Fortress of Dragons

  He saw Cefwyn, standing by a tattered banner, saying to him, “We’ve won!” as if it were true for all time.

  He curled tight against the dark, holding fast to these things that bounded the spring and summer of his single year of life, too weary to be as afraid as he ought.

  He sank so deep he saw the dark before him.

  Then, not in fear, but in sober realization of his danger, he began to travel away from that Edge, resolute instead on reaching the world, determinedly gathering up his resources. He bent all his will on opening his eyes, and on being alive.

  He lay still a moment, counting what he had brought back with him, for his dreams were not like Uwen’s dreams. Where he went in his dreams was not, perhaps, memory: he had begun to fear so, at least. He remembered not dreams, but efforts; and what he remembered of his ventures told him things.

  It told him that all the books in the archive of Henas’amef, all the accumulated wisdom of the kings and dukes of Amefel arrayed on those dusty shelves, was less knowledge of time past than what he could draw to the surface, if the Unfolding came on him again.

  But he resisted it. Perhaps that was the reason the Unfolding happened less often now…he feared to know. He wished not to know. Men said that he was Barrakkêth, first of the warlords of the Sihhë. But he did not know it. He refused to know it. The Book of that knowledge he had burned in fire, the night before the battle at Lewen field, but the knowledge of the Book that Barrakkêth had written he had stored away as too fearsome, too inimical to all he wished to know. Waking, he tucked that away, and carefully remade his world without that knowledge, testing every part of it, renewing his ties to those he loved. He slept seldom, and waked relieved to remember he did have Uwen, who always slept near him.

  He had Emuin. Not Mauryl. Emuin…though the width of the fortress lay between them.

  He had Cefwyn, who was his friend, though the width of a province and the distrust of all the court lay between them.

  He waked by dim daylight cast from outer windows through the archway of his bedchamber. He waked in the great bed beneath the brazen dragons of Aswydd heraldry, and recalled that these things were so.

  And in rare luxury of absolute abandon he drew deep, grateful breaths into his chest, finding everything well under his roof, even given their guests, and Orien Aswydd, who would never own this bed again, and never rest where he had slept.

  This part of the world he remade, too, and made it sure in his mind, for doubt was a breach, and doubts he refused to entertain. He was safe, abed, suffering the aches of last night’s long ride.

  His servants moved about. They needed nothing from him. Out in the yard the whole fortress had waked to life without him. The garrison had begun its drills. The town had spread open its shops and gone about its trades. The camp outside had waked, stirred its fires to life, and the tavern help from inside the walls had bustled out with hot porridge to feed the men gathered there. Far across the fields, in pens they had established for the army that would gather there, stablehands tended their charges. Down by Modeyneth men set to their day’s work on a wall he had ordered restored, and as far as the Lenúalim’s banks, soldiers watched and warded the border. All these things happened this morning without his guidance, or rather, within the compass of his care but without his oversight; and the progress of those unwatched matters reassured him that the sun reliably rose and the roof under which he slept was safe even when he let his attention fall.

  He found great pleasure in unaccustomed idleness, in fact: in the small sounds of his servants laying out breakfast for him…things also happening quite without his guidance, quite pleasantly without his orders or his will. Indeed, the bulk of things that happened would go on without him, or around him, or in spite of his cautions—and he need not govern every drawing of breath as he had grown accustomed to do since Cefwyn had set him in charge of Amefel.

  He had been giving too much, and managing too much, and overseeing far too much.

  Folly, he said to himself.

  As if Uwen, who had guided him this summer, needed his guidance now.

  As if Tassand, who had come along with him to manage his small household in campaign tents and in palaces alike, could not protect this place and manage the staff without his niggling daily concern and his abundant, constant questions.

  He lay, deliciously imagining this morning what each sound meant, as he had seen them do the tasks scores of times.

  He imagined that Uwen would be in soon, and that Uwen would be in his ordinary gear and ready to go about his peaceful business. He knew the look of Uwen Lewen’s-son of a morning down to the gray of his hair and the freshly scrubbed look of his face…and when he rose and dressed, Uwen indeed had joined him in just such a condition, and declared he was going down to the stables and the camps as soon as they finished breakfast.

  So despite his guests, he drew a leisured breath, and another one.

  It was a fine morning, in very truth—a peaceful, a glorious, a safe morning, leisured instead of idle…he had never before understood the distinction in those two Words, until he had found time to draw breath.

  “No alarms,” Uwen said cheerfully, over buttered bread, “and Her Grace ain’t seduced the guards yet.”

  Tristen knew the power of Orien’s persuasions. She had bent her thoughts on him once, though to little result.

  And it was indeed worth his concern, regarding anyone set to watch her.

  Also the lords had all seen her arrival…and they had had few questions last night, considering his long ride, but they would have them before the morning was over. That Orien reported an assault on a shrine in Guelessar, just across the border, seemed credible, but it was still to doubt.

  And they had not even heard the matter Tarien brought.

  So, breakfasted, dressed, with Uwen off about his duties, he resolved to gain some of those answers from the question that was Orien. He was sure of himself, at least, that she could not charm him into compliance, or overwhelm him with sorcery: she had tried both when he was far more innocent, even then to no avail. If he had fear for his men, he had none at all for himself, nor in the least doubted he could deal with the ladies.

  Emuin was asleep, like Owl. So was Paisi. Outside was snow, remnant of the storm that had blown white and thick while it lasted. Now the sun was bright, and the weather seemed to have spent its momentary tantrum. Midwinter, the hinge of the year, as Emuin called it, had passed with a fury.

  And just last night they had finally gotten into shelter all the contingents of their muster that had been at risk on the road: Umanon’s heavy horse and Cevulirn’s light horsemen, both accustomed to sleep under canvas: they were safe in the camp, while Pelumer’s rangers out of Lanfarnesse would camp wherever they were. Lord Sovrag doubted the storm would have greatly delayed his boats on their journey south, for the storm wind had blown from the north, and his men, he declared, would manage come what might. So the storm that heralded Orien’s return had done nothing to disarrange his plans, and things regarding the camp were in order.

  He did not trust, however, that that was true in lands beyond his reach—clearly not so where men had assailed a nunnery and sent the twins toward his hospitality.

  “News’d come welcome, out of Guelessar,” Uwen had remarked at breakfast, and in putting it that way, laid his finger on the most worrisome thing: an attack on such harmless religious women under Cefwyn’s rule, in Cefwyn’s own central province, hinted at unrest in the heart of Guelen lands, perhaps even in the capital itself. Welcome, indeed, would be the knowledge that Cefwyn was safe and taking firm, swift action there.

  There was the chance, of course, that Orien had made up the story. There remained a chance that she had done the damage to the nuns, or drawn baneful events to them for the sole purpose of setting herself and her sister free of Cefwyn’s guards.

  But whose if not Orien’s was the storm that had so cast things into confusion, and posed Orien and him alike an obstacle? The snow had beg
un on Midwinter Day, had gathered strength and gathered violence for days—then vanished without fuss once he had found Orien and her sister. Was she so powerful as that? She never had been…not alone.

  And whose was Owl? His, for what he could tell, but he had not planned Owl’s arrival. He had not planned the storm. He had not planned Auld Syes’ arrival in his hall on Midwinter, or the darkness and all the events and omens which had followed.

  And most of all he had not planned Tarien’s baby.

  So what Uwen had said about Guelessar and the lack of news from Cefwyn settled into his heart with a cold, persistent worry…for there was no safe way to send or receive a message in that quarter. If Cefwyn had sent any message to him in recent days, he had not received it…and his last messenger had had to come back like a fugitive, in fear of his life from such elements as Orien blamed for the destruction of the nunnery: in fact, it all fit together in very disquieting agreement, the last messenger’s story with Orien’s tale of the nunnery burned.

  And if the king’s law did not prevail out into the countryside, not protecting the king’s messages, and now, evidently, not protecting houses of worship, of a sect the Quinaltines accepted as respectable…as they did not deem respectable the Bryalt faith of the Amefin…how then did they regard the Lady Regent, Cefwyn’s bride? And how did they take their king’s other orders?

  And was Ninévrisë safe, if men were hunting the king’s messengers and burning nunneries?

  He wondered that with a great deal of concern—and furtively thought he might gain Ninévrisë’s attention in the gray space, even at such great distance. She had the wizard-gift, a weak gift, unpracticed, but his certainly was not: after the dire news of last night and Uwen’s remark this morning he found himself lingering over a last cup of tea and wondering if, one-sided in the effort, he might reach her.

  He thought so, and wished he had her advice regarding the Aswydds, for that matter: but the risk was far greater than the gain, much as he was tempted to try. She was small and quiet in that aspect: she might enter the gray space unnoticed; he, Emuin assured him, could not, and reaching to her, he might well draw unwanted attention—Orien’s, for one. But it was only one.

  The weather breaking free of his wishes, Orien’s arrival, all these things advised him his was not the only will at work even in Amefel. He was far more subtle these days, and knew a wizard-wish need not be thunder and lightning and the overthrow of oak trees. It might be far, far subtler than that…wizard-work was, in fact, more effective when it did not flail about and raise storms and blast holes in roofs. Such attacks did not frighten him. The subtle ones did; and if he acted rashly, trusting he could deal with every subtle attack that might come, when the truth was, no, he could not—where would hostile wizardry aim its deadly shots, but straight at his heart?

  And where was his heart, but with Ninévrisë and Cefwyn, with Uwen and Crissand and Cevulirn and Emuin himself—all those he held most dear; and those who touched the gray themselves were not most defended: they were instead more vulnerable to such attacks.

  Such possibilities Orien brought with her under his roof.

  That there were other wishes at work, he was certain.

  Whether Tasmôden, his enemy across the river, had worked this maneuver on him, or whether it was some other force, that he did not know. Eight months, Uwen had said, looking at Tarien Aswydd. And eight months ago Tasmôrden had not even been a cloud on the horizon.

  But other enemies had been.

  And Orien Aswydd had been hand in hand with them.

  CHAPTER 2

  First it was the kitchens, down in the warm, firelit domain of baking bread and wash water: Cook’s maids were scrubbing away flour when Tristen arrived, the scullery lads washing pots, while the open door, braced with a bucket, only gave a welcome, snow-flavored draft to the hardworking staff. Daylight shafted through a haze of steam in an amazing glory of white and old, scarred surfaces. He could not but give a glance to it, despite the sober purpose of his visit.

  “M’lord,” Cook said, not surprised to find him in the kitchens, or his four day guards outside her domain, finding converse with the maids. The kitchens were one of his favorite places from summer. Cook was one who had been kind to him before others had, and among the very first acts of his rule here, he had set Cook back in her domain. He took tribute now and again in the form of hot bread and the occasional sweet.

  This time, however, he was straight from a good breakfast, had delayed only to toss the remnant of bread to the pigeons, and had come down here on matters he hoped Cook had observed last night.

  “Seven, eight months along,” Cook said to him, confirming Uwen’s guess, and added with a shake of her head, as she folded her stout, floury arms: “And wandering in the storm, they say, clear from Anwyfar.”

  “Lady Orien said they began with a horse and lost it.—But might they have walked that far, do you think? Orien might. But Tarien—”

  Cook set her hands on her hips and wiped a strand of blowing hair. They stood in the draft, and Cook was sweating, even so. “To tell the truth, m’lord, I hain’t the least notion where Anwyfar is, except it’s in Guelessar, which is far enough for a body in high summer and with the roads fair and dry. With the storm, and the drifts and all…”

  “Was it impossible for them, since, say, Midwinter Eve?”

  “I don’t know as to impossible, m’lord, but…” Cook had an unaccustomedly fearful look, and added with a shift of her eyes toward the upstairs, and back again: “Their ladyships has a gift, don’t they?”

  “They do,” he said. “Both.—So it had to be before that.”

  “I don’t know,” Cook said. “I’ve never traveled by horse. I hain’t the least idea. Was it Midwinter, m’lord?”

  “Or before. It might have been before. They might have tried to be here on Midwinter, and come late.”

  “For wizardous reasons, m’lord?” Cook’s eyes narrowed. Little frightened her, but she ventured her question in a hushed and respectful tone.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Cook said not a thing to that. She was a discreet soul, in her way, and not a word would she say to the maids that she knew she was saying, but the gossip was bound to fly, and had already flown. He saw the looks from the staff all about them. At a certain point the rattle of a spoon sounded like doom, and swiftly hushed.

  “Get back to your work!” Cook said sharply, and: “M’lord, there’s sweets, there.”

  He took one. It was honey and fine flour, and stuck to his fingers. The lord of Amefel licked fingertips on the way out, and then turned back and took two more, which he saved as he climbed the rebuilt scullery stairs.

  He ascended to the west stairs, and up to an area of the Zeide which had had a very different feeling for him this summer past, when Cefwyn had been in residence.

  Not Cefwyn’s bodyguard, now, but Guelen guards from the town garrison stood at that door, and more in Guelen colors stood down the hall. Guards guarding the guards: that was the seriousness of Uwen’s precaution where it regarded Orien Aswydd and her sister.

  The guards on watch opened the foyer door for him, not advising those within; and at a wave of his hand, he set his own watch on that threshold, a ward, a pass of his hand, and a wish, whether the guards knew it or not…but Orien knew it. He felt her attention, and her anger: she had set her own ward on the door, and he violated it with hardly more than a chill.

  Her precaution was reasonable and he was hardly angry, but he was sorry not to have set his own last night, for the guards’s safety.

  His two nunnish guests, clad all in gray, sat at the snowy window, and as he entered, Orien rose straight as a candleflame to defy him, gray habit, red hair unveiled in its cropped despoilment. She had been a lord’s sister, accustomed to luxury, sought after for her beauty, her birth, her access to power, even before she had been duchess of Amefel.

  Now instead of the glittering court gowns, the velvets and jewels and the circl
et on her wealth of autumn hair, she wore a travel-stained gray robe. They had both cast off the nun’s wimple, and the red hair—that she had cut to spite Cefwyn—stood in stark, untidy disorder. It was her twin sister, seated in the white window light, who still kept that glory about her shoulders.

  From a lush, luxurious woman to this lean, harsh creature that was now Orien—it astonished him how dreadfully the more powerful of the twins had changed, even while the white light that fell on Lady Tarien’s seated form found softer edges. Tarien’s pale face lacked any of the anger that suffused Orien’s: a young face, a bosom modestly robed in gray, a body grown strange and potent with the child inside. Orien stood with her hands on Tarien’s shoulders, as if her sister were some sort of barrier to him—and for the first time without the cloak and in the daylight from the window he faced a woman far along with child. He saw in her not one change but an alchemy of changes, the scope of which he did not clearly imagine, and which spun wildly through the gray space, fraught with possibilities. Power was there, power over the powerful, in the hand that rested on Tarien’s robed belly.

  “How may we please your lordship?” Orien asked, and, oh, there was thick irony in that salutation, to the lord who had title now to all that had been hers and her sister’s.

  “I came,” he began, “to see how you fared, and whether you needed anything.” He proffered the sweets. “From the kitchens.”

  He knew Orien would not take them. He saw, however, that Tarien wanted them, and he set them on the table near him. “At your convenience,” he said.

  “Where are our servants?” Orien asked in ringing tones. “Surely the great Marhanen won’t have been so petty as to harm them. Where are my sister’s maids?”

  “Most of your servants fled across the river when Cefwyn came. The others are my servants now…or the gods’.”

  “I demand my servants!”

  “And I say they aren’t here any longer.”