Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

Liar, he said to that voice, or thought it, then, gathering his courage, said it aloud: “Liar!” Not even his mother had lied to him. It seemed a low, mean sort of behavior, to pretend to be what one was not.

  He moved, moreover, and walked the perimeter, and laid the wards once, twice, three times all about, in fury and defi ance.

  Wind blasted at him, as if every ward at once had blown inward. The force blew cushions off the couches and lifted his hair and blew his cloak back. His hand tingled, half - numb. His wards were fl attened, useless.

  And the same young man confronted him, standing near the fire . . . but the fire showed right through him.

  “Well, well,” the young man said. “Temper rarely works where skill fails.”

  Rage grew cold. The taunting minded him of the court of Guelemara, and the manners there, where detractors attacked with soft, sweet words. He bowed ever so slightly, drawing up the armor he had learned to use there—pride of birth, of all things, and a study of the rules of courtesy the other violated. “My name,” he said with that soft sweetness, “is Elfwyn Aswydd.

  I own it with no shame. Do you have a name, sir wisp?”

  A hit. The young man’s chin lifted, and there was an angry glint in his eyes, before a smile covered it, showing teeth. “Elfwyn Aswydd.” He bowed in turn. “A name, indeed. Was it from your father?”

  “You know who I am, or you would find something else to do. Your name, sir.”

  “My name. My name. I think you know it. Where is your brother?”

  That hit, too, in the heart. He kept his gaze steady. “Clearly your interest is in me, and my mother is in this. Or my aunt. Are you a kinsman of mine, too, perchance?”

  “No.” Again, he had nettled the young man. “Such lofty manners from a goatherd.”

  “A goatherd who has a name, a noble one, and old. Why should I trouble myself with a wisp?”

  “Oh, waspish lad. Unbecoming in a boy.” The young man left the fi re, and light ceased to show through him. “Is that better?”

  “I hardly know,” he said, jaw set, “since you have not the courage to go by a name, or possibly are ashamed of it. Are you ashamed?”

  “Otter, Otter, and Spider. One you call yourself and the other people call you behind your back. There are your names, boy.”

  3 8 7

  c. j. cherryh

  “Improve my opinion of you, I beg you. It’s reached very low.”

  “Oh, pert beyond all good sense. Shall I call your mother?”

  “Is she alive?” It should, if he were virtuous, feel some pang, no matter what she was, but she had taken too much from him, and he mustered no will to care whether she lived, at the moment, except the grief of what he wished he had had from her.

  The young man snapped his fingers. His mother was there. Or his aunt.

  “Son,” his mother said, in that intonation she had. “Are you being foolish?”

  “Prideful,” the young man said. “Prideful and difficult. His brother’s name, I think, rouses a little passion in him.”

  “That Guelen whelp,” his mother said. “That Guelen boy. He will be your enemy, Elfwyn. He is what he is, and he is Guelen.”

  He turned his shoulder and looked at a tapestry in the corner, for some better view.

  But he saw instead a room in candlelight, like a vision, a blond young man with a lean, strong jaw. That jaw was clenched, and those eyes, those blue Guelen eyes, looked at him with such anger . . .

  “Your enemy, in time to come,” his mother said.

  “Then he is alive,” he said, taking that for comfort.

  “He will hate you,” his mother said. “He and you contend for the same power, and you cannot both have it.”

  “Well enough,” he said lightly. “He was born to it.”

  A blow to his shoulder spun him half - about, and he looked up into the face of the man. It was like facing Tristen in anger. Those gray eyes bore into him, and carried such force of magic it lanced right to the heart, painful as the grip on his arm.

  “Do not cast away your birthright,” the young man said. “Do not resign what you do not yet possess . . . what you do not yet imagine, Elfwyn Aswydd. Will you see? Will you open your eyes and know the world to come?”

  A woman appeared in his vision, a beautiful woman with violet eyes and midnight hair, a woman who looked right at him, and into him, and that expression was so determined and so open that it lanced right through him.

  “This is your wife, your queen. This is Aemaryen.” The view wheeled away to a giddy sight of far- flung woods and farmland, villages and a towered city. “This is Ilefinian.” Another, even wider, with towers rising in scaffolding. “Guelemara.” A third, low - lying, against wooded hills, and beautiful beyond any of the others. “Althalen, where you will rule.”

  “I shall rule, shall I?” He put mockery into his voice. “You dream.”

  3 8 8

  fortress of ice

  “Is that your answer? Aewyn may kill you, while you mewl on about friendship and gratitude. Do you think he’ll forget you left him, for safety?

  He will remember. His father will rescue him, and you and he will go down different paths. You asked Tristen Sihhë for wizardry, and he refused you—fearing you, fearing you, boy, as he ought. You will surpass him. You will have a magic so much greater the ground will shake, and he saw that. He knew. He sent you out, well knowing your gran would die if you went back just then—”

  “Murdered by my mother,” he said, regaining his anger.

  “Fate,” the young man said. “Fate had him send you out, in fear of you, fate drew you home again, fate had to destroy your gran to get you to Henas’amef, and fate drew you to the library, where your heritage mandated you be . . .”

  “Sorcery killed my gran,” he said bitterly, flinging the young man’s hand away from him. “Sorcery killed her, sorcery wanted that thing found! I wish I’d never found it! I wish it had been you that died in that fire!” he shouted, looking straight at his mother. “That would have been justice! Now get away from me!”

  “Your kingdom,” the young man said, behind him, “your kingdom will not be denied. You see how cruel your own sorcery can be, if someone stands in the way— like your gran. You assured she would die, when there was no other way to get you to the library. You assured you would lose your brother, when you enticed him out into the woods— he will grow up a bitter, angry man, all your doing. If you had only taken that book to your mother, none of this pain would have happened. Who else will you kill, until you take the place you were meant to have? I assure you, there will be more pain if you go on denying your own nature. There will be more deaths. Who next? Lord Crissand? That will throw the south into confusion. There’s no other lord who can rule as aetheling— except, of course, you, my prince.”

  “I’m no prince, nor wish to be!”

  “That is the very trouble, dear,” his mother said. “You blame me for the old grandmother. I assure you, I did nothing. It was you. I quite fear to be in your thoughts at all, until you know what you are, and understand what a power you do wield in the world. Everyone has to fear you, especially when you most afflict whoever loves you— innocents, like Gran, like your brother.”

  “You’ve never lied to me,” he said in disgust. “At least I thought not. But you did. Everything you did was a lie.”

  “My dear, you know you were born by sorcery. Can you think you might 3 8 9

  c. j. cherryh

  be ordinary? You were born to overcome my sister’s enemy, and do you know who that is?”

  “I don’t care to know.”

  “Tristen. Tristen Sihhë. Now do you understand how very foolish you were, to be drawn to him? He looked you over. He saw a magic too potent to confront.”

  He outright laughed. “A ridiculous boy who couldn’t light a candle, let alone a proper fi re, to save himself from freezing. He saw someone too stupid to teach, with too many entanglements with sorcery. Forgive me, Mother, but I had all the ride
home to think about that.”

  “Then you quite missed the point. He entombed my sister alive, he warded me into the tower above so I couldn’t break free, and accepting that imprisonment was the only way I could stay alive and stay near you—”

  “Oh, spare me!”

  “The old woman had power he lent. Oh, he is powerful, he is powerful beyond easy understanding. I fear him, but he fears you.”

  “Ridiculous, I say.”

  “You are not yet grown, son of mine! You are not yet grown, and even so the world bends around you— a piece of your power has come to you, not that you know how to read it, yet. Tristen would if he laid hands on it, I’ve no doubt; but there will come a day it comes clear to you and shows you the way to bring him down.”

  He didn’t want to talk about the book, which clearly they knew he had, as they knew other things. Lies, he said to himself, all lies.

  Aloud, he said: “All I wish is to be out of here. And, see? It failed. My wishes have no success at all. Fortunately, I put little hope in them.”

  “So young, so bitter,” the young man said. “So impertinent toward your lady mother. She has endured years of prison for your sake, endured them teaching you to hate her, mistrust her, all these years. Endured blame, when your own rebellion killed those around you . . .”

  “A lie. I will not forgive you that lie, sir wisp.”

  “I hope you will, when you rule.”

  “Then you’ll wait a long, long time, sir wisp!”

  “You will rule,” his mother said. “You fear our taking the book from you, do you not? You could hardly be more wrong. The book is yours. It was always yours. It was the text old Mauryl used, and a wickeder wizard there never was than Mauryl: you saw him, at Ynefel— did Tristen point him out? The face above the door. He brought a dead soul back, in Tristen, one of the Sihhë - lords, by blackest work, and to counter him, Mauryl’s enemy 3 9 0

  fortress of ice

  brought you. So none of this nonsense about subservience to Tristen Sihhë: Aewyn will never forgive what you are— the very check on his power. Your dear brother, sweet child that he is, will learn what you are, and after a certain time, he will understand quite well that he faces a choice— between Tristen, who sustains his father on the throne— or you, whose destiny is to bring down his dynasty and put it under Sihhë rule, and one cannot readily think that he will continue to be your friend. He will remember his sojourn in the snow. He will take his path, as you take yours through the world, and, oh, my son, if you continue in friendship with him, it will be a very painful conclusion, with only one outcome. I advise you, shed him now, and be only a remote enemy, not an intimate one. His sister will be your queen—”

  “My own sister, too!” He was truly, deeply offended. And yet the eyes, the wonderful violet eyes, stayed with him, heart-wrenchingly intent on his.

  “Mother, that’s an abomination!”

  “And you have listened too obediently to the Quinalt and the Bryalt. Your queen, and your subject, your one love, or there will be no love at all for you in this world. And you will, like Tristen, live long, very long. Will petty rules matter so much to you, I wonder, when you rule?”

  “Well, it’s no matter,” he said with a shrug, “since the sun will come up in the west before I rule anything. Even Gran’s goats. We gave them all away, so I suppose I have no subjects.”

  “The pride of a king, certainly,” his mother said.

  “The face of one,” the young man said. “The bearing and the manner, when he wills to use it. The Quinalt would have liked him better had he been humble. His speech, do you note, has the courtly lilt, but Amefi n, not Guelen. Where did he learn that, I wonder?”

  “Perhaps it was a spell,” his mother said. “It could walk out of my cell, with him. He could carry it wherever he wished, right past the wards. I gave him many such gifts.”

  That chilled him to the bone. He refused to think he had carried his mother’s curse home with him. If that were so, he was to blame for the fi re.

  “Well, well,” the young man said. “You have reasoned with him as best you can. Let your sister set him at his lessons.”

  “My sister,” his mother said, and spun full about, her skirts swirling.

  They came to rest, and she looked at him again, but with a she - wolf’s look, a terrible, burning stare, and a smile he had never seen on his mother’s face.

  “Nephew,” those same lips said. “Listen to your mother.”

  “Leave me alone.” Horror overwhelmed him. “You’re dead. You’ve been dead since I was born.”

  3 9 1

  c. j. cherryh

  “Tristen is ever so much older than that,” his aunt said, “and you had no fear of him. I assure you, you should have had. He did recognize you.”

  “My dead aunt and a wisp,” he said, drawing himself up. “Small choice I have.”

  “He only wishes to provoke us,” the man said with a tolerant smile. “Be patient. We have time. We have as much time as we wish to take.” Both winked out, with a little gust of wind that disturbed the fire, and left him with a curse in his mouth and nowhere to spit it.

  He stood for a moment, in case they might come back and catch him collapsed onto a bench. He stood glaring at the fire, then settled himself with as much dignity as he could muster, given aching legs and frost - stung feet and hands and face. He felt the pain of his injuries now, a pain that grew and grew, and stung his eyes with indignation.

  Anger was very, very close to the surface, anger enough to wreck the room, anger enough to fling himself at the shards of ice that barred the door, and die that way, if that was all that would spite them. He had no other hope.

  Anger will be your particular struggle. He recalled Emuin saying that.

  And of Aewyn: He is your chance for redemption and your inclination toward utter fall. Do you understand me?

  If I betray him, he had said. And Emuin had said: If you betray him, it will be fatal to us all.

  He had not, had he, betrayed his brother? He had stayed steadfast. He meant to do so.

  Emuin had said, too, regarding his mother: As near as she can come to love, she loves you.

  Love, was it? Wrong in one, perhaps wrong in both. Perhaps Emuin had not seen as much of his nature as he ought . . .

  Vision. Was that not the word Tristen had given him?

  Seeing. Seeing things for what they were. Seeing the truth, without coloring it, or making it other than it was. Was that the beginning of wizardry, to know what a thing really was before one started to wish it to be something else?

  Be Mouse, Tristen had said, Mouse, not Owl. Mouse looked out from the base of the walls, was low and quiet, and looked carefully before he committed himself. He more than looked, he listened, and measured his distances— was never caught too far from his hole.

  He certainly had been.

  And he had forgotten his other word. So much of a wizard he was.

  3 9 2

  fortress of ice

  Spider, Emuin had called him. Spider Prince. And he had said pridefully that he didn’t live in a nasty hole.

  He was certainly in one now. He’d spun his little web, his wards, and Sir Wisp had smashed right through them without even noticing.

  All he could do was do them again, and again, and again, and maybe, as long as he might be a prisoner here, he might do them well enough to be a nuisance, then a hindrance, then, maybe, a barrier . . . spinning his web, a bit at a time.

  Patience.

  Patience was his other word. Now he remembered it. Patience, and waiting to talk to Paisi, and waiting to get advice, and approaching things slowly— would have saved him so much grief.

  Patience instead of anger. Patience instead of rushing into things headlong. Patience, and Vision . . . would have mended so much that had gone wrong.

  Lord Tristen had advised him of the truth. Would someone do that, for his enemy?

  Lord Tristen might. He would have, because that was his nature
to deal in truth, not lies.

  And what did that say, for the advice he had just been given?

  Maybe it was time not to be Otter, diving headlong from this to that, nor Mouse, watching from the peripheries of a situation, but patient Spider, simply building, over and over, and over again.

  He sat, hands on his knees, and rebuilt his path, from the cottage, to the woods, to the battlefield, to the bridge, to here, in the unnatural ice that argued for somewhere not quite of the ordinary sort. The fogs that closed in had delivered them here, and here, and here, and at the last, Aewyn, Syrillas, had outright been unable to go with him, or had resisted going, and what pulled him here had been too strong . . .

  Too strong for Aewyn.

  Or too foreign to Aewyn, being sorcerous in nature.

  Sorcery was a path that might be open to him. He might learn it and use it.

  But it did not mend its nature simply because he used it; and he did not think it would improve his own.

  So there was wizardry, which Tristen had refused to teach him.

  Make me a wizard, he had asked. Or, had it been: Teach me wizardry?

  And Lord Tristen had said: You are not yet what you will be, and added, and I have been waiting for this question for longer than you know.

  3 9 3

  c. j. cherryh

  How did he hear that answer now, in light of what his captors had said he was?

  Teach you wizardry? He remembered Emuin saying that. Useless. Teach you magic? I cannot. No more can I teach any Sihhë what resides in his blood and bone.

  He had scorned the answer. He had disbelieved it.

  And he named you, Master Emuin had said of Lord Tristen. Then I sus -

  pect he did see what I see.

  And he had asked, disturbed: What did he see? What do you?

  A conjuring, Emuin had answered him. A Summoning that opens a door.

  What door? he had asked, straight back at Emuin. Make sense, please, sir!

  And Emuin:

  You govern what door, if you have the will. Do you have the will, Spider Prince?

  A chill ran through him, deep as bone, a chill that had him shaking in every limb. He looked down at his hand, where, forgotten, Lord Crissand’s ring shone in the firelight, dull silver, and festooned with cheap silverwork.