Fortress of Dragons

  Not even Hasufin Heltain had compassed it…only listened to its whispers and its unreasoning reason. What would a man need with the whole world? What would a man need with absolute power?

  If he could understand that, he thought he might understand his enemy, and how Hasufin had fallen to him.

  “M’lord.” Tassand was brisk and cheerful, arriving in the room, disturbing his thoughts as freely as if something good had happened. “M’lord! Lord Crissand’s back. He’s here.”

  “Is he?” Tristen reached on the instant for the gray space and restrained himself from that folly. “Where is he?”

  But in that moment Crissand answered his question by appearing behind Tassand in the short foyer. Dark-haired Amefin, and dour as the Amefin could be, Crissand was all fair skies and brave ventures on most days…but now he was muddy, travel-worn, and exhausted.

  “My lord,” Crissand said in a thread of a voice.

  “Sit down,” Tristen urged him, and scurrying about at the back of his mind was the realization that Crissand was never yet a presence in the gray space: he simply could not find him; and had not found him, even with him here, in the same room. That alarmed him. “Tassand, hot tea and bricks.”

  Crissand had surely come straight up from his arrival, coming to him still in mud-flecked boots, lacking a cloak which might have been sorrier than the boots, and all but out of strength.

  “Forgive me. Forgive me, my lord. I knew before I was the first night on the road that I was doing something foolish.”

  “Where were you?” Crissand was a candleflame of a wizard as yet, and he had known and Master Emuin had known where Crissand was…but not precisely where he was.

  But still not to know where he was when he was in the same room with him: that was the inconceivable thing.

  He searched with great care, investigated more and more of the gray space in concern for Crissand’s welfare, and at last found a very quiet, very small presence, all wrapped in on itself, all knotted up and resisting.

  In that condition, Crissand had ridden home again, through this weather.

  “I thought it better for Amefel,” Crissand said in the voice he had left, “if I went to Lord Drusenan and spoke to him directly.”

  It was a minuscule part of the reason Crissand had gone and a minuscule part of what must have sent him back in such a state, but at least it was a start on the rest of the tale, and now that he was safe and here, Tristen was willing to use infinite patience. He sat down opposite Crissand beside the warm fire, waiting for the part that might explain why Crissand had left on such a journey on the night his remote cousins—and Drusenan’s—had suddenly turned up destitute, escaped from Guelen vengeance, one of them with child…and both of them breaking the terms of their exile.

  He understood entirely what Crissand had likely wanted to do, which was to set distance between himself and Orien Aswydd. He even understood why Crissand had gone to speak to the new Lord Bryn, successor to the man who had done so much harm to Crissand’s father and his people. But the silence in the gray space even now kept Crissand at distance from him, and he waited to hear those reasons from Crissand’s own lips.

  And waited, and waited. The silence went on between them what seemed an eternity; so he ventured his own opening.

  “So did you make peace with Drusenan?” Tristen asked.

  “With a will.” Crissand seemed relieved to be asked that question and not others: his whole body relaxed toward his habitual easy grace…but that motion ended in a wince, an injury he had not made otherwise evident. “He was as glad as I was, to settle all grudges. He wasn’t glad to hear the news about Lady Orien and her sister being here. He’s not her man. We agreed together, that our quarrel is all with Cuthan, across the river, and I know now in my own heart and for certain he’s not Cuthan’s man, nor ever was or will be. He received me very graciously, he and his lady.”

  Crissand finished. The silence resumed.

  Then with a deep breath, Crissand added, “My lord, my patient, good lord, I should have asked leave, considering the state of things. Other men come and go. But you’ve given me duties; I thought I was seeing to those duties—I persuaded myself I was doing that—but before I was halfway to Modeyneth I knew I was a fool.”

  “I would have granted leave for you to go anywhere. But you left without your guard, and without my hearing you. You were a night on the road before I knew you were gone,” Tristen said, “and then I dared not call you too loudly, not with the Aswydds so close. If theyurged you to do such a thing, they were very quiet about it.”

  “I’d do nothing they asked!”

  “If you knew they asked it.”

  Crissand was silent, and troubled of countenance, thinking on that, and at no time had he unfurled from the tight, small presence he was.

  “I searched for you,” Tristen said.

  “I didn’t hear you, my lord. Unless you were telling me I was a fool—I knew before the night was half-done that that was the truth. I came the rest of the way to my senses when the sun came up and I was trying to find the road in the snowfall. But by then I realized Modeyneth was hardly over the next hill, and my poor horse couldn’t have carried me back without foundering. So I went ahead, hoping to borrow a horse, and I presented myself to Lord Drusenan. I wanted to bring you some profit for my foolishness.”

  “I needed no gifts,” Tristen said. “I need nothing but your loyalty—and your safety.”

  It was not his intent to cause pain, only to urge caution, but Crissand’s color rose and he looked away, surely knowing how he had risked all that they hoped to accomplish.

  But it was not just foolishness, and that he had somehow to make Crissand understand…and that he could not avow a clear reason for his actions made a frighteningly clear sense, for Crissand had ridden out in the very hour the Aswydd sisters had ridden into Henas’ amef, and while on the one hand he did not know what exact thought had seized Crissand to send him out, he was as sure now as he was sure of the next sunrise that Crissand’s actions had directly to do with the sisters’ arrival, and all of it directly to do with the currents in the magical wind—for Crissand was Aswydd.

  And Crissand being Aswydd, head of that lineage in Henas’ amef until Orien set foot in the town, he had a strong sense for those currents in the wind. He might have left under direct urging of his own wizard-gift, protecting him or leading him astray…completely without understanding it, completely without directing it.

  It was no straight course—the last lord of Bryn, Earl Cuthan, who had betrayed Crissand’s father, was Orien Aswydd’s man, exiled now and the lands gone to Lord Drusenan, but Cuthan was in Elwynor—in Elwynor, where their enemy sat.

  And with Orien back under the roof where she had been duchess of Amefel, small wonder if that presence stirred the winds of the gray space, and small wonder a man with the gift had done reckless acts, not knowing why they did them. That Crissand had rushed in some direction was entirely understandable.

  But that it was toward Bryn, and toward Elwynor, and that, in the gray space, Crissand remained that tight, unassailable ball…that alarmed him.

  To their mutual relief, Tassand brought the tea, and made some little ado over it. One of the servants pulled a heated brick from the hearth, and Crissand set one booted, sodden foot on it and tucked the other against it for the warmth.

  “You might do with dry boots,” Tristen said. “You’ve not yet been home?”

  “I met with my guard on the road. They know; they’ve passed the word to my household. But no, I came straight here.”

  “Tassand, send a page for another pair of His Grace’s boots. And tell his servants make his bed ready.”

  “Yes, m’lord.” Tassand was off, at a good clip.

  “So tell me what you did,” Tristen said then, and bent another small thought into the gray space. Still it told him nothing. But his eyes had seen. “You’re hurt.”

  “Nothing mortal.”

  “A fall?”

/>   “Elwynim. I—” Crissand took a sip of the tea and his hands shook. “I should set it out in order.”

  “Do,” Tristen urged him.

  “I left without a word to my guard—just rode away from the camp in the night. And I rode, as I’ve told you—I reached Modeyneth…I think sometime after midday, by the time I dealt with the drifts. I took a light meal. I met with Lord Drusenan—that was a long matter; but he was gracious—more than gracious. I slept only a few hours, then left my horse there and took another, by his good will, his best and favorite…I owe him the worth of that beast. And I was coming home, as soon as I could, my lord. I took your warning about venturing into the wizard-place, and I feared to try to reach you there, but I knew I’d been a fool, and I feared that concern for a fool might divert you from far more important matters. I’m sorry, my lord. I can’t express how I regret it.”

  Tristen reached again for that knotted presence, touched it briefly, felt it contract, flinching from that contact. “But the wound,” he said. “The Elwynim.”

  “The roads are drifted worse to the north than here. And in the blowing snow and the evening light, I saw riders. I thought at first they were yours, or maybe my own, as did happen, but later than this. When I saw these men…they weren’t coming on the road at all, and I knew all the border was at risk, so I held back, and saw them go toward the open land and toward Althalen, where Lord Drusenan told me Aeself has his men under arms day and night—Drusenan says—says the same way Aeself and his men crossed without the garrison seeing, over to the rough hills to the north and east, other men come that way, intent on spying out whatever they can see, just looking about and hoping to find a weakness. So I knew this. I hid. I could see them very clearly, just at the edge of night as it was…”

  “And they were Elwynim?”

  “No doubt,” Crissand said. “They came across my tracks in the snow. I saw them look around. I had to judge whether to run back for Drusenan’s holding or ahead to home, and I ran for home, because I didn’t know but that more had come in behind me. I took one arrow, shallow, no great injury; Drusenan’s horse will carry a scar worse than that, and still carried me, brave fellow that he is. The snow was coming down again, and with the dark and the trees, they seemed to lose me, by then, I had to wait a time, for the horse’s sake, and then I waited a little longer to be sure I didn’t run back into them by mistake, because by then I wasn’t completely sure where I was. I moved a very little, until dawn, in what I thought was the right direction, but without the stars and with the snow coming down I couldn’t tell what was the right way even after I came on the road again. But when the sun came up I had my bearings again and I’d chosen right. Then I met up with my guard, who was out searching for me. And we talked about going back to catch the band that shot at me. But my captain persuaded me we might risk telling them more than we might learn if we lost a man.”

  “You were right to retreat.”

  Crissand ducked his head and sipped his tea, two-handed, exhausted, and still withdrawn from him.

  “So I came home. My guard at least had the foresight to bring provisions, and I think the horse will be as good as he was; but I never thought to use him so, or to stir up so much trouble. Now the Elwynim know they’re seen. I might have managed far more cleverly than that…”

  “Yet we do know they’re inquiring of the state of affairs here for themselves, which may mean that they’re not hearing all they’d wish from the villagers. That’s good news.”

  “Yet I am ashamed of what I did.”

  “Why did you do it? Because I took in Lady Orien? Was that it?”

  He asked, no longer believing that that was the answer, but it was a place to start. The answer was not immediate, and Crissand did not immediately meet his eyes, but took another sip, and gazed across the ornate chamber, with its green velvet draperies and brazen dragons.

  “My father died in this room, my lord, of Orien Aswydd’s poison. It appears I have the wizard-gift, and if that’s what sends me dreams, my lord, I could wish it gone, but while I have it—while I have it, I beg my lord not to trust that woman.”

  “It takes no wizard-gift to see harm in Orien Aswydd. I assure you I do.”

  “I was halfway to Modeyneth before I knew the thing I feared most was not her under this roof, but my lord in these rooms within her reach. And then I wished twice over that I were back here.”

  Never had he doubted Crissand’s heart in his disappearance—but in his silence he found very much to concern him. In very truth, as he had told Crissand himself when he had been the one riding off northward and Crissand had protested it, wizard-gift never left them out of reach of one another…or it should not have.

  Yet Crissand had crept up on him, even in the hall a few moments ago, following Tassand in. He had grown accustomed to knowing just who moved where in the Zeide, and few could surprise him…except Emuin.

  Except, just now, Crissand, who huddled in the corners of the gray space, seeking utter anonymity, even from him: Crissand, who had found in the gray space that which he could not face.

  But he hushed all use of the gift, himself, for he began to suspect what was at least the source of Crissand’s fear—for as Crissand had been deaf to his gift before he came, now he increasingly did hear; and now came two women, his enemies, with wizard-gift and hostility toward him. Nothing was coincidence in wizardry. Wizardry thrived on accidents and moments of panic fear or happy recklessness.

  And something had found a gap in their defenses, and in his, and in Crissand’s.

  “When the gift begins to Unfold,” he said gently to Crissand, “it’s hard to find one’s balance. It was dangerous for you to ride out. But it was dangerous for you to stay here with the gift Unfolding and Unfolding with no end to it. There was a time I took Petelly and did something very like.”

  Crissand looked at him, questioning that, hoping for respect, perhaps.

  “Too,” Tristen said, “you were amazingly quiet. Master Emuin is no quieter. I never heard you, and I hear most things.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Crissand said. “But I took care you didn’t hear, my lord. I stole away like a thief in the night and without a word, and I take no honor from that.”

  “Yet it’s a skill.”

  “None I can claim for an honor, my lord. And if things were going wrong, I failed to ask those who might know.” Crissand held the teacup still in both hands, his fingers white on its curve. “I feared being here, I feared going, and I was on the road before I thought my way through it. Then I could have come back, but I hadn’t a thought in my head until morning. I don’t to this hour know why I went in the first place.”

  “I do,” Tristen said quietly. “That’s the simplest thing of all to answer.”

  “My lord?”

  “Danger entered the house—and having the gift, you moved. The gift moves you. It’s wizardry. That’s what it is.”

  “To be on the road to Bryn before I had my wits clear? To be such a fool? Is that wizardry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Master Emuin didn’t take horse in the middle of the night.”

  “He might have, once, when he was new to it. I’ve been such a fool,” Tristen said, “very often, in the beginning. At times I found myself in very unlikely places…the guardhouse at the stable-court gate, for one: Her Grace’s camp for another, and in the next moment surrounded by her soldiers, which led me to think I’d been a very great fool. Things Unfold. Wizardry moved you, beyond your thinking about it. My wish brought you back, perhaps, and not against your will, but perhaps faster than you needed come. Perhaps it governed your choice which way to ride and when to leave. I wished you safe at the same time I wished you back, and then I feared—too late—that my very wish might put you in danger. You see? You aren’t the only fool. I regret Lord Drusenan’s horse. I wish the horse well, with all my might.”

  “Thank you for that, my lord. I’ll return him with one of my father’s best mares, and my
utmost gratitude; but if you have a hand in it, then he’ll mend better than he was foaled.”

  “I hope that’s so,” he said. “I hope the arrow troubles you little. I wish you might let Emuin see it.”

  “It’s nothing,” Crissand said, and flushed, even while he put a hand to the wound. “It’s nothing at all.”

  Yet the fear persisted, the retreat within the gray space. Nothing they had said had drawn Crissand out of it.

  “Yet it is something,” Tristen said. “It’s a warning. But don’t think it was all Orien’s doing. Wizardry isn’t anyone’s. It’s patterns. There and here are the same thing. Now and then are the same thing—left and right to the same design.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why did you go to Drusenan?”

  Crissand blinked.

  “Why to Drusenan,” Tristen asked, “and not to, say, Levey, or somewhere within your own lands?”

  Crissand shook his head slowly. “It seemed that was where I had to go.”

  “So we look instead for those who might have sent you there,” Tristen said. “Emuin might have had something to do with your going there. I might. For that matter, Paisi has the gift, and Cevulirn. Even Drusenan himself does, though very little; and certainly Lady Orien and Lady Tarien have gift enough, but I doubt Drusenan was in their thoughts at all. You didn’t fall in a ditch in the drifts and you escaped alive, and you come back with news about Tasmôrden’s movements, which is something we all desire. So however it was—it wasn’t that bad a venture.”

  A wry smile touched Crissand’s mouth, and that knot in the gray eased the slightest hint. “As always, my lord sees the pure snow, not the mire.”

  “I see the mud, too. But it’s the snow that’s marvelous. Isn’t it? I see the mud, and the ill my wishes can cause; but I wish better than that.—Yet leave wishing to me. I ask you believe me in this, and think about it at your leisure: what brought me to Henas’ amef isn’t a little pattern, and that means a great many men move to it. All the lords camped outside the walls, and Lady Orien in her nunnery before it burned, and Cuthan and all the rest…Everything. Everything is in the pattern around me, for good for ill, help or harm. My coming here—harmed your household. It was nothing I wished. But it happened.”