Fortress in the Eye of Time

by C. J. Cherryh

  “So?” he challenged Idrys. “Tell me I was wrong.”

  “Lord Tristen saved your life,” Idrys said. “I do not forget it, nor shall.”

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  Twice over Idrys eluded him. And cheated him now of a fit he wanted to loose on someone able to defend himself.

  “Emuin fears him,” Idrys said, “perhaps too much. You, not enough.”

  “And you have it right, do you?”

  “I make no such claim. I think Emuin was right and I was wrong, how to deal with him—at the first. Not now.”

  Three times eluded him. “Then what? What are you saying?

  Damn it, Idrys, I am unsubtle tonight. The wound aches like very hell. Be clear.”

  “I am saying, m’lord King, that I know precious little of wizardry, but if Emuin speaks half the truth, whether this Shaping lodged in Elwynor or in Ylesuin, he would have his own way.

  Am I mishearing? Your Majesty did study with Emuin.”

  “Emuin is full of contradictions. I am half of a mind to send him back to the monks. He’s been too little with practical men.

  What in hell am I to do? Did you hear practical advice tonight?

  I did not. Nothing workable. Nothing that brings peace to this border. What Emuin promises seems rather other than that, did it seem so to you?”

  “It has always been other than that, m’lord King. And I will not advise we sit idle, but—” Idrys had walked to the window and stared outward, a shadow against the glistening black glass.

  The window was spattered with rain. Lightning lit edges for a moment and thunder muttered to the west. “I do not trust the lord of Ynefel. But I trust Emuin’s judgment far less.”

  “Do you think Emuin is deceiving himself?”

  “Not that we have all the truth out of Emuin, nor shall ever have.” Idrys’ shoulders lifted, as if he had caught a chill, and he looked back. “I told Emuin before he left that he served you ill.

  He denied it. And I said to m’lord Tristen that if he harmed you I would be his enemy. He knows that. But I foresaw nothing of this bolt toward Althalen, I confess, and I find fault with myself for that—at least for not instructing the guards, who saw only his favor with you.”

  “I would I had seen it too. But maybe natural cautions had 523

  nothing to do with it. Wizards. Seeing clear to Althalen.—Emuin never told me he could do such things. I never read that they could do such things. Tristen told us the truth. He was feckless toward wizard-secrets, too—and were it not for him I swear I would not believe Emuin now. I’d swear his warnings came of some other source.—And damn him, he ignored my messages.”

  “We believe now the dead do walk. Should we stick at this?

  I greatly fear for our men up by Emwy, m’lord. None of our evening’s messengers have arrived, from any direction. It may simply be the rain. But master Emuin did not want to discuss Althalen. That doubly worries me.”

  Men would have gone in search of those missing reports by now, up the road, to find the messengers if the causes were the weather, or a horse gone lame. If they did not meet them they would ride all the way to the borders to find out the conditions and come back again, while a third set of messengers took to the roads outbound. It was a new arrangement he had ordered, precisely to have nightly reports on that uneasy border, and it was already in disarray. He hoped it was initial confusion, some misunderstanding in the orders, possibly the weather, indeed, bridges out, torrents between—such common things, and nothing worse.

  “Damn him,” he said again. And meant Emuin.

  “Master grayfrock is very worried,” Idrys said. “And will not discuss Tristen’s actions. Or Althalen. He drank more than I have ever seen him drink. He did not want to return here. He sees a danger, and he may have named it very honestly tonight.”

  “This Hasufin? This dead wizard at Althalen?”

  “Lord King, he said it in this chamber tonight, and you didn’t hear him. When he rebuked me with his fears—they regarded Tristen.”

  The way ahead was a maze of trees and overgrown walls, forgotten foundations hidden in the dark and the rain, and Tristen dared not set the company to running here. To his 524

  eyes, perhaps to the lady’s, the walls and the traces of foundations of this arm of the ruins showed still wanly glowing, the masons’ long-ago defenses yet holding, however weakly, as he led along the old courses of the ruins.

  He might have gone faster. It risked losing the men, especially the soldiers, who with their armor weighing on the horses were riding slower and slower, and who could not take another jump.

  It had become a curious kind of chase, keeping the horses to the fastest pace they could—for despite the misdirection at the height, they could not for an instant trust that their pursuers, Men or otherwise, were not following on guidance better than his and more familiar with these ruins. Hasufin could do such things, and the gray space seethed with Shadows.

  Now, nightmare smell, came the faint stench of smoke, and then, between two blinks of rain-blinded eyes, the apparition of fire touching the brush, setting the shadows to leaping. “They’ve fired the brush!” a man said, and the lords drew rein in confusion, refusing to ride further, gathering their men about them.

  Whether it was burning in the real world or not, it seemed to Tristen that the tops of real walls did reflect red, that the sky had lightened to gray beneath the spitting clouds, and that firelit stakes lifted figures above the tops of the walls, a ring like a dreadful forest, at which he did not wish to look twice.

  With the lady and her men gathered about him—some swearing they smelled smoke and others denying they saw any fire—Lord Haurydd demanded of him in a frightened voice to know the way out, while Tasien called him a liar. “Find the path, sir,” the lady demanded in a thin, high voice, cutting through their confusion. “These are haunts, specters. The place is known for them. Keep going.”

  He urged Petelly away, then, trusting they would follow. Petelly snorted, breathing hard, and of two ways clear he chose the right-hand way, at random in the first choice and then with a clear conviction that it was the right way, the way he had to lead them. A spatter of rain rode the wind into their faces. He 525

  blinked water from his eyes, feeling Petelly struggling for footing on wet leaves. A horse slid as they went downhill, and took down another, downed riders and horses struggling to untangle themselves from among the trees and get up. He delayed an instant for their sakes—saw the first horse and rider afoot and then rode, sensing safety so near them.

  Uwen, he became sure: Uwen was out there. He didn’t know how far ahead that was, but he tried to press more speed out of Petelly and the riders behind him, fearing they were bringing enemies to Uwen, and were out of strength themselves. Petelly was laboring as they cleared the edge of the ruins, and he flung a glance over his shoulder at the others still following as best they could.

  “Hold there!” someone shouted from ahead of them.

  He reined in, reaching fearfully into the dark and the gray to know who hailed them as the other riders came in around him.

  “Who goes?” Tasien shouted.

  “King’s business!” a voice called out. “Who goes?”

  His heart leapt. He knew that voice. “Uwen, don’t harm them!”

  he called out on what breath he could gather, and on a second, shouted out loud and clear: “Beware men behind us, Uwen!”

  “Hold, hold, hold there!” Uwen’s voice called out. “All of ye, hold! Let ’em pass! This is m’lord Tristen. I don’t know who them with ’im is—just brace up. We got others comin’ we don’t want!”

  Tristen could scarcely see the riders on the hillside for the misting rain—the horses were blowing and panting around him, as he let Petelly move forward. The rain-laden gale blasted along the dell, blew up under the bellies of the horses and startled them, exhausted as they were.

  Then a wayward breeze blew soft and warm all about Petelly, at Tristen’s back, at his side, und
er Petelly’s chin and around again.

  The bad men, he heard wafting on the wind. The bad men

  is coming, the wicked, wicked men. Run, run, run! Mama,

  run!

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  It was a child’s voice. Seddiwy’s voice. Child! he cried after her.

  But the shadow-shape of a child ran implike back through the company, waving her arms, startling the horses one after another.

  After that, what came was dark and angry. The sapling at his right went crack! and broke. Others did, white wounds in the dark thicket.

  From the hill and the ruin behind them also came the cracking of brush, then the screams of men overcome by fear. The Elwynim with him looked about them in alarm—but no more trees broke in their vicinity. The presence—a great many presences—had followed the child, back along their trail. Tristen tried to see them, but they were all darkness in the gray, darkness that walled off all Althalen.

  In a moment more there was only the ordinary wind, and the rumble of thunder.

  Then a rider was coming down the slope, braving all that was unnatural, and Tristen knew that manner and that posture even in the dark.

  “Uwen!”

  “M’lord, what is it back there?” Uwen was plainly ready to fight whatever threatened them; and the Elwynim had turned about to face that crashing of brush and the gusting of wind behind them, drawing swords and setting the lady to their backs.

  But the enemy who should have overtaken them by now—was up on that hill, where now there was nothing to see but the night and the rain.

  “We come chasin’ all about this damn ruin,” Uwen was saying, at his left, breathless, sword in hand as he looked uphill.

  “Sometimes we was on a path and then again we weren’t, and then, damn! m’lord, but we was smellin’ fire and being rained on at the same time—your pardon.”

  Ninévrisë and Tasien had drawn back close to them, Tasien with sword in hand.

  “These are your men?” Tasien asked.

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  “Uwen is mine,” Tristen said. “Who are they, Uwen?”

  “Ivanim, m’lord,” Uwen said, “looking for you. Blesset a long chase you run us. I’d draw back, m’lord. It don’t feel good up there.”

  It seemed good advice. Even the Elwynim accepted it, and drew away with them up the hill, toward the waiting men.

  “M’lord of Ynefel!” a voice came out of that dark, from among shadowy horsemen. “Who is that with you?”

  “The lord Regent’s daughter, sir, his heir, three of her lords and—” He looked back, unsure of numbers; there were only a handful of soldiers, no threat to anyone. And the valiant pack-horse, that one man led, that had somehow stayed with them.

  “The lady Regent, her men, half a score of her guard. To see King Cefwyn, sir!”

  Tasien shouted toward the hill: “We ask safe conduct for Her Most Honorable Grace, the Regent of Elwynor and her escort, sir: Tasien Earl of Cassissan, His Grace Haurydd Earl of Upper Saissonnd, and His Grace Ysdan of Ormadzaran. The lord of Ynefel has agreed to be our hostage against your King’s safe conduct!”

  “Lord Tristen of Ynefel,” the shout came down to them. “What will you?”

  The wind was still blowing back on the hill. A new sound had begun in the ruins up there. It sounded as if stones were falling and clattering, as if walls were coming down in the anger of the Shadows—Shadows, he thought, not of the dead of Althalen, but of Emwy—that was where the child had come from. And only the child had guarded them.

  “I agree to what he wishes, sir. I think we should go to the road as soon as we can!”

  “Gods hope.” The Ivanim rode downhill and met them and Uwen in the dark. “Captain Geisleyn of Toj Embrel, at your service, Your Lordship. How many are there, asking safe conduct?”

  “Scarcely fifteen,” the lady said on her own behalf. Lightnings flickered, showing a sheen of wet leather, wet horse, wet metal about all of them. “Captain, please take us

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  to His Majesty of Ylesuin, if he is Henas’amef. And then we wish ourselves and our men given safe conduct back to the river.”

  “Brave lady,” Geisleyn said. “His Majesty himself must say for your return—but on my life, you and yours will reach him without any difficulty.”

  “That is agreeable,” Ninévrisë said.

  “And if any of Your Lordships,” Geisleyn said then, somewhat sheepishly, “has a notion where the road is, we might all be there the sooner.”

  “Follow me,” Tristen said, for he had no doubt at all.

  And perhaps, as Uwen said as they rode away in that direction, some wizardry had been acting on Uwen’s side and on his to have gotten them this far and to have brought them together.

  “We was going one way,” Uwen put it, “and then we was going another, and we had no idea how, but there you was, m’lord, and, gods! I was glad to see you.”

  “I was glad, too,” Tristen said. “I wish I had done better by you, Uwen, I swear I wish so. I knew you would follow me. I didn’t want you to. I’ve treated you very badly.”

  “Oh, I knew when ye didn’t come upstairs,” Uwen said, “that you was off somewheres. I just thank the good gods it weren’t the tower.”

  “You were entirely right about the tower,” he said with a feeling of cold. “It would have been very foolish to go there. I could not have matched him.”

  “Who, m’lord?” He had puzzled Uwen. But it was not an answer he wanted Uwen to deal with, ever.

  Uwen said, after they had ridden a distance, “I wish I’d come downstairs sooner.”

  “It was very good you came when you did.” He asked himself if he had said that, or thanked Uwen. He could not remember.

  “I am grateful. Petelly couldn’t have run further. But, Uwen, be ever so careful when an idea comes into your head to do something you know really is not the safest thing to do. Ideas come to me sometimes, very strongly. I don’t

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  know if they do to you. But I think some ideas come from wizards. And some come from my enemy.”

  Uwen made a sign above his heart. It was rare that Uwen did that—or, at least, other men did so more frequently at moments when he discussed things in absolute honesty. “That’s certainly a thought,” Uwen said. “That is a thought to keep a man awake a’ nights, m’lord.”

  “I think it’s wiser not to think a great deal on the tower, at least, or on this place, either. I don’t know if ordinary folk have a gray place they can go to when they think about it, but it’s become very dangerous.”

  “A gray place.”

  “Do you?”

  Uwen scratched his nose. “I guess summat of one if I just shut my eyes. But it fills up with dreams and such.”

  “Mine is shadows,” he said, and Uwen made that sign a second time. He thought he should not say more to Uwen than he had, or make Uwen wonder about something maybe he never had wondered about before. And he could not himself answer all those questions—what Shadows were and why they were, except—except he might be one himself, and that was a thought he did not want to pursue.

  The old man had wanted to be buried there because it gave him some special power: maybe their moving the stones had made new lines of which the old man was now part—but they had disturbed something else in doing so, and dislodged other bones. He did not know whose, but he hazarded a frightened guess.

  — Emuin, he said, touching that grayness. Master Emuin,

  I’m safe now. We are all safe. I met Uwen and some of

  Cevulirn’s men. There’s a lady whose picture Cefwyn has,

  and she will come to see him. I hope that’s not a mistake.

  Advise me, sir. I do very much need advice.

  But no answer came to him, not even that fleeting sense of Emuin’s presence he had had earlier in the day. Toward Althalen he did not wish to venture. Toward Ynefel he least of all wanted to inquire.

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  At least the Shadows stayed at distance, the ones that
belonged to Althalen and the ones that belonged to Emwy, Shadows which, he suspected, down to the witch’s child, had fought for them tonight, for whatever reason.

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  C H A P T E R 2 7

  E muin had hangover, abundantly, the natural and just result of a pious life returned suddenly to old habits. Emuin was, Idrys reported, suffering the prayers of two pious brothers above his bed, and they were brewing a noxious tea.

  It served him right, Cefwyn thought. He had, right now, this morning, the departure of the Duke of Murandys to the capital: Murandys had come with his father’s men, had fought at Emwy, and would go back to the capital full of news.

  He had, on his desk, the disposition of the Lord Commander of the Dragon Guard. The Prince’s Guard had to guard the heir.

  That was now Efanor. He would not cede Idrys from his own service, which meant replacing Gwywyn, but he had to consider the morale of the Dragon Guard, which had a strong attachment to its Lord Commander. Promoting Gwywyn to higher office was the apparent answer—but he had to find the right office.

  Soon, atop his other worries, delegations from Guelemara were bound to come pouring in, condolences and good wishes from lords offering to give their oaths, as they were obliged to do, and this and that royal secretary with papers to sign—the inevitable flood of petitioners who thought a new reign might give new answers. He had seen his father face it with their grandfather’s death, he braced himself for it, and meanwhile he had the local business to attend. He was already arranging to receive the oaths of the several barons,—counting Orien—who were within daily reach of him, a ceremony which had to be arranged in due formality, with all respect to the color and pa-geantry that bolstered the dignity of the courtiers as much as that of the King.

  But, no, at the moment he did not want to consider the 532

  menu for the attendant festivities, or his wardrobe—his Guelen tailor was beside himself, having discovered himself suddenly in charge of a King’s oath-taking for a third of the provinces.