Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

  Uwen was his strength, but also his weakness. His Enemy would ever so quickly exploit that weakness if he entered the world again; and his need for Uwen would bring Uwen grief if ever his care had a lapse. He knew it. So did Uwen know it, wise man that he was. He became sure this morning that Uwen knew his somewhat guilty secret, counted the years he had spent here, and did forgive him.

  “So,” Uwen said, “do I go, or do we go together this time, m’lord?

  Ye’ve waited for the boy. Now he’s gone where he’s goin’, or Owl ain’t a prophet.”

  “Brave Uwen. We shall both go, and go soon, I think we must. But something is moving, and if I leave the tower, I shall not have the vantage to see where it goes. The wind is up this morning. Do you hear it?”

  Uwen looked up, on blue sky and a clear day. “Is it that, m’lord? Is it woke again?”

  “I don’t know. Put our packs together. We shan’t take a great deal with us when we go, and we may go at any hour, day or night.”

  “Aye, m’lord. Just my gear, an’ yours. As used t’ be.”

  iii

  the good cloak from guelessar had fared the worst—it would need mending as well as washing, and there was no time for either. Elfwyn put on Paisi’s best— Paisi insisted; and the two of them kissed Gran and took the horses the king had given them, and rode out to the highway, himself on Feiny, with his saddle, and Paisi on Tammis, with nothing but his halter.

  It was a brisk, snowy ride to the gates of Henas’amef, under a blue bright sky at first, then under the frowning shadow of the battlement. They rode cautiously, climbing an icy street they had never before traversed on horseback. And the people of the town, who would never have looked twice at 2 3 8

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  two walkers, looked up at them curiously and suspiciously as they passed like lord and man. Some might know Paisi, who came and went in the town, and if they did, they knew who they might be, though they might wonder greatly that they now came in on horseback. One or two such made the sign against evil, but only one or two, likely more piously Bryalt than the rest— in the main, the townsfolk hung charms about their houses and had no fear of witches or their cures: oh, no, it was the taint of sorcery that drew the ward signs, and the looks askance.

  Overall, the town was in a fading holiday mood— the last vestiges of tattered dead evergreen festooned housefronts and shops, the Bryalt holiday having come and gone and lingered during his venture west, and people were likely in the very last throes of too much drink and leftover holiday cakes.

  The shops were still mostly shut, this early in the morning. The evergreen dripped with icicles here and there, shed needles, or hung haphazardly tattered, ruined by days of wind and weather.

  Paisi had not come into town for holiday, so he said. He had been just off a long ride, had been too busy mending leaks and repairing the goat - shed fence for Gran, and besides, as Paisi had said, he had been too worried about a certain fool for a number of days after.

  “I was never in danger,” Elfwyn said, and knew that he lied, and wasn’t sure why, except he had no desire yet to tell Paisi what Paisi was so curious to learn— what Tristen had said, or what he had said to Lord Tristen.

  He wanted to have the visit to Lord Crissand behind him, that, before anything else, and he didn’t want to think about where he had been, or about Lord Tristen at all until he had to. There was, besides Paisi’s completely reasonable desire to know, that presence that loomed above the town, less so, ironically, as they were nearest to it: the houses cut off all view of the Zeide and its tower, and seemed to cut off all sense of it as well. Elfwyn had ridden out from Gran’s place refusing to look toward the town, and refusing to look up when they drew close to it: he chattered with Paisi or minded the frozen mud, or anything at all he could contrive to keep his mind off that place— he so dreaded coming into town.

  But here, in that strange absence of notice from the tower, they rode calmly up the street, and quietly up to the Zeide gates, where gatekeepers, respecting anyone who came on horseback, made haste to open them.

  Things came suddenly uncommonly clear, details of the iron gates, of the stones themselves— of that tower, when they had come through the gates and into the broad courtyard of the keep. He wanted to look up. He had the most dire urge to look up. And didn’t.

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  Vision, Lord Tristen had said. Vision was what he needed, but his Vision of that high window was not with his eyes. He knew what it looked like.

  He knew every detail of that window, its stone ledge that ran all the way about the tower, the dark birds that sometimes congregated there. He knew the window was vacant at the moment. She didn’t need to look. Her Vision existed whether or not she looked— was that possibly what Lord Tristen meant, that he needed that kind of wizardry, his mother’s Gift, that was always aware? He wanted nothing of his mother, not a whisper of her talent.

  When he had approached Lord Tristen about wizardry, he had been thinking of himself and Gran, and the things she had shown him, not— not his mother’s sort. Not sorcery.

  Gods, had the Sihhë - lord seen something else hiding in him?

  He felt an unease at the very pit of his stomach when he thought that.

  He had not been ambitious. He had not even thought of that Gift. He had wanted something he didn’t think he owned, not really. Wizard - gift. Not sorcery.

  He almost did look up.

  But Paisi rode toward the stables, where strange horses had to stay, and Feiny turned that way, too, away from the tower, and a wall curtained the sight of it. Elfwyn got down where Paisi had and turned Feiny over to the stableboy, too, while Paisi informed the boy the horses should have water but needed no grain.

  “As we ain’t stayin’ long, that we know,” Paisi said.

  Elfwyn flung his cloak off his arm as they approached the side of the keep, so as to show the door guards he carried no weapon, only the knife he used for meals, and Paisi flung his all the way back. The guards did challenge them at the side door, atop the stairs, but only for a moment, and one of the men walked with them down the hall inside, as far as his captain, in a little offi ce.

  “The boy’s come in,” Elfwyn heard that man say, as if it were evident to all the world which boy, and the answer he didn’t hear, but the same man came out again and led them down the lower corridor to the great audience hall, beyond the central stairs.

  He had hoped for something quieter than a public audience. It was early in the morning. Was it court day, with all the town coming in? That was the very last thing he wanted.

  The man ushered him through, stopping Paisi at the door with a gesture, and at that Elfwyn looked back.

  “It’s proper, m’lord,” Paisi said. M’lord again. The king’s son, again.

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  There had been a time Gran’s foster grandson would never have found his way into an audience, and he wished now he were bidden, like any ordinary countryman, wait until and if summoned.

  As it was, he was bidden straight inside, his father’s son, into an echoing great hall, and he had to find a place for himself along the wall and stay quiet, while the guard went and added him, he supposed, to the offi cial list a man kept at a table.

  As if he were a man. A lord. At least of a rank with the angry merchant who was pressing his case with Duke Crissand at the moment. Crissand questioned the man patiently and quietly, from his chair at the head of the hall, being advised by various persons concerned in some way— Elfwyn understood, at least, that it involved the recent holidays, and a drunken brawl, and broken tables. The man was a tavern keeper, perhaps, not so high - fl own as the list of people who came in with petitions for his father, over boundaries and marriages and blood feuds.

  His was, it might be, the highest business, after all. He had to report to the duke that he visited Tristen with no leave to do so. He had to report that he had left the king’s palace, too, without l
eave— the soldiers had been here, telling as much as they knew, and maybe making demands he be brought back again, for all he knew. And here he stood, a subject of Amefel again, wanting grain for two horses. He had no idea whether it was good or bad, from Lord Crissand’s view, that Lord Tristen was arriving soon: fool that he was, he had come here to confess the lost letter— it was not the happiest of appearances before this man, who generally had done very well for Gran and deserved better than a boy’s lame excuses.

  He didn’t know what ground was under his feet, if he wondered about such matters: he didn’t know, he didn’t understand the business that had always flown over his head, or why bad dreams, which had turned out false, had drawn him back here, and sent him to Lord Tristen, where he had outright failed to ask clearly whose were the dreams, or why had he dreamed, or were they possibly a warning?

  Fool, he said to himself, not to have asked, not to have put the letter where it wouldn’t drop away from him, not to have thought of it when he had taken his shirt off. He had probably flung it right into the brook, to boot.

  Dreams. His mother’s work, he became more and more convinced. He’d believed what he’d seen and hadn’t looked past his initial fear.

  Vision, Lord Tristen had said. Looking at things. Seeing what was. Seeing through things. Seeing through his mother’s wiles and the web of fear she flung up. Here he stood, terrified of her, while thinking she was the likely 2 4 1

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  source of trouble that had separated him from his father and brought him here.

  So who had gotten exactly what she wanted, after all?

  And he still trembled at the thought that she was just upstairs. She was probably laughing, right now, probably delighted with her work, and no one challenged her. If he had the least smidge of Gift, himself, he would use it to face her and make her know the day was coming when she wouldn’t be so pleased with her son.

  Children had come in, while the merchants were arguing, two curly -

  headed children and a third, in the arms of a lady, who sat down by Crissand’s side— his wife, his children, two boys and a little girl, happy children.

  The men fought, and the children sat and played quietly on the steps, the model of a family, such as he had almost had, in his father’s household— his father had bent every law to try to give him that.

  While his mother—

  He hadn’t Seen, had he? He hadn’t even thought about her, except to know he was escaping and going to Guelessar, and he had thought, when the tower set behind the hills, that her gaze was off him, for the first time in his life.

  He had a sudden notion that even losing the letter might be his mother’s doing, his mother, wanting to prevent whatever Lord Tristen wanted, wanting to make all the trouble she could, and striking just as soon as he was far enough from Ynefel.

  She had a habit of making the most trouble she could. He was here, within easy cast of her tower, and all of a sudden a great many things came clear to him, that it hadn’t been Gran’s worry, and it hadn’t been simple bad luck in the woods, and it was his mother’s great pleasure that he’d had to come here to take the blame for everything. That was the love she showed him.

  Crissand served judgment on the tavern dispute, in a loud voice.

  The baby began to cry at that, and the duke softened his face and his voice, and took the baby from his lady, kissing her and holding her in his arms until she quieted. “Clear the hall,” he said, which Elfwyn took for a general dismissal.

  “Not you, lad.”

  He turned. He saw Crissand beckon, one crooked finger beside the baby’s arm.

  “Come here.”

  He came down the long aisle. He presented himself and bowed deeply.

  “My lord duke.”

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  “Cakes and cream for the children,” Crissand said, with a snap of his fingers, and gave the baby back to his wife. “Otter, lad, I’m very glad to see you back.”

  “I’m ever so sorry, m’lord. I came and I went, and I had a letter for you . . .”

  “Your father sent letters,” Crissand said, “in great concern.”

  “I—” He didn’t know what to say. “I’m very sorry. Lord Tristen sent, and I lost the letter.”

  “Lost it?”

  “In a brook,” he said, to have it done with. “But he says he’s coming here.

  Or at least, that he’s coming to Henas’amef.”

  “Indeed,” Duke Crissand said, and got up and came down the steps to set a hand on his shoulder. He was a young man, for his office, and had a gentle face, a kindly manner. “Why, did he say?”

  “I think— I think— I don’t know,” he finished in a rush, uncomfortable to have the duke treat him kindly, after all the trouble. “I wouldn’t venture to say. I told him what had happened—” No, that wasn’t quite true. “I asked him— I asked him to tell me what to do, because things hadn’t worked in Guelemara, and the Guelen priests were upset, m’lord, and I had your message about Gran being sick—”

  “I sent no message.”

  He was confused, confused, and a little dismayed, then limped on with his news. “I left, then. I came home. But I thought with all that’s wrong— I thought I should go to Lord Tristen. And Lord Tristen said he’d take a look at things, and after that, he wrote you a letter for me to carry, and said he’d come soon. But I lost it. I’m very sorry.”

  “His messages are not easily lost.”

  “I don’t know, m’lord. I don’t know. I fell in the brook, and I was freezing. And when I thought again, it was gone.”

  “Well, well . . . you’ve no idea what it said.”

  “It was under seal, my lord.”

  “So. And what matters did you discuss with him, if you can say?”

  “Myself,” he said. “My troubles.” His face went hot. “It was time I left, m’lord. There was all kinds of trouble. I kept dreaming about Gran. I’d sent Paisi back. I tried to See home, a maid saw me, and the priests were all upset.”

  “Ah,” Crissand said, as if this time he’d reached the sense of it. “Well, well, the Quinalt is upset often enough. Your father sent his love, that fi rst.”

  “Did he?” He was ever so desirous to hear that.

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  “In no uncertain terms. When I should be able to lay hands on you, he asked I give you my protection as before— this, mind you, has never been a burden; and he wishes you very well, very well indeed.”

  That news relieved him so that he found no power of speech at all for a moment. He had come a long, hard ride, from Guelemara to Ynefel and back, he had come here to be blamed, even punished. Now he just felt worn thin, as frayed as the old cloak he wore, and shaking in the knees.

  “I am very glad he forgives me, my lord. And I wish him all my love.”

  “As you should. As you well should. Letters have flown about you, let me say, his to me, by his guard looking for Paisi, mine to him, his to me again by a second lot, come chasing after you. Now Tristen’s letter lost, gods save us, the gist of which we can only guess. I’ve no doubt Lord Tristen wishes me to take care of you, which I do, nevertheless, and to take care of your gran, which I have always done. If it there’s more, I’m sure he’ll be here soon to set it straight. If it was lost, he probably knows it. If it wasn’t regarding your welcome here— he’d probably have sent one of his birds.”

  “In the storm and all, m’lord,—”

  “Rough weather for them, no question, but they do get through, quite amazingly. He doesn’t need a rider to reach me. Or to reach your father, at greatest need. He can travel in ways that don’t regard the weather. Don’t fret about it. You simply stay at home for a bit, take care of your gran, let the priestly storms blow over in Guelessar— the Guelenfolk are always contentious at Festival. They’re forever seeing omens in the sky and portents in their ale. Their opinion comes and goes by spring. You don’t have any urge to do an
ything foolish, like ride off in another direction, do you?”

  A canny question, Gran’s sort of question. Lord Crissand himself had the Sight, at least that, so Paisi had told him. A little of the Gift ran all through the Aswydd line.

  “No, sir, I don’t want to ride anywhere, except to go back home and take care of Gran. Though after all that’s happened— I think I want to visit my mother.”

  “An idle whim, or a burning need?”

  “To tell her I’m back,” he said, hedging the truth: he couldn’t help it— it was old habit. He amended that. “To tell her that if everything that’s gone wrong lately is her doing, people see through her. And to tell her face - to -

  face who I am. I’m not Otter any longer, m’lord. I’m Elfwyn. That was what Lord Tristen said to me. My mother named me to spite everyone, particularly my father and the Guelenfolk. She meant to make trouble. But it’s my name, all the same, and Lord Tristen said I should carry it, so I will. I don’t 2 4 4

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  have to be trouble to my father or to you, m’lord. I intend not to be. Once Lord Tristen’s heard what she’s been up to, I don’t think she’ll get her way any longer. I’m not sure after that, that I’ll ever be able to talk to her again.

  I don’t know, but I think she’s why things went wrong in Guelessar. And before I can never see her again—” He felt a tremor even thinking of so momentous a change in his life. “I want to see her once.”

  “I wouldn’t upset her with threats, young sir. You see her once a year.

  That’s likely far more than you really want to visit her. Isn’t it?”

  “I do want to see her. I want to remember what she looks like. She keeps fading, in my thoughts. And I want to see her this time, really see her. I need to.”

  A frown, a thinking frown. “She’s our prisoner. Lord Tristen’s prisoner.

  And your father’s. You certainly aren’t hers. And I advise you to think of her as I do, as little as possible. But my guards will admit you there, whenever you wish.” Crissand passed him a small finger ring. “I lend you this. See your gran has all her needs. This has every power I would entrust to a son, and the guards all know it. See your mother if and when you choose.”