both under arrest,” Idrys said. “My lord, see to necessities and mourn later. The messenger could not have been going to the ambush on the road. It was too late for that. It was surely elsewhere he was sent.”

  383

  Cefwyn delayed a moment, his eyes on the haze of wind-whipped torchlight and then on Efanor, standing among the silent Crown officers.

  The great bell of the Quinalt shrine began to toll, solemn and terrible.

  “Learn where,” he said to Idrys.

  384

  C H A P T E R 2 2

  T here were dreams.

  Tristen fled the clangor of metal and the sounds of men and horses, woke, and still heard the iron bells peal out their dreadful sound.

  Dark had fallen while he slept. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to drive away the images of the dreams, and at last dragged his aching limbs from the safe and comfort-less sheets, shrugged on a robe and went to the hearthside. He stirred the embers and threw on another small piece of wood, for the light, not for the warmth.

  The candles had burned down to one guttering stub. He sought others in the cupboards, barefoot on the chill floor. To his relief he found a few, and pulled out the spent candles and set the new ones in the sconces, lighting them, one to the next, so that they chased the Shadows into the corners and beneath the bed and as far as the shutterless window.

  Uwen slept, he was certain, since Uwen had not stirred out with his fire-making or his search after candles. He would not disturb Uwen for any reason of his discomfort. Uwen had done too much, and was sore from bruises. So was he, from exertion, and from the unaccustomed riding. He had taken a few bruises: his arm was sore from the shock of encounters, several, as he thought, from wresting a sword from a man. But that was all.

  He had no wounds. He had gone to bed soon after reaching his rooms. He could not tell what hour it was.

  The sound of riders echoed up off the cobblestones, briefly overwhelming the relentless tolling of the bells. The sound passed and dimmed; the Zeide, a maze of alleys and roofs and wings, echoed sounds in deceptive fashion, but it was a large number of riders going somewhere in the night, by the stable-court, he thought.

  385

  He had dimly heard armed men tramping about the halls earlier…coming and going from Cefwyn’s apartments, he had judged. He had heard, half-waking, the bells ring out from the lower town as well as from the shrines and from the Zeide gate.

  He would have stayed by Cefwyn, but Cefwyn had wanted to be alone, except for Annas and Idrys. Cefwyn had most emphatically told him to go to bed and rest.

  And perhaps, Tristen thought, it was because he did not understand having or losing a father, or the questions that proper men had to discuss with each other at such times.

  He knew at least what it was to lose and to be lost. He would comfort Cefwyn if he knew how—but he had not known how to comfort himself when he had lost Mauryl except by walking and walking until he had to sleep, and by days coming between himself and that time. He supposed that was not very great wisdom, and that he had, after all, nothing but the perpetual difficulty he posed to offer to anyone—which was no great gift to Cefwyn, when Cefwyn was suffering his own pain.

  He shivered as he sank down on his knees by the hearth, seeking warmth. The flames had taken the wood and made a golden sheet before his face, bright, moving, distracting him from memory.

  Almost.

  He shut his eyes tightly against the remembrance of the noise, the dust, the faces. He buried his face in his hands and stayed so a moment, not breathing until the need for breath made his head spin and he dropped his hands and gasped like a man drowning—flesh as well as spirit, Mauryl had said.

  A naked sword stood in the shadows beside the hearth, leaned point-down against the wall. Uwen had cleaned the blood from it.

  It was the sword he had wrenched from a man who had attacked him. He had carried it away from the field, not of any real purpose at first, only that his hands held it, and eventually his thoughts lit on it, possessed it, and he had not, in 386

  the end, cast it away as useless to him: such a thing was not useless, in such events as moiled about him.

  He had bathed, among first things when he had come home.

  Even so, and after all the scrubbing, the reek of blood lingered in his nostrils and he could not, no matter the perfumed oils the servants supplied him, feel clean. He looked at his hands in the firelight, at his arms that bore no wounds to betray the thing that had happened to him. He was dismayed at his own un-scarred existence, and was most of all appalled that he bore no mark of it, while so many, many others had taken wounds that would mark them forever.

  I do this well, he thought. I do this very well. And through his mind flitted the memory of Ynefel, his untutored hands struggling to write, and soon finding that they knew the art.

  Mauryl had approved his work. Mauryl had said—

  But Mauryl had no longer any clear face in this memory. The whole of Ynefel seemed strange to him and beyond recovery.

  He was cut off from its good memories. There was no way now back to those days, that innocence. He could not but ask questions, and questions, and questions of men less wise than Mauryl, and the questions led him, every one, farther and farther from home and safety.

  Cefwyn said, Idrys said, men all said, and it was probably true, that he was Sihhë; that all the Sihhë had died terribly, and that Mauryl had called him out of death and given him a shape and substance; the servants said, and Cefwyn said, that he did not so much learn things, as remember them.

  If I go on, he thought with a shiver, I may remember dying.

  I would not wish that.

  The servants spoke when they thought he was not listening, and he knew that they greatly feared his nature, even if they regarded him kindly. He knew they thought him a wizard. They believed his name had been Elfwyn, and they said that he had died at Althalen.

  And perhaps it was true—he thought that they had overheard it from those who knew—but the name of Elfwyn was not a Name to him, although he remembered clearly that 387

  Cefwyn had sa
id it to him, trying, he knew now, to discover whether he would remember it—and he had not. Althalen itself, though a Name, was a place he thought ought to prosper, not lie in overgrown ruin. His thoughts were cluttered with far worse places than that, Names he could not recover, and others—Galasi-en, Aryceillan, Arachis—Names he had never heard anyone use, hovered on the edge of his awareness, and came near him at sleepy moments, like birds that tried to light, but found no footing in recent memory.

  The servants said perhaps he had had his last fit because he had come near a cursed site, and the ghosts that lingered there had made him ill, as ghosts were, he gathered, reputed to do, stealing life from the living. But it was not theft that had afflicted him there. It was no ghosts that had afflicted him at all, but a surfeit of Words, Words in horrid profusion, violent Words that had not confused him at all today, when he had seen Cefwyn in danger. Once he had seen the fighting in front of him, once he had seen the King’s banners all grouped together and the troops helplessly drawn in on each other, with Cefwyn trying to breach that knot, he had known clearly what to do. He had known in the way he had known, once the pen was in his hand, how to write, and in the way he had known, once he had found a horse under him, how to ride. He had known in such clear order the things that had to be done to unfold that foredoomed battle-line and bring it to bear on the enemy again.

  He had known not only the use of the sword, but the process and the direction of the battle. He had known where to go, and what had to be done to let that embattled knot break open—and he had seen without a doubt on that field the specific men he had to take down to confuse the attackers and drive them in retreat.

  A sweat broke out on him that had nothing to do with the fire. The wind that had swept down on them on the road had been cold, and that wind still blew—he could hear it against the windows.

  He had done what he knew to do. He had not read 388

  Mauryl’s Book, but he had found a skill in him for wreaking dreadful harm—he had found a capability latent in his hands, in this present sinew and bone that Mauryl had made. He knew that things were still unfolding to him, and that he might discover more things still. He was not the feckless boy who had fallen on Mauryl’s wooden steps, and skinned knees on the stone floors of Ynefel. He was coming to what Mauryl had wished him to be, perhaps, but he was not yet aware of what that was. He did not think his present being was linked as tightly to his past as Cefwyn and the servants feared—he did not think it mattered that much who he had been, though it was a start to knowing who he was to be, and what he might expect himself to do.

  That was the thing that set him shivering: not knowing what other abilities might unfold in him. He had discovered today that he was not a slight man. He was tall, and strong, and might seize a man and break his hold on a weapon; he was quick, and could strike faster than a man who came at him. He rode without needing to think—in motion, Gery was part of him, coming through for him by her bravery when other men’s horses shied into trouble. She had gone over the dead, on uneven ground—he had not failed Gery and she had not failed him, and that was the terrible thing. While they did together what he knew to do, it had felt like flying, the sword had weighed nothing to him, and Gery had done what Uwen swore she was never trained to do, because he had the gift, as Uwen had said the Sihhë lords had had, to speak to horses and to enchant them.

  He thought not. He thought it was only because he knew how to sit a saddle and because he had once, alive at some other time, ridden for many, many hours, and loved it best of anything he did. He didn’t know how he could have risked Gery the way he had—he didn’t know how he could not have risked her and himself and Uwen, to go to Cefwyn’s defense, when Cefwyn was in deadly danger—so many, many things he did not know how to weigh one against the other. He could not weigh the value of taking the sword, and saving the

  389

  men, and killing others, who were, at the end calling out, “Sihhë!

  Sihhë!” and refusing to fight him, so that his chief weapon then became the vacancy he could create with his mere presence, where he rode, where he made Uwen follow, where he forced a horse to go, who had become dear to him—as Uwen was, as Cefwyn was, as the peace was, that he had found in Cefwyn’s presence.

  He shut his eyes tight, feeling moisture squeeze between his lids. He wiped it with both his hands and pressed against his eyes so the red light that made would take away the sights from him. He inhaled the wood smoke, and it made him remember Althalen. He felt the stone of the fireplace against his back, and it was all that told him he was not drifting in the black and red, knowing the value of nothing, knowing not what to do, or how to weigh what he had done, or the lives, or the pain, or the fear.

  Words and abilities were breaking out in him so rapidly he could not master them—they were, the opposite, near to mastering him, sending him careening wildly through choices he could not reconcile, into events every turn of which violated Mauryl’s precepts of right and wrong. He met necessities that caused him to do terrible things, even—even enjoying the feeling of Gery under him, or the loft the sword could attain, like a living thing, like that day in the courtyard, when he had learned to use the axe, and found it weighed nothing to his hands. He had thought it good. He had thought that day good, and never known where it might lead him.

  Or was every choice like that, when one truly, truly ventured into the wide world beyond the woods? Was there no clean, clear line to tell him right from wrong? Was there no way to make right choices without scattering harm in his wake—without making even Uwen afraid of him?

  He made himself clear rules to guide him in a world of confusion: I shall not harm Cefwyn, he thought. I shall not harm Uwen. It was a modest beginning, surely.

  But harm meant such complex things, and extended in so many directions. Was harm thwarting Cefwyn’s wishes, or 390

  doing what one thought best, even when Cefwyn objected? Was harm risking Uwen, saving Cefwyn?

  He heard Idrys’ voice, accusing him, and demanding he come in the gate last, because otherwise it would disrespect the King—but which King, had not been clear to him then or now.

  “Sihhë!” the people in town had cried, out of joy to see him, the very people who had shunned him in their streets when he had been in such desperate need, alone, and hungry. “Lord Sihhë!” they shouted, like the men on the field, but the ones had rushed toward him and the others had fled. “Lord King!” they cried out, when the one King was dead, and the other King was Cefwyn, but he was not their king, nor wished to be, that least of all.

  The wind rattled at the windowpanes. There seemed menace in the night, and the wind reminded him of the wind that had hovered around the towers of Ynefel. The wind blew now as it had blown there, in violent and angry gusts, and rattled the window latch.

  — Sihhë, it said. Open the window.

  — No, he said, and wondered at its simplicity. He was far wiser than that.

  — Sihhë lord, the Wind whispered to him; and then it whipped away with a sinuous force, leaving an impression of its terror behind it.

  But not, perhaps, fear of him. Something else came. He sprang to his feet, transfixed with the realization that the presence was not at the windows, it was with him in the room.

  It found no barrier. It brushed past his attention, weak, gentle, and reasonable.

  — Tristen. Tristen, welcome me, quickly. I have not much

  strength.

  — Emuin.

  — The King—the presence began to ask him, and grew thin, and almost left.

  — The King is dead, master Emuin. Cefwyn’s father is

  dead. Now Cefwyn is King. He stood in that place of blinding 391

  light, where was neither life nor time. He looked about him slowly.

  There was a shadow in the light, a presence which had no shape, but essence which from moment to moment threatened to dissipate, and he thought that this was Emuin. Hold on, master Emuin.

  I need you. I very much need y
ou tonight, sir. I’ve tried

  before.

  Emuin seemed to grow more substantial, then. And seemed dismayed at him. Oh, gods, Emuin murmured. Gods, lad. What

  have you done?

  — I did everything I knew, sir. He held out his hands to draw Emuin closer, but the bloodstains showed dark on the light that was his skin, and he stopped reaching, appalled at what he saw. I fought, sir. I thought it was right. I knew how. And

  Cefwyn was in danger.

  Emuin frightened him with his fear. He thought Emuin might flee him as the men had on the field.

  But Emuin came closer then, and a touch brushed his stained fingers, and a silken touch folded fingers into his, and closed, almost substance. A touch brushed his face, and it seemed that Emuin’s arms folded him close, as Mauryl would, as Cefwyn had—but never was the fear Emuin felt so evident as now.

  — I don’t know how to help you, Emuin said. You’ve gone

  far beyond what I understand, lad. I don’t know what to

  do.

  — Tell me what is right! he asked of Emuin, but Emuin said,

  That’s the difficulty, isn’t it? What’s right? I don’t know,

  young lord. I never knew, myself.

  It was not the truth he wanted to hear of Emuin.

  Then he felt something else creep near. It listened to their thoughts, a presence that lived in this white place and was a danger once they were in it.

  — Go back! Emuin said, pushing him away. You must go

  back. Immediately. I’ll be there as I can.

  He saw something twisted and moving, nothing but shadow.

  He knew that it had been a man—or something like. That is

  Hasufin, he heard Emuin say, but far away. Be careful.

  Tristen. Be careful.

  392

  Emuin’s voice faded. He saw Ynefel. The fortress seemed very near, visible through a shadow woods, a place by tricks of the eye new and substantial, then shimmering and fading into mist and deeper shadow. Something dreadful sat there now. He saw Mauryl’s face in the stones of the wall, and all his certainties that this was where he wanted to be fell away from him. He wanted to escape. He felt Emuin behind him, in that strange sense of place and whereabouts. And he dared not leave Emuin undefended in his flight.