fortress of dragons.html (42 page)

The enemy would strike first at those the loss of whom would most damage, most wound him, most drive him to anger.

The enemy, like Cefwyn, had already moved.

CHAPTER 6

Ninévrisë slept. That was best,

Tristen thought. Uwen was on his way to the river with Idrys, and that was well, too, for Uwen could only worry, otherwise… although in the task at hand he missed Uwen's sure hands and his calming steadiness.

Instead he called on Lusin and Gweyl to arm him. It was an upside-down order of things, arming him before the guard in the barracks was under arms, before midnight, but his bodyguard never questioned, sure that they were riding to the river before dawn, sure that the stable was gathering up horses and that messengers were out to the barracks and the fires were lit on the hills, advising every Amefin lord. It was the call they all had expected since Cevulirn had marched, and expected hourly since Ninévrisë and her party had fortress of dragons.html

arrived.

Lusin, who would not go to war with him, looked regretful in that knowledge; but he had his duties. "You'll command the garrison that remains," Tristen said to him. "Prushan will give you all the help you may need," Prushan, a reasonable and sensible man, was too old to ride to the river, even to sit a horse behind the lines, and would provide the lordly authority in town. "And he'll need your advice.

Give it to him as you do to me."

"I wish to the gods I was going with ye, m'lord. All of us. We still hoped we would."

"I need you here more than in the line," Tristen said. "You know that I do. Emuin will be at his wizardry and maybe here and maybe there… I fear
Paisi
will know more of what's happening downstairs than he will. Worst, if there's danger of wizardry… of sorcery breaking out, Emuin will know what to do for that, but he can't watch his own back and he can't settle disputes in the hall. Her Grace is here. She's wise in most things and she has wizardry of her own…

ask her if you find yourself at a loss, but she mustn't risk herself or draw attention. There's Lady Tarien and the baby, both with the gift… you'll have them to watch, and don't trust her: she's an open doorway. Anything can walk through it, and you have
only
master Emuin and Her Grace to deal with what does. Lord Prushan's able to deal with the town, but the Zeide itself—
you
understand it."

"Enough to be cold scairt, m'lord, an' that's the truth."

"Enough to stand your ground," he said. "As you would on the field.

You'd fight there. So you will here, protecting what's here. And watching that place in the hall—that most of all. You and Syllan, and Aran and Tawwys—I want one of you four, none else, to be at that place day and night: take turns. And set the abbot to watch the wall at the guardroom stairs, where Orien is, turn about with the Teranthine father. If at any time whoever's on watch doesn't think things are right with those places, send for Emuin, and don't wait."

"As things could break out there."

"As things could break out there," he said. "At any hour. Paisi's not a bad one to have on watch with you, where Emuin can spare him. He has the gift. Just don't let him watch alone. And above all else, don't let Tarien and don't let Her Grace near those two places."

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"I'm to tell her no?" Clearly Lusin doubted his ability.

"Say that I said so." He clapped Lusin on the shoulder, no longer servant, but a friend, and a trusted officer. "Go now to Crissand's house. Tell him he'll ride with me in the morning.
Don't
let him in the lower hall."

Lusin's expression grew distressed. He was never inclined to argue with orders, but he understood, then, that he, too, was being sent off to a distance and he liked very little what he guessed.

"Go," Tristen said.

"Aye, m'lord," Lusin said, clearly struggling with the urge to say something. He hesitated on his way to the door. "Ye want us't' be back here, m'lord?"

"No. Don't let Lord Crissand follow me," he said. "Whatever you have to do, see he stays away from the mews.—Send him to Emuin, if he argues."

"Ye ain't goin' after another banner, m'lord."

"No. Not this time." Lusin appealed to him to trust him; and he cast himself on that trust. "It's Efanor I want. I'm going to warn him of the danger to his brother and set him a task the same as I give you. But I mustn't make a mistake in this. If Crissand tries to follow me, I don't know that I can protect us both, or find the way for him. Now go."

"M'lord," Lusin said, and went, well knowing that his lord was at risk, and not happy in being sent away.

But it was necessary, what he did. Tristen knew that as surely as if it had Unfolded, for Cefwyn's back was undefended, and the doors that all led to the mews were undefended. He was not utterly sure a path led into Guelemara, but the gray space was everywhere, one could surely reach it everywhere, and tangled as it might be—where the Lines of a place failed, there the walls between the gray space and the world of Men were weak.

And if a place on the earth had ever afflicted his senses in the same way the mews did, the misaligned Lines within the Quinaltine itself defined that place.

There must be a way through, there; and it was that place he sought, fortress of dragons.html

both to warn Efanor, the simple reason he had given Lusin— and to mend those Lines before they afforded a passage for the enemy into the very heart of Cefwyn's capital.

To protect the mews from such an invasion he had taken such precautions as he dared. He had warned Emuin and Ninévrisë of his intention because he was sure they could not prevent him. And now he sent Lusin with his message, so late that by the time Crissand could even reach the mews, he would have done what he set himself to do—for, give or take the war of the weather, and considering the craft and strength of the enemy, he knew he had a remarkable run of that mystery Uwen called Luck, that quantity he saw as a stream of opportunity flowing their way.

That favorable current was back again tonight: the winds in the heavens served
him
and cleared the roads, and Her Grace had warned Cefwyn and reached him. But as with swordplay, the enemy might allow the pattern a while, only to create false confidence… and he would not press this
luck
of Uwen's by casting Crissand's rash, brave presence directly into Hasufin's reach, on unfavorable ground.

The new guards by his door at night, Amefin, had one advantage over Lusin and his old friends, and even over Gweyl and his comrades: they were far less forward to charge after him on their own initiative.

He went down the hall, down the stairs, and past the closed great hall as if he were going to Emuin's tower, with only two of the Amefin in attendance, and descended into the lower corri-dor where the servants had left only the single candles burning in the sconces.

Owl came winging past him, from whatever perch he had occupied.

He had wondered would Owl agree with him, and Owl evidently did—Owl swooped down the hall ahead of him to the disquiet of the young men of his guard.

He had envisioned willing the Lines into his sight and the wards opening for him in an orderly, careful process; he had envisioned alerting Emuin, in the moments before he went, to keep his intentions out of the gray space as long as possible.

But the instant Owl reached that part of the hall the Lines were there and the old mews showed itself without his will, blue and rustling with wings; and into that vision Owl glided, away and away into the blue depths.

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—
Emuin
!
he had time to think
.

But only that. Owl, contrary bird, had chosen a path of his own without his wishing it, and he followed, as follow he must…

The light became gray, sunlight falling aslant through familiar tumbled beams.

He was at Ynefel, not Guelemara… and wanting Guelemara, he wandered and stumbled instead through the ruin of Ynefel's lower hall.

He was immediately put out with Owl. He had no imminent sense of the enemy's presence, but he knew the enemy might lurk anywhere and knew if he went delving into one place and the other, it only increased his chances of encountering danger.

Hasufin had held this place… had been born here, perhaps, and this shattered hall was more likely a haunt than most. Ynefel was first, a place old, and enchanted long ago, walls more ancient than any existence he had had.

That
was the peculiar strangeness the mews evoked. He was never conscious of himself as being old, but he knew in his bones what was older than his presence in this land. And Ynefel was one such Place, a tether for strayed, damned souls.

Shadows ran here, the dead, he had come to understand, of lost Galasien, not of Men. All around him, he saw the faces locked in Ynefel's walls, stone faces that had seemed at night to move in the trick of a passing candle.

Three in particular stood at the corner above, where the stairs had turned. The wooden stairs had fallen, but as he looked up he saw them still watching, one seeming horrified, and one angry, the third at this remove seeming to drowse in disinterest.

He blinked and shivered, and was suddenly in the courtyard of Ynefel, looking back at the door, where Mauryl's face had joined the rest.

Mauryl looked outward and elsewhere, seeming blind to him now, disinterested.

Owl flew past, and he was glad to look away. Any sight was better than Mauryl's disregard of him. He followed Owl,
angry
, determined that Owl should lead him now where
he
would…

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He blinked and stood under the open night sky, among ruins that glowed blue with spectral fire. This was Uleman's handiwork… in Althalen.

Not here, either, he said to Owl, angry and desperate.

Time meant nothing in the gray space. An eye might have blinked in the world of Men; the sun might have risen. He could ill afford Owl's whims, willed him to lead true, and still Owl evaded him, and led him past a line of blue fire, the Line of a ruined palace.

Doggedly he shaped the strong blue Lines of the Quinaltine in his thoughts. He remembered that tangled set of Lines within them, remembered them down to the smell of the incense, the sound of the singing.

He stopped with his foot on a step, and beneath that step was no slight fall. The Edge was under it, and he could all but hear the crack of Mauryl's staff, his stern reprimand to know where his feet were—flesh as well as spirit.

Flesh had obligations, and hazards, and he had risked too much overrushing Owl, thinking he knew where he was going. He meekly wished the bird back to him, and stood patiently until he felt the brush of Owl's wing above his hair.

To the left, or what passed for left:
there
was the place of smoke and incense. He stood where the Holy Father had stood, the last time he had been in this place.

Above him was the roof the lightning had riven.

Behind his back was the hallowed place with the mismatched Lines, the trap for Shadows.

They seethed in a mass here, many, many Shadows roiling in confusion at the intersections of those Lines, Shadows trapped within the vicinity of the Quinaltine, forced over the centuries to endure prayers to gods they did not acknowledge, the gods of those who had usurped their power. Angry, frustrated and frightened, they ran along the rails, down beneath the altar. They flowed away like spots of ink, they skittered into the masonry, and under benches.

There was no sound here until he took a step, the scrape of metal-guarded leather on stone.

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Tristen drew a sharp breath, perceiving another presence. Owl flew toward the doors, and up, and up.

And of a sudden a fierce crash of metal rang from the left of the shrine to echo to the heights: a priest in the columned side aisle had dropped a great platter, and fell to his knees, and to his face.

"I came to speak with Prince Efanor," Tristen said, and that priest scrambled up and ran for the outer door.

He had no way to know whether that frightened man would bear his message as he had asked. He had no time to wait. He sent Owl out the opened door, out and around to the high walls of the Guelesfort, to a place midway in the west wing of the palace.

There, there, Efanor slept, closely guarded. It was an easy passage in the gray place, knowing exactly where Efanor was.

And Efanor, unlike his brother, had some slight presence in the gray: his dreams were very much within reach.

—
Prince Efanor, he said. Come to the Quinaltine. Don't delay for
anything. Have your servants bring your clothes
.

Efanor leapt into bright awareness, within a gray space he had only
skimmed in his meditations.

—
Tristen? Is it Tristen? Gods save us
!

—
Come quickly. I'll not tell you until we meet face-to-face. Come to
the Quinaltine
.

Efanor doubted his own reason. Fear and denial colored his
presence: good Quinalt that he was, the gray space should not be
open to him, or so he believed, and strove halfheartedly to deny his
own senses.

But Tristen drew out the little book of devotions Efanor had given
him.

—
Know me by this. Come. Believe me. And hurry
.

Efanor believed. Confidence flared. Hope did, and curiosity, and Tristen left the gray space quickly, aware of the hovering Shadows, old Shadows and new ones, hateful and hating. It was no good place to linger, not for the space of a breath. But he knew now that Efanor would come.

Another priest had arrived, and ran back. Then a third, and a fourth, fortress of dragons.html

and all fled.

Shadows prowled the confused Lines meanwhile and tested the strength of them, pressing at the tangle in the wards: Tristen felt their fear and their desperation, and saw the wound in the Lines they made.

He drew his sword and with it traced a Line of his own on the stones, slowly, surely, drawing the Line with the touch of the metal on stone, securing it with the touch of his boots on the floor and the strength of his wishes in the stones.