He had not anticipated to be so well pleased in dealing with Ryssand. He had been grudging with Ryssand, then enthusiastic; he thought it a masterful use of persuasion. In the end, he hoped Ryssand had believed desperation had made them allies, and that if Ryssand was the traitor he thought, Ryssand would lie abed tonight smug in the belief he had gotten what he wanted and that revenge for his ox of a son was not so distant.
Cefwyn had not expected to find it so, but with the council disposed of, under the weight of thick blankets, under canvas in comfort, while many of the men slept triple and quadruple in their tents, and with the day’s difficulties past, he heaved a deep sigh and found himself freed of his concerns of time and place and treachery. He let his imaginings drift southward and west to more pleasant thoughts and safer places.
He wondered what Ninévrisë thought tonight and whether she was asleep…whether the gift she had could make her aware of his thinking of her. Some claimed to know when a loved one was in difficulty, or when some great thing had happened completely over the horizon—so the peasants thought, at least, and them good Quinalt men.
Could not a true wizard-gift manage as much?
I love you, he said to the dark.
She was with Emuin, and master grayrobe would have his ear to the earth for very certain: his ear to the earth and his eyes to the sky for portents or whatever wizards looked for. If there was a magical breath stirring in the world, Emuin might know it, and pass it to Ninévrisë. He himself might be as deaf as his horse to such whispers out of the winds. But in the Zeide wizards and wizardry were constantly aware what went on. The old man likely knew exactly where Tristen was tonight, and where he was: that he was deaf to wizard-work might not help a wizard find him, but it had never seemed to hinder the ones he knew, either.
Had Ninévrisë met Tarien Aswydd? Almost certainly. He ached to think how she would have to face his cast-off lover and an unacknowledged child.
And when Ninévrisë and Tarien had met, had there been warfare? He imagined it, at least, but told himself Emuin would mute the quarrel and keep knives from the midst of it.
Might Ninévrisë forgive her? There was a question, too. He thought she might, for Ninévrisë could be astonishingly generous, but he feared that generosity.
And was Ninévrisë with child? He was sure of it as he was sure nothing else would have persuaded her to leave him. She was with child…gods help them both…for nothing wizards had a hand in could proceed without convolutions and calamities.
Her child…Tarien’s son…both his. He deserved the consequences of his own folly, but he had never thought a bastard or two mattered; he had never counted on loving the woman he married, or loving the offspring he had—how could he have planned on it? The mother of his son was supposed to have been Luriel, and that Luriel might take exception to his sleeping elsewhere had simply been a quarrel to save for the right moment in the perpetual warfare of a state marriage.
He thanked all the gods he had escaped Luriel of Murandys.
And he wished to the good gods he had not taken to the Aswydd twins to spite Luriel, to set her in her place as one woman among his many.
Folly, folly, utter folly, and the result of it reached Ninévrisë, at Tristen’s sending, of all unlikely sources. When he had gotten Tarien Aswydd a son he had not even known Tristen’s name, nor met the woman he would truly marry.
And on that thought he heaved himself onto his other side.
An object slid atop the bedclothes.
He blinked, eased the covers off his arm, and reached for it.
His hand met a well-worn hilt, a scabbard, and a small roll of some sort attached to it.
His heart skipped a beat. Whatever it meant, it was not his, and it likely was not his guards’.
Who had come so close while he drowsed? How had a sheathed dagger gotten atop his covers while he lay protected by four trusted guards, one at each corner of his tent?
It was stealth bordering on wizard-work, but he could not account for it. If Ryssand or one of Ryssand’s men had gotten in, why should they forbear killing him? In the battle there was far less certainty.
Whatever it was, there was not a light to be had in the tent; and he rolled out of bed and went out to his guard. “Bring a torch,” he said, and waited with his hands on that leather-bound hilt and the small tight roll of paper. The hilt was cross-laced. It came to him even as he held it in his hands that he knew this dagger, having seen it day after day.
At Idry’s belt.
And was Idrys back? And was this some ill-timed jest at his expense?
Where are you? he asked the unresponsive air. Damn you, what game is this?
Surely, surely Idrys had left him this grim gift, and no enemy had done it: no one could have taken it from Idrys, surely not.
But if Idrys was back in camp—why not stay for questions? What in very hell was this nonsense of daggers and messages?
The guard brought a torch to the door, not inside, beneath the canvas. But even at that range the light confirmed what his fingers knew, that it was Idrys’ dagger.
He had to step outside into the full torchlight to read the crabbed small note tied to the hilt.
My lord king, it began, and that was indeed Idrys. She is safe. The south has crossed the Lenúalim. Keep your own counsel. Ryssand is not the only danger. Someone within the inmost circles, yours or mine, intends to batray us. Be sure I am near, but say nothing regarding me. I fear lest we make this person desperate.
Is that all? he asked his Lord Commander in silence. He was indignant, wildly angry with the man.
Standing at the door of his tent, blinded by the torchlight, he looked outward into a circle of bleached canvas, all of which informed him nothing, none of which revealed a traitor in his councils.
Was it one he had already excluded? Or was it one he still trusted?
Is that all you can say, crow?
Gods, give me more than this!
—Oh, gods, what have I said in council—and to which of my trusted officers?
CHAPTER 5
They marched, an army now, and gathered scattered bands from woods and hills as they came. “The King!” the newcomers shouted, undeniable in Auld Syes’ declaration and the witness of the Shadows that moved with them, a waft of wind, a chill and a movement in thickets.
Two boys, Elwynim peasant lads in ragged clothes, armed with makeshift spears, joined them from across a meadow, knelt briefly in the grass to profess their allegiance, and ran to join the beckoning troop that marched beside the lords’ guards: Aeself marshaled them, an unruly mob in some part, but Aeself’s men rode in order, and instructed the newcomers, nothing more than how to stand in a line if they brought shields or pikes or instructions to shoot from the woods if they brought bows: most of all Aeself instructed them to respect the red bands and make no mistake in it.
Tristen had refused the honor they gave: to Crissand and Cevulirn and Umanon, riding beside him, he said, “I don’t wish it. But I fear wishing against it…I daren’t. Can you understand?”
Umanon blessed himself with a gesture, a Quinalt man, and solid in that faith, like Efanor, clearly wishing not to think about it.
Cevulirn said, “Auld Syes has always told us some form of the truth. But that, you’d know better than I, Lord of Althalen. And I’d not go against her.”
No longer did Cevulirn call him Amefel: he had made that Crissand’s honor, and given that banner and the Amefin Guard into Crissand’s command, while he took command of all the army—not because he wanted it, but because if magic favorable to him was flowing that direction, he dared not refuse it. “I wish Cefwyn well,” Tristen said under his breath, with as much force as he could put into the wish: for he felt an abiding fear now, the sense that something weighty resisted him. He wished Cefwyn well hourly, when circumstances allowed him; he did it mindfully and fiercely, but all the while feared making Cefwyn so evidently the center of his thoughts…and that…that was a dangerous fear in itself.
Magic worked to advance Tasmôrden’s cause, but magic resisted his own will as nature never had: it was wild and unpredictable, shifting its center moment by moment, as if he contested right of way with someone in a narrow hall. Every move found a counter. It was like swordwork.
It was not like Hasufin at all.
This other thing reached into the world…not everywhere, but at Ilefínian; and, if he sent his senses abroad, from several other discrete points in the map, south and west, and over toward Ynefel, and south toward Henas’amef, and east again, toward Guelemara, and the altar he had set Efanor to ward…he felt not a scattered assault, but a simultaneous one, as if something vast struggled to escape. Force skipped and the thrust against those scattered portals, a force changing direction by the moment, able to do this, do that, change footing, no consulting its charts and awaiting its proper moment.
In the haste and confusion of Unfolding world he had not early on noticed a difference in the effort it took him to do things, or known why some things worked easily and some eluded him with unpredictable result. It was like Paisi, whose young legs darted up stairs without thinking: it was easy for Paisi, so he did it: but Emuin, aching in every bone, planned his trips on the stairs carefully and begrudged every one.
Magic was easy for him. Everything had been easy for him in Ynefel. Think! Mauryl had had to tell him. Flesh as well as spirit! Don’t let one fly without the other!
Mauryl had pinned him to earth, and made him do things the slow, the thoughtful way. Emuin had taught him to reckon his way through difficulties, how to govern Men without wishing them capriciously one way or the other…how to deal with friends, and how to have Men of free will about him: that was the greatest gift, greater than life itself.
What must it have been for a wizard like Mauryl, bound to times and seasons, to try to teach such a creature as he was? I never know what you’ll take in your head to do, Mauryl had complained to him, and now he understood that saying, that it was not just running naked in the storm on the parapet, but willing and wishing and having his own way.
What must it have been to try to teach one ready to wish this and wish that, a dozen spells in a day, and power Unfolding to him by the day and the moment, events tumbling one over the other? A passing moth had been as fascinating to him as a lightning stroke, and when he wanted something, tides flowed through the gray space that he had not yet perceived existed: to him in those days, the world had drowned all his senses in color and taste and noise.
Flesh as well as spirit, Mauryl had taught him…and that spirit in him was a perilous spirit, and able to do things Mauryl could not possibly prevent, breaking into utter, reckless, joyous, ignorant freedom.
But could magic work harm?
Oh, easily.
He wanted advice. He wanted someone to tell him the right way.
—Auld Syes, he called, for he dared not reach to Emuin. He reached out in an instant of fear and uncertainty, and a blast of wind came up in their faces and out of nowhere. Dys came up on his hind legs. Horses shied off from it.
And when Dys came down on all fours and danced forward, a gray old woman walked between him and Crissand.
“Grandmother,” Crissand whispered to her.
“Auld Syes,” Tristen said. “What is this thing in Ilefínian?”
Auld Syes was gone before he had quite finished saying it, but streaks ran through the meadow ahead, and in the gray space a storm broke, sweeping the pearl gray cloud into slate-colored strands.
There Auld Syes stood, assailed by the winds, and attempting to hold her place.
There Owl flew, scarcely maintaining against the gale.
—So, said a voice that sent shivers of ice through the air. Mauryl’s Shaping. So, so, so, come ahead.
He had never met the like, and yet it seemed he might have dreamed it, long, long ago, a Wind that rattled the shutters and set the faces in Ynefel’s walls to moaning.
—Mauryl’s enemy, he surmised. Not Hasufin this time.
—Hasufin, the Wind scoffed. Hasufin the bodiless. Hasufin who has no shape, nor life, nor wit. I’ve missed Mauryl, and lo! He sent me a surrogate.
A presence flew near him. Owl settled on his shoulder. Auld Syes, her substance streaming gray threads, ar rived on his other side, his guides, the defenders of wizardry and magic.
—You were at Ynefel, Tristen said. And you are not Hasufin.
—Oh, names, names, names. Names have no power. Places have none. I have many Places.
Mauryl had despaired of his Summoning’s actions, and warded the windows, and warded his dreams and nights as well, with especial care.
—Feared you? the Wind mocked his thoughts. Oh, with great reason Mauryl feared you. Afraid, are you? Afraid to draw breath? Afraid you’ll break these fragile things?
In his unfettered anger was the terror of any soul who could rend its protectors and its home apart. He posed a fearful danger to those he loved. And Mauryl had held him, restrained him, taught him, and kept him out of the world long enough, as long as Mauryl’s strength lasted.
—And what have you done since? the Wind asked him. Wished this, wished that, turned a king of men to your bidding, all to bring you here, to me? Do you value him? I think you do..
—Leave him be!
—Can you bid me? I think not. Hasufin thought he could bid me. Mauryl brought the Sihhë out of their retreat, and last of all brought you…only one, this time. The old man was at the end of his strength, and Hasufin’s become a shell of a creature…both mortal, in the end. I wish another such, I think…
It tried him. It reached for Crissand, and for Cevulirn, nearest to him, but Tristen was as quick and they were wary, so that instantly the gray space cleared, and Auld Syes stared at him, her gray hair all disordered, her eyes dark as cinders.
—The same kind, Auld Syes said, but not the same. King thou art. Take up the sword!
“What is it?” Crissand asked, and Cevulirn, silent, stared grim-faced toward the north.
But Tristen found no Name for it: he perceived only the sweep of winds toward an abyss out of which that Wind had come.
“Magic,” was the best Word he could find. “Magic gone to sorcery. Not Hasufin. It was Hasufin opposing us, but he’s gone. This remains.”
He could only think of the cloud in the gray space, pouring continually over the Edge. And the gray space continued to pour out its force, as if magic had no limit and the flood would never cease.
“What’s amiss?” Uwen asked, looking from them to the north and back again. The horses were restive, disturbed by the streaks in the grass. “Summat’s goin’ on.”
“He’s gone,” Tristen said again. A magic gone amiss: in the precise way Men parsed words he found no words for it. Sorcery was wizardry turned askew. What could Men know of what he had felt opposing him, its power and its grip on the elements?
If it existed, it was nameless, unless someone had bidden it into Shapeless existence long, long ago; it owned no master now, and it was by all he perceived every other creature’s enemy. What it wanted, it willed, and what it willed, it willed without a thought to any creature but itself. It was magical, and it was free, and set no limits on itself such as Mauryl had continually dinned into him. It had learned no patience with frustration such as Emuin had taught him.
And to wield magic after that unfettered fashion when there was only oneself with that power…that was inconceivable to him: what if there were no Mauryl, no Emuin, no Uwen or Cefwyn? What if there never could be for him a Crissand or a Cevulirn?
Lord Sihhë! the people cried in the streets of Henas’amef. Lord Sihhë, the word had gone through an army discouraged from calling him King.
But what was this thing?
And what was he?
Sihhë? And what was that?
That was the question of all questions, the one question no one of his friends could answer. He was not sure even Mauryl could have answered it completely—although Mauryl had known to call on the Sihhë to de
al with the threat Hasufin posed.
And did that not inform him something? Mauryl had known that magic would stop Hasufin, when his student Hasufin turned. So Mauryl had understood: Mauryl had known the source of Hasufin’s wrongdoing.
Mauryl could not defeat this magic without help, and then had defeated only Hasufin, and that not completely. Not even the five Sihhë-lords had completely overcome this threat, for through Hasufin this threat found its way into Althalen after the five were gone.
The question began to gnaw at all confidence…it came as an assault, an opening thrust from the enemy.
What was he?
Lord of Shadow, with the Lord of the Sun. His blade was Illusion and Truth, dividing one from the other.
“Where,” he asked those with him, “where do you suppose the Sihhë came from?”
“The north,” Uwen said. “As they say.”
“But before that?”
“It was never recorded,” Cevulirn said. “Not in any account.”
“They were not good,” Tristen said. “It’s nowhere recorded that they were good, only that they were strong.”
“Barrakkêth was the friend of our house,” Crissand said.
They wielded magic; they lived together under one roof and rode and fought together in the south. But they were not all kind, or good, or gentle—in fact the histories recorded the opposite: yet they had never wielded their magic to seize all will from their subjects, never turned it to have their own way from each other, fought no wars within the five. They had that much wisdom.
Only five, and no children, no women: could such as the Sihhë arise by nature…or were they something created, as he was created, creatures of less than a lifetime?
There were no tombs such as Uleman’s, no trace of their passing. It was never recorded that they died, only, the records said, that Barrakkêth passed the rule to another, and that was all.