Fortress in the Eye of Time (42 page)

—
I did everything I knew, sir
. He held out his hands to draw Emuin closer, but the bloodstains showed dark on the light that was his skin, and he stopped reaching, appalled at what he saw.
I fought, sir. I thought it was right. I knew how. And Cefwyn was in danger
.

Emuin frightened him with his fear. He thought Emuin might flee him as the men had on the field
.

But Emuin came closer then, and a touch brushed his stained fingers, and a silken touch folded fingers into his, and closed, almost substance. A touch brushed his face, and it seemed that Emuin's arms folded him close, as Mauryl would, as Cefwyn had—but never was the fear Emuin felt so evident as now
.

—
I don't know how to help you
, Emuin said.
You've gone far beyond what I understand, lad. I don't know what to do
.

—
Tell me what is right!
he asked of Emuin, but Emuin said
,

That's the difficulty, isn't it? What's right? I don't know, young lord. I never knew, myself
.

It was not the truth he wanted to hear of Emuin
.

Then he felt something else creep near. It listened to their thoughts, a presence that lived in this white place and was a danger once they were in it
.

—
Go back!
Emuin said, pushing him away.
You must go back. Immediately. I'll be there as I can
.

He saw something twisted and moving, nothing but shadow. He knew that it had been a man—or something like.
That is Hasufin
, he heard Emuin say, but far away.
Be careful. Tristen. Be careful
.

Emuin's voice faded. He saw Ynefel. The fortress seemed very near, visible through a shadow woods, a place by tricks of the eye new and substantial, then shimmering and fading into mist and deeper shadow. Something dreadful sat there now. He saw Mauryl's face in the stones of the wall, and all his certainties that this was where he wanted to be fell away from him. He wanted to escape. He felt Emuin behind him, in that strange sense of place and whereabouts. And he dared not leave Emuin undefended in his flight
.

—
Inborn in the Sihhë
, a voice whispered,
is the skill to touch other planes. The old blood runs true. Shaping that he is, he has substance here and there alike, does he not, Emuin?

—
Nothing that should interest you
, Emuin warned him.
Young lord, believe nothing it offers you
.

Tristen stopped in mid-impulse, drifting close to that familiar place, and Mauryl's features began to shade and warp until it was another and younger face that looked on him
.

He was aware of all the land then, stretched out like the map on Cefwyn's table, and little tendrils of darkness ran out from Ynefel, curled here and there in the woods and lapped out into Elwynor—while another thread ran through Amefel to Henas'amef itself, growing larger by the instant
.

He felt threat in that single black thread, as if it touched something familiar, something close to him. Or was himself. He was not, single chill thought, certain
.

Other threads multiplied into Elwynor, a complicated weaving of which he could not see the end
.

—
Tristen!
Emuin commanded him
.

He had grown attracted to the voice. He tried now to retreat toward Emuin. He risked becoming as attenuated as the threads
.

—
Tristen! This is Mauryl's enemy—this is your enemy! Come back to me! Come back now!

A hand seized his hand. It pulled him through the air faster than he could get his balance, and he fell
.

He struck the floor on his side. His limbs were sprawled on
cold stone, aching. He moved his hands, as amazed at the play of tendons under flesh as the first time he had seen it—and felt strong arms lift him up and strong arms encircle him, a shadow intervening between him and the fire.

“M'lord!—Guard! Damn, get help in here, man! He's had one of his fits!”

He heard Uwen's voice. Uwen's shadow enfolded him. He blinked at it dazedly and languidly. Other men crowded about him, lifting him from Uwen's arms, but not quite—all of them together bore him somewhere, which turned out to be back to bed, down in the cool, tangled covers, which they straightened, tugging them this way and that.

Most left, then, but Uwen remained. Uwen hovered over him, brushing the hair back from his face, kneeling at his bedside. Uwen's seamed face was haggard, pale, and frightened.

“I am safe,” Tristen said. It took much effort to say. But he found the effort to say it made it so. He drew a freer breath.

“Ye're cold, m'lord.” Uwen chafed his hand and arm violently, tucked the arm back beneath the cover and piled blankets on him until the weight made it hard to breathe. Uwen was satisfied, then, but lingered, kneeling by his bed, shivering in the chill of a night colder than Tristen remembered.

“Uwen, go to bed. Rest.”

“No. Not whiles ye go falling on floors in fits.”

Uwen saw through his pretenses, he was certain, although Uwen made light of it. It filled him with sudden foreboding for Uwen's life. “Uwen,” he said, “my enemies are terrible.”

Uwen did not move. The fear did not leave his look. But neither did he look overwhelmed by it. “Oh, I know your fits, m'lord. They don't frighten me. And who else knows ye the way I do? And where should I go, worrying about you, and no way to do anything, then? I ain't leaving for any asking, m'lord, so ye might as well forget about it. Not for your asking. Not even for the King's.”

Uwen was too proud to run away. Tristen understood so.
He had no urge to run away himself when the danger came on him, because in the moments it came, he saw no choices. He understood this, too, and did not call it bravery, as it was in Uwen. That place of no choices was very close to him now. It still tried to open behind his eyes, and he shivered, not from fear, but because flesh did not well endure that place.

And bravely Uwen held to his hand until the tremors passed, head bowed, his arms rigid. Uwen would not let him go into that bright place again, and that, he thought, was very wise on Uwen's part, even if Uwen could see none of it, and could not reach after him. Uwen could hold his body, and make him aware of it, and keep him from slipping away.

“How near is it to morning?” Tristen asked, when the tremors had passed.

“I don't know, m'lord. D' ye want I should go ask?”

“There must be soldiers. I must have soldiers.”

“M'lord?”

“There's an enemy at Ynefel. He mustn't stay there.”

“Gods, no.” Uwen hugged him tight. “Ye can't be goin' again' that place, m'lord. It ain't no natural enemy, whatever's there, and best ye leave it be.”

“I am not natural,” Tristen said. “Whatever you have heard of me, I think it must be true.”

“That ye be Sihhë? I don't know about such things. Ye're my good young lad, m'lord, ye ain't nothing but good.”

“Can I be?” He spread the fingers of his hand wide, held it before them, against the firelight. “
This
knows what I am. It fought for me. And I dreamed just now of Ynefel. I saw threads going out of it. My enemy lives there now and he wants this land. He reaches into all the regions around us. He reaches even into this room, Uwen. I felt it.”

“Then tell m'lord Cefwyn. He's the King, now. He can call on the priests. Or master Emuin, what's more like. He could help.”

“No. Cefwyn doesn't understand. I do. Leave me, Uwen. Go back to the guard where you were. Of all the soldiers I must take there—not you.”

“The King won't have ye go wi' any soldiers,” Uwen forecast with a slow shake of his head. “This is priest's business. Little as I like 'em, they got their uses, lad, and this has to be one.”

“Priests.” He recalled the priests he had seen—those he had met only today in the Quinalt shrine, where the King's body was, priests scattering before him, cringing, lest their robes touch him. “They fear
me
. How could they face my enemy?”

“Then I don't know, m'lord. King or no, His Majesty hain't got no soldiers willing to march that road.”

He found nothing to say, then. He had no plan, else, if even Uwen said he was wrong.

“M'lord,” Uwen said, “m'lord,—I'd go wi' ye. I'd go wi' ye t' very hell, but I wouldn't see ye go there. I'd put meself in your way right at these gates, wi' all respect t' your lordship, I won't see ye go there. No.”

“Uwen, what if this enemy comes out from Ynefel? What if he comes across to Althalen?”

“I don't know nothing about that, m'lord. I don't know nothing about wizards, and I don't want to know. I'll guard your back from any enemy I can see wi' my two eyes and smite 'im wi' whate'er I find to hand, but, gods, I don't like this 'un. Send to Emuin, m'lord. He'd know what to do. He's a wise 'un. He ain't no real priest.”

He shook his head. “Emuin doesn't know at all what to do with this. He's afraid.”

“Ye don't know that, m'lord?”

“I spoke with him. I spoke with him just now, Uwen.”

“M'lord, you was dreaming. That was all.”

“I did speak to him.” The ceiling seemed more solid now, a pattern of woodworking and lights. “I'm warm now. Go to bed, Uwen.”

“I'm comfortable here, m'lord.”

“I'm in no danger now. Go rest. Think about going back to the guard. The servants can manage for me.” He reached for Uwen's scar-traced arm, pressed it, careful of new cuts, and a
bruise that, the size of his fist, darkened the side of Uwen's forearm. “I want you to be safe, Uwen.”

“I hain't got no family,” Uwen said finally. “The guard's me mistress. But I couldn't leave ye for the barracks again, m'lord. Couldn't. Wouldn't be nothing then. I'm getting old. I feel the cold in winter, I think on my wife and my girls and my boy that the fever got, and there ain't no use for me beginning again. Damn, no, I couldn't leave ye, my lord.”

And he tucked the blanket about him and got up and wandered away to his own small room between the doors.

Tristen watched him. He had never known about Uwen's wife or children. He had made Uwen remember them, and he saw that Uwen had attached to him a feeling that Uwen had nowhere to bestow; as he had had for Mauryl, and had nowhere now to bestow it—not on Emuin, who had not Mauryl's wisdom, and not Mauryl's strength: Emuin had fled him and refused to be known, or loved, or held to, and he respected that wish, even understood it as fear. Cefwyn asked him to be his friend, but Cefwyn had so many people he had to look out for and to take care of.

But Uwen had only him. Uwen by what he said had lost everyone else. Uwen was not so wise as Mauryl: he was as brave as anyone could ask, but somehow he had ceased to depend on Uwen for advice as much as Uwen had begun to take orders from him.

And when had that happened? When had he grown to be anyone's source of advice in the world, when he did not understand the world himself?

He lay still in his bed, and longed for daylight. Time—of which he had rarely been acutely conscious—again seemed to be slipping rapidly toward some event he could not predict or understand.

Far away he heard movements in the halls. From the yard came the occasional clatter of hooves, horsemen abroad in the dark, bound to or from the lower town or countryside or the camps—there was no cause to be dashing about on horses within the Zeide courts. Perhaps messengers, he said to
himself, and tried to think what might be going on that had so much astir.

He had no inclination to sleep and confront another bad dream. Sweat prickled on him, the blankets weighed like iron. The beats of his heart measured interminable time, and he lay and stared at the lightless glitter of the windowpanes.

The darkness seemed a little less outside, a reddish murk, but not in the east, a glow that reflected on the higher roofs and walls—and from outside came a noise he could not at first recognize, then decided it was many voices shouting at something. Thunder rumbled. Rain spattered the glass, a few drops, and the air stayed chill—he could feel it with his fingers to the glass, and the fire seemed more than convenience tonight.

The glow outside was much too early, unless, he thought, in this wretched day the laws of nature were bent and that murkish light was an ill-placed dawn or an effect of storm he had never seen.

But whatever the cause of it there was less and less chance of sleeping or resting in such goings-on, with the accumulation of unanswered questions and unidentifiable sounds and light. He rose from bed, determined at last and least to know what was happening that kept other people awake, and searched out clean, warm clothes. He had half dressed before, probably because of his opening the clothes-press, which had a stubborn door, Uwen arrived from the other room, rubbing his eyes and limping.

“M'lord,” Uwen murmured, “what's the matter?”

“I don't know,” he said, and thought of going quickly, taking just the door guard, not wishing Uwen to have to dress and break his sleep, but then he remembered Cefwyn's order about wearing the mail, and it was too serious an order to dismiss lightly. He went to get it. “There's a great deal of going and coming. I'm going downstairs to see.”

“I will, m'lord. Ye don't need to stir out.”

“I want to see, Uwen.
I
want to know.” It seemed to him his whole life until now had swung on his ignorance of the
things around him—that too often he had taken others' seeing and others' doing, and not always had the result of that turned out for the good. He knew much too little, now, when Cefwyn was becoming King and Cefwyn's brother was entering the household. So much else was changing, not alone in Henas'amef, as he knew it to be, but in Elwynor and the whole of the lands he had ever heard about.