Fortress in the Eye of Time

“It’s a dangerous place.” Tasien’s irreverence dismayed him.

  He saw things that had no Words, no breath, no outlet, and he couldn’t warn them. “It’s where Hasufin died.”

  “And can stay dead,” Tasien said.

  “But he hasn’t, sir. He can reach here and perhaps not to other places, at least not so easily as this. The lord Regent knew that. He said that Hasufin could reach him wherever he was.

  He wished to be here.”

  “My lady,” Tasien said, “I’d ask some better proof than this man’s word.”

  “What can we prove? And what choice have I, my lord? Go back to Elwynor? To Aséyneddin?”

  “The lords in Elwynor would many of them rally to the Regent’s banner, my lady,—as they would have rallied to your lord father if he had stood fast and declared a rallying-point and not—not this war against ghosts, in hostile territory, without tents—without—hope. Lady, your lord father, whom 504

  I bore in all reverence, for whom I would have laid down my life, would not hear me. All of us that left our lands came here to die with him, or at least to prevent him from falling into hostile hands, but if you’ll only hear me, we can do more than that, by your will, and I beg you listen. Aséyneddin and his rebels do not have the other lords’ trust or their acceptance.

  Caswyddian has already raised another rebellion, against him.

  Elwynor will tear itself in pieces and Ylesuin will pick the bones if you do not go back, now. You are his invested heir. You have a duty, m’lady.”

  “Two lords in rebellion. And what can we bring to counter it? Thirty-three men? Thirty-three men who followed my father however strange his folly? An investiture only you and these men witnessed? Answer me this, Tasien! How many of the lords will follow me without demanding marriage to themselves or their sons? And how will that sit with their brother lords? I divide the realm only by existing.”

  There was brief silence.

  Then one said, “How many will follow you if you ally yourself with the Marhanen?”

  “Will you desert me? Will you, Haurydd? Or you, Ysdan?”

  “No,” one and the other said.

  “But,” the lady said, “can you make me lord Regent, and raise the standard in Elwynor, and make men rally to me without each seeking to be my husband? Here are three of you, all driven from your lands, all with wives and children at great risk.

  Where is my choice, m’lords? Tasien, you carried me on your back when I was little. Where can you carry me now?”

  “My gracious lady,” Tasien said, and gave a shake of his head.

  “Wherever you wish. You are the Regent. I would take you to a safe place, in Elwynor. I would send to reliable men. I would not see you risk the Marhanen’s land another day—let alone ask him for refuge. Choose a consort from among like-minded men, and we will go back into Elwynor and fight any rebels that come against you, to the last of us. Aséyneddin cannot hold his alliances together if we return.”

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  “And if Aséyneddin found us? And if anyone betrayed our whereabouts? Men die, who supported my father. Houses burn.

  Sheep are poisoned. You may be too high-placed for that, so far, but act against him and he will move against you. That is what he can do. But—more than that. There is this man—this visitor of ours, my lords,—”

  “You cannot believe him.”

  “No. No, Tasien,—I cannot deny my father’s witness. I cannot deny what I’ve seen. I cannot deny that there is magic in this place. I cannot say now that I should be Regent…or that there should be a Regency any longer at all. If my regency denies the King we’ve waited for, then—”

  “My lady, you cannot accept his claim. A man cannot ride up to us, rain-bedraggled, and claim to be the King.”

  “How else must he come, then?” Ninévrisë asked. “Ride out of Marna, with armies and trumpets? Rise out of the ground of Althalen? I don’t know, I don’t know! My father never told me how to know him. My father only told us in plain words that this is the King and he recognized him. I have just been to that magic place Father claimed. I have just seen this man look as he looked to me. What other sign am I supposed to expect?

  How am I supposed to decide? I need time—I need to know the truth! And if there is a chance in the Marhanen, I will try that chance before I leave this land.”

  “Are you,” lord Tasien asked him bluntly, “the King we look for?”

  “Sir, I never heard so from Mauryl,” he said truthfully, and did not add to their confusion the fact that he did not want to be a king, nor that Cefwyn, who had given him title to Ynefel, knew a great deal more of kings and claims to kingship. But he did not think that Cefwyn’s belief in him would allay their suspicions, rescue him, or move them all to a point of safety. An unbearable feeling of danger had begun to press on him, in their dispute, a smothering fear more acute than he had felt since Marna Wood, and he wanted their argument over, with whatever issue, and the old man settled safe under

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  stone—under stone!—where he wished to be. He wanted them away, as soon as they might.

  “We shall bury my father,” Ninévrisë said, “as he wished. Then we shall go to the Marhanen and ask for a treaty—by marriage if need be. By oath, if we can secure it.”

  “His father has just died,” Tasien cried, “at the hands of Elwynim!”

  “So has mine! ” Ninévrisë said sharply, “at the hands of gods know what, in this land of his, because of the same rebels who killed his father, and I will ride to the Marhanen and have a treaty or a fight of it! Does not the gods’ law protect messengers?

  I am my father’s messenger from his deathbed, and I shall have the answer to my suit or I shall have war, sirs!”

  “Gods save us, then,” Tasien said.

  “The Marhanen will see me. He will deal fairly with me. My lord of Ynefel swears that he will. Does he not?”

  “I shall ask him to,” Tristen said. “He is my friend.”

  “And of course this is our King,” Tasien said, “who cedes Ynefel to his master the King of Ylesuin and takes it back again in fief—gods have mercy, m’lady! A friend of the Marhanen?

  This is a man owing homage to the Marhanen! Ask him!”

  “Are you?” Ninévrisë asked, looking at Tristen. “Have you sworn homage to him?”

  “I swore to defend Cefwyn and to be his friend.”

  There was heavy silence in the tent. The men were not at all pleased, and did not intend to accept him, he was certain; but he would not lie to the lady, who would know the truth in that gray place—he at least had no skill to deceive her.

  “Gentle lords,” Ninévrisë said, “at least let us try. Shall we sit here until they find us?”

  “This is madness,” Tasien said.

  “So you called my father mad,” Ninévrisë said, “yet you loved him with all your hearts. You came here to die for him notwith-standing your own lands, your own wives, your own children.

  I shall not lead you all back to Elwynor only to die, m’lords. I have another choice. I can seek alliance…”

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  “With the Marhanen! Gods save us, my lady.”

  “I will not see your heads on Ilefínian’s gates, sirs! Nor will I marry Aséyneddin! You cannot ask that of me!”

  “Will you marry this wandering fool and beg the lords of Elwynor swear oaths to the Marhanen? That is what they seem to suggest!”

  “Have respect!” Ninévrisë said. “Have respect for my father, Tasien, if not for me. Lower your voices! Is the whole camp to hear?”

  “Lord Tasien,” Tristen said quietly, overwhelmed with anxiety, though he feared that his suggesting anything at the moment was a cause for them to oppose it. “Sir, we are under threat, of wizardry if you call it that. This place feels worse and worse to me.—Lady, if your lord father can do anything, I think we should do exactly what he said, and soon.”

  “Do we speak of wizardry?” the lord called Haurydd asked.

  “Is t
hat what we have to hope for?”

  “Yes, sir. So did the lord Regent hope for it. And if we wait we may lose all the hope he had. We should bury him and leave here.”

  “My father,” Ninévrisë said, “warned us against going outside these walls after dark.”

  “Yes, if there were safety to be had inside. But this place is losing its safety, as Ynefel became unsafe. I do feel so. We should go. Leave the wagon. There is no way to take it. There are men searching for me. There must be. We can find them on the road and they will protect us.”

  “Run like thieves, you mean. To Marhanen men.”

  “Sir, this is very serious. You should do what the Regent asked.

  There is danger.”

  “Read me no lessons in my lord’s service. And we can afford the decency of daylight,” Tasien said angrily, “for a man who, if you are our King, may have kept your throne safe, sir, little though you may love me for saying it and little though I think there is any likelihood.”

  “Tasien!” the lady said.

  “My lady, I do not respect him. I do not respect a soft-handed 508

  man who bears every insult. He agrees to everything. He has no authority but his orders to bring us into ambush. Perhaps there is some sort of protection in this ruin. He certainly urges us away as hard as he can!”

  “We must go, sir.” Arguments could easily confuse him. Words betrayed him. And danger was coming closer, a threat that distracted him, a threat changing and growing by the moment, as if the venture of himself and the lady into that gray place had attracted unwelcome attention, and now it had turned toward them and come to do them harm. Besides the prowling of the Shadows, there had arisen a sound, a thumping in the earth that reminded him most of horses. “For all our sakes, Lord Tasien.”

  “Tasien,” the lady said, “we shall go. We shall bury my father, and we shall go as he says, to speak to Cefwyn Marhanen.”

  “This man will not fight your enemies!” Tasien said. “Is this a king? Is this the King we have waited for?”

  “Sir.” Tristen looked Lord Tasien square in the face. “I am not afraid of you. I do fear for you.”

  Tasien stared back at him, and the anger seemed to desert him for a different expression—almost. “If we go, then we shall have you for a Hostage, lord of Ynefel. If Cefwyn does not respect a Truce, and attacks our lady, I will kill you myself.”

  The Words made sense, and offered a way out of this place, both practical and frightening. “If it pleases you, Lord Tasien, and if it please the lady, and if we can leave this place, I have no fear of giving you such a promise.”

  “I thought,” Emuin said, his fist firmly about a cup of mulled wine. “I have thought about it and thought about it, m’lord King, and, though in my earliest youth I saw all the royal house of the Sihhë and knew their faces, and, more, knew them in ways a wizard knows—I had no impression I knew the lad. It worried me that night I first saw him and realized 509

  what he was: I told myself that of all the dead souls at Althalen Mauryl might have chosen, he could well have chosen Elfwyn’s true brother Aswyn, who died at birth—as a natural restraint upon the one who had that body…”

  “We know that story,” Cefwyn said impatiently. They were upstairs in his apartments. Idrys stood with his shoulder against the door, making certain there were no eavesdroppers even among the trusted guards. “This is not Elfwyn. Nor any stillborn babe. He is skilled in the sword and horsemanship, which I do not think comes in the cradle. The name, old master. Favor me with the name, no other, no explanations, no long narrative.”

  “Plainly,—Barrakkêth, m’lord Prince.—M’lord King.” Emuin was more disturbed than he had ever seen the old man. “The founder of his line. Or one of his cousins. I do believe so.”

  “A fair guess,” Idrys said from across the room. “A name that can be written. You could have spared a messenger to say so before now.”

  “Peace, sirs.” Cefwyn grew more than impatient. “We knew at Emwy he was no scholar-king. But whence this? Tristen is not cold hearted, nor self-seeking, nor a wanton killer. Barrakkêth was. Why Barrakkêth?”

  “Mauryl did not like your grandfather.”

  It was like the turns of Tristen’s speech: it startled him into laughter. “None of us liked my grandfather. My grandmother never liked my grandfather. Tell me something more dire than that, sir! Where is your proof? Prove to me your notion!”

  “To Mauryl, the Marhanen as successors to the Sihhë were a choice of chance, at best. The Marhanen were there to take advantage of the situation, but your grandfather was very uneasy with Mauryl. Remember that Mauryl was not of this age, not of whatever blood men share. He had no loyalties even to the Galasieni, who were supposedly his people. Elfwyn’s father had besought—call it the gods, the gods some Sihhë worshipped if they worshipped any at all—to raise his stillborn son. The blood had run very thin by that time, and

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  Elfwyn’s father certainly couldn’t have raised the dead. Except—he opened a door. As ’t were. To a dead wizard.”

  “Hasufin Heltain,” Idrys supplied, and Emuin cast him a troubled look.

  “We have had to seek our own answers,” Cefwyn said. His leg was paining him, acutely, he was peevish, and trying to be patient. “Many of which, it seems, are on the mark, master Emuin. Go on, sir, don’t dole it out like alms. Give me your reasoning. Tell me what you fear happened at Althalen, and why this is Barrakkêth.”

  “Young King, Mauryl fought this wizard in Galasien. Mauryl chose in Barrakkêth and his cousins an agency of destruction so ruthless—so ruthless—there is a Galasite word for it…so lacking in attachment. Yet honest. Mauryl did call him honest. He contended with wizards by magic—magic, not wizardry, mark you—and with men with the sword. I don’t know why. Mauryl said they were not Men as we understand Men to be. The true Sihhë had an innate, untaught power that would not be deterred.

  What the true Sihhë willed, so I understand, and am beginning to fear, wizardry does not easily prevent.”

  “A god,” Idrys said dryly, arms folded, and walked back to stand at the tableside. “You describe a god, master grayfrock.”

  “Something very like.” Emuin’s voice was hoarse. He had a large gulp of the heated wine. “Something far too like, for my taste. And the Quinalt and its witch-hunting have been too thorough in their hunt for wizards. There are few wizards left worth the name, m’lord King. There is no one to contain either Hasufin or Barrakkêth.”

  “Oh, come now,” Cefwyn said. He had until then been concerned, but drew a longer and easier breath, and massaged the fevered wound in his upper leg. “Our Tristen? A ravening monster? I think not.”

  “Ask Barrakkêth’s enemies.”

  “Idrys tracked a Hasufin Heltain through generations of musty chronicles. And found a Hasufin in the royal family. So 511

  what did become of him? Is he still alive? Or haunting Althalen—or what?”

  “My lord, I killed that child, I, myself, at Mauryl’s behest. I killed Hasufin’s last mortal shape.” The old man rocked to and fro in discomfort and had another large drink, the last. “Do you suppose, m’lord King, there is anything left in the pot?”

  Emuin—kill a child? “Idrys,” Cefwyn said, feeling a chill himself, and Idrys looked, filled another goblet, poured more wine into the pot and swung it further out over the fire to warm.

  Emuin took a sip, seeming as glad to warm his hands as his insides. He looked frail tonight. His skin was pale and thin, his lately drenched hair and beard were drying in wisps of white.

  His shoulders had grown very thin.

  I dare not lose him, Cefwyn thought. I dare not. “And what,”

  he asked Emuin, determined to unravel the matter, “what, precisely, was Mauryl’s judgment on Elfwyn? Was it his father’s sin? Was it retribution?”

  “It was simple fear, my lord King. Fear not only of Hasufin, dreadful enough, but the union of Hasufin’s very great wizardry and the innate Sihh
ë magic, dilute as it had grown by that day.

  No one could predict what would happen—with a wizard potent enough to bring himself back from death, joined to a Sihhë body.

  One simply didn’t know.”

  “One thought you priests knew such things to a fare-thee-well,”

  Idrys said.

  “My lord King, I will not bear with his humor. I do not think I have deserved this. This is difficult enough to explain.”

  “You might have been here,” Idrys said sharply.

  Emuin clamped his lips tight. “Aye, that I might, and added my bit to the brew. You might have been very sorry, Lord Commander, if I had swayed to the left or the right the force that Mauryl had set on course. His spell was still Summoning, still is, sir. I warned you of it, and I would not to this day put my meager working in the path of that force, 512

  no more than I would tamper with a river in flood without knowing what lay downstream—which is the difference between myself and those that meddle with things they do not understand, sir, as is the habit of some people I could name!”

  “Peace, peace, good gods, I had forgot the sound of you both under one roof.” Cefwyn poured his own wine from a pitcher on the table, unmulled and untampered-with, and hoped for surcease of the ache in his leg that now beat in time with the ache in his skull. “So you don’t know, in sum, what we are dealing with.”

  “I have had years to think on it.”

  “More years than most, as a matter of curiosity,” Idrys said.

  “Peace! Damn you, Idrys, let us have his account undiverted.”

  “Tristen is at Althalen,” Emuin said.

  “You are certain of that.”

  “I am certain. So, in a wizardly sense, is Hasufin. And something—let loose as a consequence of his dealing. I don’t like to think of it. Quickly! Ask me another question!”

  “The same question! What did Mauryl intend? What are we dealing with? Why Barrakkêth?”

  “The same answer, my lord King: the Sihhë were Mauryl’s choice to succeed the folk of Galasien, nine hundred years ago.