Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

  So Elfwyn was not the only one with wizardry in his blood. If his brother had it, he was sure his mother’s son was not less gifted, only that such ability had never been encouraged in him.

  And now he needed it. He so desperately needed it now.

  v

  it was the book that was the trouble: master emuin said it. tristen had located it briefly, and felt it move through the remainder of the dark and 3 7 8

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  through the murky day, a day gray and pale as the space between, that space where Tristen emphatically dared not, at the moment, go.

  It had shifted again, and the book and the enemy were very close one to the other— closer than the last time he had felt it, and as every venture he had made toward the boys had driven them farther away, now he feared anything that might upset the balance. Time itself had started to diverge: day and dark, this day and the next grew confused around him, and now, he suspected, had diverged again.

  They were a small party that had ridden out from Henas’amef: himself, and Uwen, and Cefwyn, unescorted and on borrowed horses. Lord Crissand had stayed behind, much against his inclination, to bolster Emuin, with Paisi to help. Emuin was wizard enough, he hoped, to hold the Zeide itself against intrusion or attack, where it might well come. A score of the Dragon Guard would have taken to the road behind them, traveling fast, one could be sure, but not fast enough to overtake a desperate father.

  Cefwyn had not waited for them. He had delayed only to put on his armor, had taken a warm cloak and headed for the stable to borrow the best horses available, while Uwen had ordered supply out of the kitchens, and they were gone, only the three of them, by the world’s roads.

  The shadows that had haunted their riding out by dark persisted by daylight, streaking the snow from time to time, and Tristen did not trust their company in the least— they were part of the disturbance in the gray place and attached themselves to any part of it. The boys’ innocence was no longer a protection to them, not once the spell on that book was involved: he had extended his senses as quietly as he could, risking the gray space with the delicacy of a breath, when the intrusion he tracked had come down like a thunderbolt.

  And moved all of them.

  One bit of the road was much like another, but he had the dire feeling they had lost time as well as distance, and now their own tracks were, half -

  snow - covered, ahead of them.

  “Someone has been by here,” Cefwyn said, not yet seeing the truth.

  “We have,” Tristen said, and beside him, he knew Uwen understood; in the look Cefwyn gave him, he knew Cefwyn did then, too.

  “That book?” Cefwyn asked. “Can a damned book do it?”

  Tristen knew at least part of the answer— knew he had acted recklessly, that the boys had moved again, and he dreaded to tell Cefwyn the whole truth, but he must do something about the situation he felt; and he reined aside, due south, and away from their own tracks.

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  “What are we doing?” Cefwyn asked him.

  “They have separated. For good or for ill, I could not stop one of them—”

  “Which one?”

  “Aewyn has arrived south of us. He has fallen away. He draws at the earth. He wanted to stop. But Elfwyn went too fast this time, too fast and too far.”

  “Too far,” Cefwyn echoed him, shouting through the wind. Their horses drifted apart and together again, knee against knee. Uwen was a shadow on Cefwyn’s other side. “Where is he?”

  “We are going toward Aewyn,” Tristen shouted back. “I cannot reach the other without leaving Aewyn in danger. One or the other— we have now to choose.”

  “What choice is that?” Cefwyn cried. “How can I?”

  “I choose!” Tristen said. “On me, be it— I choose the one we can reach.

  Where he is, is no good place for him.”

  “Althalen,” Cefwyn said. Cefwyn knew as well as he what lay in this direction, down a forgotten road. “There’s the new village there.”

  “If he were there,” Tristen said, “I would trust he was safe. He is not.”

  A new village had grown up at Althalen, and that safety might be within the boy’s reach, but that was not the way he was tending. The whole place had become troubled and uncertain, a pond where a small stone had dropped and sunk, and reached depths where it was not good for one of his blood to be. Disturbance rippled through the gray space in that direction. It was a Sihhë place, a place of blood and angry ghosts . . . the home of Elfwyn’s distant ancestor.

  But it was home to one of the boy’s own, too.

  They tended south and west, and now every stride of the horses carried them aside from the book and from Elfwyn, and his own guilt rode with him. He had reached instinctively, attempting to divert both boys from plunging through that looming ward, and created disaster as he did it. The boys had been headed right for a suddenly appearing gap in the wards and Elfwyn had shot through as quickly as if he himself willed it. Perhaps he had gone so quickly because Aewyn’s resistance had pulled away— Aewyn, even half - fainting, had clung to where he was with a fierceness that held them to earth; and when he had come loose, perhaps at his jostling the boys, Aewyn had plummeted somewhere in between the two places— not straight down, but aside, to a place with its own will and its own magic, old magic, and a special claim on him. The old ruin, extending constantly into the gray space, might have found a mote flying free, recognized it, and simply snatched it 3 8 0

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  down into itself . . . while Elfwyn, set free of that bond, had flown like an arrow, and now was entirely out of sight, sealed behind those wards.

  Folly, he said to himself: Mauryl would have said it, most certainly. He had tried because they were both about to vanish through that gap— but he had lost one of them in the process, and where the other had come down was not well - intentioned or safe: not by accident, such events, not even his own failure.

  And while there was now every chance that, if he took them all into the gray space to save time, he might reach Aewyn safely, without fl inging him into Elfwyn’s predicament, there was equally well the chance that Elfwyn himself maintained some hold on his brother, and that the book’s intent would snatch the second boy through if he pressed hard. The book’s intent reached far, far across Amefel. It wanted to be found, and it wanted to be loose in the world, and it wanted at least one of the boys if not both . . .

  which was, Cefwyn would say, a damned great lot for a book to want.

  It was that. Say rather, either Mauryl Gestaurien had laid an intent on his work to keep it out of his hands, or that the wizard who had tried to lay hands on it more than a decade ago had laid a geas on whoever found it.

  Or say, equally possible, that Elfwyn, with enough magic in him to shake things loose from hiding, had had such a command laid directly on him long, long ago, in those visits to his mother. He had felt attachments he had not trusted when the boy had asked him to be his teacher.

  He had said no.

  And which of the two of them had done right?

  Might he have told the whole uncomfortable truth to a chancy, immature boy?

  He had not told all he feared to Cefwyn. He dared not, at this moment, consult Emuin about his choice to go after Aewyn— not with the gray space as chancy as it still was— and he was not sure to this hour that he had made the right choice.

  He hesitated to burden Cefwyn with the likelihood that the bond between the brothers was not ordinary— least of all did he want to say what else he sensed, that it might never be broken.

  Cefwyn said not a word, in the meantime. Nor had Cefwyn said anything more about Ninévrisë and his daughter being across the river, in the place defended by those icy wards.

  Nothing about it boded well for his household.

  But there was one more reason for turning aside after Aewyn: Elfwyn Aswydd had more than a compulsion on him: there was also his father’s 3 8 1

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  blood in him, there was a Syrillas brother’s love, Emuin’s concern, and a Sihhë blessing on him. If there was one young lad it might be difficult for any enemy to hold, it might be this one.

  He made up his mind. As much as he dared nudge a set of affairs so very precariously balanced, he sent the most delicate thought curling toward what was now an iron wall— a thought that quested after the least, most insignificant gap in the barrier, the sort a brotherly bond might make. And he intended to lay hands on that brother.

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  c h a p t e r e l e v e n

  i

  couches, and cushions, and drapes—

  they were everywhere for com-

  fort. It was that precise green and that precise gold that had been the Aswydd heraldry, forbidden now, but everywhere about, and the monstrous fi replace, with what might have been a dragon, or a grinning devil. The harp. Defying his prison, having heard in Gran’s tales that harps could be enchanted, Elfwyn ran his bruised, cold - burned fingers over the strings and evoked a rippling of notes.

  No answer came.

  “Ordinary,” he said in his most stinging way. “Besides,” he said to his absent mother, in case she could hear him, “you never played this harp, did you? I would never expect you to like music.”

  That drew an answer. The door never opened. But a figure appeared by the fireside— not his mother, but a young man who for all the world looked like Lord Tristen: that kind of youth that was neither young nor old; that kind of beauty that set its owner apart from blemished mankind.

  That figure faded, and in its place stood a woman, a woman with long red hair. Her back was to him, her face to the fire, her hands lifted to it.

  “Mother?” Elfwyn asked harshly. “Mother!”

  The woman turned, and it was his mother’s face, and his mother’s cant of the head, and it held that same kind of beauty, chilling, severe, and foreign.

  “Not your mother,” she said. “Your aunt. Your aunt, dear boy. I pass by any thanks for rescue. I would never expect gratitude, not from your father’s bloodline.”

  “Mother!” he shouted, but the figure, like the man before it, faded before his eyes, leaving only the fi re.

  c. j. cherryh

  ii

  aewyn’s feet had long since lost all feeling. his legs buckled. it was not weakness, he insisted. He was weary, but he had only stumbled this time on a bit of ice. He levered himself up, holding to the wall as he could with fingers that likewise had gone numb within his gloves . . . it was only the roughened leather that gripped the stones. His fingers would no longer bend.

  He was in a predicament. He realized that, in a distant, determined sort of way. He might have made certain wrong choices, but if he turned back a second time, that would be three times down the same stretch of wall.

  “Otter?” he called, and was utterly confused to find night settled about him, as if daylight, so newly born, had just given up in exhaustion. “Elfwyn!” He shouted that out whenever he found breath. If only there were an answer, if only they were together, they could share warmth and find a nook to shelter them from the damnable wind. Or if someone heard him, it might be one of the villagers, and he could raise a general search for his brother.

  He would promise the village— he would promise them whatever a prince of Ylesuin could promise: cattle, sheep, horses, a grant of land, whatever they wanted, if only they could find his brother alive.

  As it was, he could only put one foot in front of another, and did that because, if he stopped, he would die, and his father would never know where he was.

  “Boy,” someone said behind him. “Boy, what d’ ye want wi’ my Otter?”

  He turned, blinking, as snow hit his eyes. A woman stood there, a little old woman in a shawl, then a robed woman in gray skirts, who was almost too dim to see.

  “Why, ’tis Prince Aewyn, ain’t it?” the first woman said, and took off her shawl and wrapped it around him, which he protested— the old woman would freeze straightway, in her light clothing. But it warmed him where it touched, warmed his hands just as he tried to give it back to her.

  “I’ve lost Otter,” he tried to say, but he stammered too much. He began to make out the other woman, like an Amefin lady, but in a faded, cobwebby gown. And he knew he should not be standing still. He had to keep moving, but he had gotten distracted and forgotten to do that.

  But he was so much warmer, just where the old woman had touched his hand, and he thought he knew her. He thought it was Paisi’s gran. Otter had told him she was dead, but here she was, and he had to tell Otter that his gran was safe, when he found him. He had no idea who the other lady 3 8 4

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  was, but he felt safer, and warmer, though the fog closed about him for a moment.

  “Grandson,” an old man said from behind him, and he turned about and saw a tall, dignified man with a gold band about his brows, and a fi ne rich cloak. The old man looked right into his eyes. “Grandson. A fine lad. You have your mother’s look about you.”

  “My mother is Ninévrisë, the Lady Regent of Elwynor, Queen of Ylesuin . . .”

  “All these things,” the old man said, “and my daughter. A good daughter, she is. Are you a good and honest son? I think you are.”

  “My mother’s father is dead,” he said, and that was two conversations with the dead in a matter of moments, which might be too many for safety.

  He looked about to see where Paisi’s gran was, and if she had advice for him; but she was gone, and the old man laid a hand on his shoulder, sending warmth through him.

  “Tell me about yourself,” the old man said. “Tell me why you’ve come.”

  “To find my brother!” he said.

  “There is no one here,” the old man said.

  “Then help me find him,” he said— not that he failed to know he was in dire trouble, but if he was seeing his dead grandfather, and he was dying or dead, he stuck by his mission, and by his brother. “He fell away. He must have come down somewhere. Help me!”

  “Then tell me about him,” the old man said, and flung the great warmth of his cloak about him, and when it enfolded him, the warmth all but stole his breath. He fought to keep aware, and to keep awake— he knew better than to sleep in the snow, but the weight of the cloak bore him down, and down, and he rested against the old man’s knees. He felt the touch of the old man’s fingers in his hair, a caress, then something like a kiss on his temple.

  “Rest,” the old man said, somewhere in his hearing, and near him a blue Line sprang into being. Blue fire ran along a wall, then branched, all in squares and rectangles, until all the space about seemed alight. They were wards, and they stretched on and on and on, burning blue and covering the very hillsides.

  Safety, they informed him. Safe to sleep, safe to rest.

  No, he insisted to himself. Not safe to sleep. Not while Otter’s lost.

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  iii

  aunt, the woman had called herself.

  Orien, Emuin had named his mother’s twin. Orien Aswydd. The name sent chills through Elfwyn’s bones. What have you done with my mother? he wanted to ask.

  But he had no one to ask. He paced, too weary to walk, but unwilling to sink down and wait patiently in soft cushions. He thought of wreaking destruction on the place, ripping down the tapestries and shredding the cushions and making himself as ungrateful a tenant as possible— but that did nothing to win his freedom, and might put him in a worse place.

  He did think to search the walls and behind the hangings for any hint of a second door or a cupboard, or something he might use as a weapon. The fireplace had no poker. There were no windows. And last of all he tried the latch of the door, in the foolish notion that, who knew? Perhaps his strong wish for a way out might make one: the world had not followed ordinary rules since Master Emuin had walked into their little cottage— or maybe not for hours before that.

  He pus
hed the latch. It gave downward, and the door opened on a nightbound waste, a howling gust of snow, and shards of ice that rose up with the sound of swords, completely to bar his escape.

  He slammed the door on that ungodly sight, slammed it and leaned against it, chilled to the bone.

  It was not just ice. It was a cold so intense it had burned his throat and numbed his hands. It was magical, or sorcerous, part of the deep, unnatural winter that, as often as the snow melted, had blasted out more and more and more, and never quite ceased.

  It was his mother’s winter. It was the winter when Gran died. It was the winter when his dream of welcome with his father had come to grief.

  He wanted this winter to end. He shut his eyes and wanted it to end, with all the strength he had.

  Your wards are pitiful. The voice came to him clear and strong, as if Lord Tristen himself had stood right at his shoulder. It occurred to him that he had made no wards at all, already assuming it was not his premises, and that he was the one held, not the holder. He blinked and lifted his head, stung by his own folly.

  Or perhaps you forgot, the mocking voice said again, not in the air, but in his mind, and he knew it was not Lord Tristen. Lord Tristen, whatever else, might have cast him out of Ynefel, but mockery was not his manner—3 8 6

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  furthest from it. Lord Tristen had been, whatever else, kind, and told him no simply by saying nothing at all.