Fortress in the Eye of Time (7 page)

Came a moaning, then, as if the entire fortress were in pain—and a rising babble, like rain dancing into the cistern, he thought, and crept further into his nook, tucked up with his arms about him. He shivered, as pigeons fluttered in alarm and more and more of them took wing out the gaps in the boards of the loft.

The babbling swelled, sounding now like voices, as if—as if, he thought, trying to reason in himself what it was—the whole fortress were full of people, all trying to be heard. The hammering had stopped, and began again, a sharp sound, now, ringing off the walls—the sound of an axe, he thought, and at first was bewildered, then knew, like a Word, that it was the doors that sound threatened.

Then—then the howling began, the same horrid sound that had frightened him from his bed—and if it was from inside, Mauryl must have called it, he said to himself. He felt it drawing at him. He felt Mauryl's presence tingling in the air around him. Wind swept in and scoured the straw from the floor; wind ripped holes in the shingles that patched the slates; wind sent a blast of straw out of the nests in the peak of the roof. He ducked and covered his eyes, and finally—finally in desperation locked his arms over his head and squeezed his eyes shut against the gale.

The howling hurt his ears, dust choked him—there were voices upon voices, rumbling, deep ones, and shrill and piercing: the stone faces everywhere about the keep, openmouthed, might have come alive—stones might scream like that. He might have. He shook. He clenched his arms and legs up close, as the howling and the shrieking and the rumbling quivered through the boards.

The birds must have fled. They had wings. He had none. He could only stop his ears with his hands and endure it as long as he could.

Then the light he could perceive began to fade. He squinted through the wind, fearing if the sun was going it might never come back. A gust in that moment ripped planks loose from the facing, planks that fell and let in the howling of a stronger wind.

He recoiled and caught hold of a rafter, blinded by the flying straw and grit and dust. He felt the Book slip from his shirt, reached for it, saw, with tears running on his face, its pages whipped open by the wind. A crack opened in the floor, the dusty planks separating as the stones had parted in his room, and the gap spread beside the Book as the pages flipped wildly toward the opening. The Book began to go over—

He let go the beam to seize it, bending pages haphazardly with his fingers. He held it against him as the very timbers of the loft creaked and moaned in the blasts.

“Mauryl!” he cried, having reached the end of his courage. “Mauryl! Help me!”

But no answer came.

 

There was no more strength. Mice perished, poor surrogate victims, sorry vengeance for Galasien. Birds flew in the high reaches of the tower and battered themselves against the stone, falling senseless and dying to the floor far below
….

The wind roared, and Mauryl shuddered at the chaos that poured through the rents in the walls
.

—
Gods
, he murmured,
gods, thou
fool,
Hasufin
.

—
The gods are gone
, the Wind said.
The first to flee us were all such gods as favored us, did you mark that, Gestaurien? But I may Summon thee back to my service. What do you think of that?

—
Ludicrous
, Mauryl said, and slipped, perilously so, toward the horror always thick about the fortress. The imprisoned spirits wailed, mindless in their despair, wailed and raveled in the winds, powerless now
.

—
So where is your Shaping, old Master?
asked the Wind.
Where is your defender, this champion of your poor crumbling hall? Cowering amongst the pigeons? Hiding from me?

—
I thought you knew. Ask wiser questions. I wait to be astonished
.

—
Mock what you like. Banish me
this
time, old fool. Tell me
this
time who's the greater
.

—
Time
, Mauryl said, and drew a breath laden with dust. He cracked his staff against the stones, once, twice, three times, and the towers quaked, sifting down dust.
Time is ripped loose, fool, it is undone: we exist, thou and I, only for what will be; we dream, you and I, we dream, but no hand have we on the world. All is done, Hasufin, all for us is past, and failed, our candle is out, and worms are the issue of our long contention. Have
done,
thou arrant, prating
fool,
and let it rest here
.

The wind breathed in sudden hush between the gusts, sported about the courtyard, whirled among dead leaves that…for a moment…showed a dust-formed cloak and cowl
.

—
Destroy the Shaping
, the man of dust said.
Do that, my old mentor, and, aye, we might together sleep the sleep. Will that content thee? Come, take my hand, let us kiss like brothers. Destroy him. And we shall sleep in peace
.

—
Whoreson liar. Worms, I say, worms for your bed, Hasufin, thou braggart, thou frail, mistaken fool. I weary of the war
.

—
Lies for lies, thou lord of delusion
.

The dust whipped away, stung the face, blinded the eyes. Mauryl flung it back, and Hasufin struck in kind
.

The stones, the former inhabitants of Galasien, screamed with all their voices
.

Chaos closed around. The thunder of the staff kept rolling, echoing, cracking stone
.

Then came silence. Long silence
.

T
risten's ears still rang. His flesh still was chilled by the wind. But the Shadow had gone, and broken straw prickled against his face and through his shirt and his breeches—prickled until he was, first, aware of lying on the dusty boards, and second, aware that one knee had gone through a second gap in the boards, and third, aware that he still held the Book safe beneath his body.

Holes were everywhere about the roof, letting in large, dusty shafts of sunlight. Pigeons murmured, a handful going about their ordinary business on the rafters and on the central beam which upheld the roof. A quiet breeze stirred through the loft.

The trouble was past, Tristen thought, and dragged himself from his precarious position, gathered his knees under him and sat up, holding the Book against him—Mauryl would be pleased that he had saved it. Mauryl would have sent the wind away. Mauryl would have held everything safe downstairs…

But Mauryl would be in no good mood.

He decided he should present himself very quietly downstairs, and straighten up the parchments and blot up the ink before Mauryl saw it and lost his temper. He had had thunders and screams and ragings enough: he wanted to please Mauryl, and he most of all wanted calm and peace and Mauryl's good humor.

He gathered himself up and crossed the creaking boards, causing a quiet, anxious stir among the pigeons. He dusted himself as he went, raked random straws from his hair, wanting to have no fault Mauryl could possibly find. But when he went out and down the narrow stairs, and down again to the balcony, the light was shining into the hall from holes in the
roof of the keep itself, which it had never done, and the balcony he walked had settled to a precarious, twisted tilt among the rafters.

“Mauryl?” he called out, wanting rescue.

But there was not a sound.

“Mauryl? I'm upstairs. Can you hear me?”

Rain would get in, at the next storm, and fall where it never had, on the parchments and the books in Mauryl's study. They had to do something about that, surely—someone must climb up on the roof.

The balcony settled under him, a jolt, and a groan, sending his heart into his throat. He darted for the stairs, hearing little creaks and groans the while, which wakened other groans and creaks in the rafters.

He went down and down, as quickly as he could. The railing of the stairs shook under his hand, and the creaking boards on Mauryl's balcony roused a fearsome shriek of settling timbers; the triple stone faces at the turning of his balcony seemed changed, frozen in some new horror—or maybe it was the shadows from the myriad shafts of dusty sunlight that never before had breached the lower hall.

From overhead came another fearful thump and groaning. A roof slate fell past him and smashed on the stones below.

Tristen caught a breath and ran the steps, trailing his free hand down the banisters, clutching the Book in the other. He reached the study, where a chaotic flood of parchments from off the shelves lay crushed under fragments of slate.

Slates had fallen on the table and smashed the overset inkpot. He bent and gathered up an armful of parchments, laid them on the table, then sought more, arranging them in stacks, making them, stiff and of varying sizes as they were, as even-edged as he could.

There was a fearsome jolt. An unused balcony came loose, one of the rickety ones on the far side, where they never walked—it groaned, and distorted itself, and fell in great ruin, taking down other timbers, jolting the masonry and raising a cloud of dust.

“Mauryl?” he called out into the aftermath of that crash. “Mauryl?” Mauryl should know; Mauryl would not abide it; Mauryl should prevent the timbers falling.

But light fell on him from his right since that crash, and turning his head, he saw a seam of sunlight, saw doors open, or half-open, near him, down the short alcove mostly cluttered with Mauryl's parchments.

He had never seen those doors ajar—had asked Mauryl once did those doors go anywhere, and Mauryl had said, Doors mostly do.

Anywhere in the world, Mauryl had said, is where doors go.

Another slate crashed on the stones, and another. He ducked under the kitchenward arch for safety as a third and a fourth fell.

Mauryl had never opened that south door, nor let him lift the bar. He had never guessed that sunlight was at the other side.

But the door was thrown from its metal hinges, and the bar was thrown down, one end against the stones, with the sun flooding through the crack—the sun, the enemy of the Shadows.

It seemed safer than where he was. He ventured a dash across the slate-littered floor to the arch of the alcove and, finding the gap almost wide enough to let him out, pushed and scraped his way through.

He stood on low steps in a place he had never seen—a stone courtyard within high walls, and a white stone path which led off at an angle through weeds and vacancy, as far as the gate that—he knew all too well—was the start of the Road that led through the encircling woods, the Road that Mauryl had said he must find and follow.

He had thought Mauryl would go before him. He had hoped Mauryl meant him to follow him when he went away.

And perhaps Mauryl had indeed gone, and expected him to have the wits to know that.

“Mauryl?” he called out to the emptiness around him.
Sometimes Mauryl did amazing things, things he never expected, and perhaps, even in this circumstance, Mauryl could speak to him out of the sun or the stones, or give him a stronger hint what he should do next.

Mauryl?—Mauryl?—Mauryl? was all the echoes gave him, his own question back again, the way the walls echoed with the axe.

He could not bear to call aloud again. The courtyard sounded too frighteningly empty.

But the Road was more frightening to him still, and unknown, and he did not want to leave by mistake, too soon: he was prone to mistakes, and it was far too great a matter to risk any misunderstanding at all.

So he sat down on that step in front of the door; he pressed his Book close against him, and told himself that Mauryl was surely still somewhere about, and that it was not time yet for him to go. He should only wait, and be certain.

Mauryl was not, at least, inside; the sun was high, and he was, he said to himself, far safer out here than inside where the roof slates were crashing down, and where the balconies were creaking and falling.

Mauryl could make the balconies stay still if Mauryl were not busy. Mauryl said that making things do what they did naturally was easy, and surely it was natural that things be the way they had always been.

Pigeons came down and walked about on their own errands, expecting grain, perhaps, but he dared not go in again under the chance of falling slates and cross the study to get it for them, not until the slates stopped coming down, or until Mauryl turned up to make everything right again—which he wished most of all.

“Please,” he said faintly. “Mauryl? Mauryl, please hear me?”

It was the same as in his room, when the fear came. And no, Mauryl did not always arrive at the moment one would wish. Mauryl did not have every answer; Mauryl had tasks to do that a boy could not understand, and Mauryl's silence
could well mean that Mauryl was busy. There had been a danger, but Mauryl had overcome it, and Mauryl would pay attention to him as soon as Mauryl found the time. He should wait patiently and not take hasty action, that was what Mauryl would advise him.

So he sat on the low steps, and he sat, and he sat, until the sun was behind the far tower and the shadow of that tower touched the courtyard.

While he sat, he tried earnestly, fervently, to read his Book, telling himself that now, perhaps, once the moment called for it, Words might come to him and show him everything Mauryl had wanted of him in his command to read this Book, things which would prevent Mauryl going on the Road, and which would prevent his having to go, as well.

But hours passed in his efforts, and in his fear. The shadow of the walls joined the shadow of the tower and grew long across the courtyard stones.

At last the shadow touched the walls, complete across the courtyard, and he knew that on any ordinary day he should be inside and off the parapets and out of the courtyard by now. He was thinking that when the wind suddenly picked up, skirled up the dead leaves from a corner of the wall, and those leaves rose higher and higher, dancing down the paving stones toward the tower.

And back again. That was odd for a wind to do. It was a chill wind as it touched him. The pigeons, while he read, had deserted the courtyard stones, seeking their towers for the night. The shadows, while he read, had come into nooks where no shadows had been at noon. The faces in the stone walls seemed more ambiguous, more ghostly and more dubious than they appeared by day.

Be certain, Mauryl had always said, that the shutters and the doors are bolted every night.

Be afraid of the dark. When the sky shadows, be under stone and have the shutters closed and the doors well shut. Have I not said this before?

He shivered, with the Book folded in his hands, his hands
between his knees as the wind danced back again. He looked up at the color stealing across the sky. The faces set in the walls changed their expressions with the passage of shadow. Now they seemed to look down in horror.

He looked up at the walls above his head—and saw Mauryl's face above him, stone like the others, wide-mouthed and angry.

He stumbled off the middle step, fell on the bottom one and picked himself up, staring at the face in horrid surmise—backed farther and farther across the courtyard stones, with Mauryl's face among the stone faces he had seen in the walls from the beginning of his existence here, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed as if Mauryl could at any moment scream in anger or in terror, either one.

“Mauryl?” he said faintly, and somewhere within the hall timbers fell with a horrific crash and splintering. Another balcony, he thought. “Mauryl?” he cried aloud, daring not admit he still could not read the Book. There must be an exception. There must be a way out. “Mauryl, what shall I do, Mauryl? Please tell me what to do!”

He heard slates fall inside, a lighter, sharper-edged ruin.

A cold skirl of wind went past him.

An immense mass of something crashed inside and knocked the door shut, as if someone had slammed it in his face. He stared in shock, terrified.

He had no recollection, then, of turning away, except he was walking toward the gate. Reaching it, he tried not the heavy bar but the lesser one, which closed a gate within the gate; that was enough to let him out. He shut it once he was through, and asked himself foolishly how he should bar it, and then—against what should he bar it? and protecting what? Mauryl had set great importance on locking and latching doors, but it was far beyond his ability to seal this one against harm. He turned and faced the bridge and the river, and the forest beyond it, already shadowing toward dark—and could only set out walking on the Road. Go where you see to go, Mauryl had said. Take the Road that offers itself.
And he did, over the rotten boards and stonework of the Bridge that spanned the river Lenúalim.

 

The water was dark beneath the gaps over which he walked, clinging fearfully to the stones along the edge of the high-arched bridge. The river looked murky green in the deep shadow and made patterns on its surface, swirls and ripples which on another day might tempt him to linger and wonder; but haste and dread overwhelmed all curiosity in him—haste—clinging to an ancient, crumbling stone railing, and with old mortar sifting from under his feet. If he should fall, he said to himself, he would slip beneath that surface, where it must be as cold and as dark as the rain barrel or the cistern, and where all that Mauryl had done with him and all that Mauryl had told him would come to nothing: he could not be so foolish.

A moaning sounded behind him, as if the gate had opened. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw it still shut. It might be the wind keening through some board up in the towers—if there were a wind, which there was not. He looked about again just as a stone left the railing ahead of him and dropped from the Road, for no cause that he could tell. It splashed into the water, making a plume, and it was gone, as he himself might be, without a trace, should the road give way.

He hurried feverishly, then, holding to the stones, and heard another fall of stones behind him: one, two, three splashes. He dared not waste a moment to look. It was the solid ground ahead that beckoned him, a shadowed shore where the Road went over safe earth, under deep-rooted trees, and his feet were very glad to feel that solidity under them as he left the bridge behind.

The moaning came to the trees then, making them toss their heads and whisper around him in a rush of sound he had never heard the forest make even in storm. Chill came with that wind, as leaves and fine grit went flying around him, stinging his eyes. The wind shouted around him, until twigs
and then small branches flew like leaves. The whole forest seemed to shiver, and then—

Then it grew very quiet, no leaf stirring—a dank and breathless air as frightening in its lifelessness as all the previous fury of the wind. He hesitated to move at all, and when he hesitated, it seemed more difficult than before simply to move, or breathe, as if some soundless Word bade him stand still, and wait, and wait.

But, heart in his throat, he obeyed Mauryl. It seemed more important than ever to honor Mauryl's instruction, in the failing of all substantial refuges he knew. Dark was gathering in this dank hush, a convocation of Shadows that as yet had done him no harm, but he had no defense against them here, no stone to shelter him, no Mauryl to send them away, no light against the coming dark.

—
Tristen
, the Shadows mocked him, calling his name in tones that Mauryl might use. But Mauryl had never trusted them and he refused. He walked not because he knew where he was going but because that was what Mauryl had said to do. No harm had yet come to him doing what Mauryl said.