Fortress in the Eye of Time

He stood on the very parapet, where he had gone—or would go-naked in the rain.

He watched all the buildings from there—the illusion of a living city widespread about Ynefel’s skirts, streets busy as the streets of Henas’amef.

But it had not been Ynefel on that day. It had had another Name. So had he. And he had come there with Mauryl’s help to cast all that citadel down.

He was angry, he knew not why or at what. That anger grew in him, and as it reached the point that he must loose it or die, he let it loose.

In that loosing, a wind swept the halls, swept up the men in their elegant clothing, and the women in their bright gowns, and the children, alike, with their toys, and whirled them all about the towers, tumbling one over the other, out of the bright world and into that gray space where they hurtled, lost and afraid.

Some, more determined and more powerful, found their way back to their former home, and peered out of its walls, frozen in the stone.

Some became Shadows, angry ones, or fearful ones, or simply lost ones, wailing on the winds that carried them through that gray light, until darker Shadows hunted them down, one by one, and ate their dreams and their hopes and their substance.

But all such shadows as came to him for refuge he breathed in and breathed them out again with his will, and by them he mastered the anger that threatened his reason. By them he learned.., better things.

A young man in gray had stood by him, but that man was gone. He possessed securely the walls, the woods, the river, in all the vacancy he had made.

He had done this. All the City was gone. He remained. The Tower of Ynefel remained.

The faces watched from the walls, and the lives flowed through him with a heat like too much wine. He was trembling now. He wanted to know—who had done such a thing, and could it possibly be himself who had begun it?

But of his own countenance and his own reasons he could discern nothing.

He had lived—or would live—in that small room with the horn-paned window. He had come at Mauryl’s asking, and he knew at once his enemy was the man who had stood beside him, the young man in gray, against whom he had fought with all the resources at his disposal—even binding the lives of the people of Ynefel to his effort.

He wanted to know who he was. He wanted to see the face of the one who would have drunk up all the world only to cast out the man in gray.

He had asked Mauryl—or would ask one day—whether Mauryl could see his own face. He thought it clever of himself to wonder that in this dream, a trick by which he could make the dream reveal itself—and him.

But in this dream he had no mirror, nor were there any such, until, still in this dream, suddenly standing within his own room—or what would be his room—he found on the bedside table a small silver mirror.

Threads of shadow formed about it, resisting, strands clung to it as be picked it up, and shriveled when be would not be deterred.

He bad been clever. He bad gained in this dream the mirror Mauryl bad given him; but once be bad found it, be was back in the courtyard by the kitchen door and the rain-barrel. Daylight was behind him and even with the mirror be could see no more than be had seen in the rain-barrel that day, only his own outline, an outline with a shadowed face.

So the dream bad tricked him, and would not at any trick be could play unfold more than be bad seen.

He was sitting on Petelly’s back again. He had his hands locked before his lips. He was aware of the men watching him. He had come all that distance through the past, alone of those living, and alone of the dead-but he knew nothing. Nothing.

He had found reason to fear—and out of his fear, and in revulsion at Hasufin’s cruelty, he thought now, had flowed his terrible anger.

And when his anger broke loose—at least in the dream—he had used lives for the stones and anger for the mortar of his fortress.

It might be illusion. Mauryl had said not to fear dreams, that there was not always truth in them. He thought that Mauryl had had a part in what had happened.

The old man had said—Hasufin would use even his dreams.

The old man had proposed to hold Althalen, and everywhere around him, now that he had broken with Ynefel, was the evidence of the old man’s power. Surely Hasufin could not make something seem so fair-more—feel so fair, and so safe, and so familiar.

But the faces of Ynefel lately in his memory were a truth he could not deny.

They moved on certain nights—or seemed to, when the wind blew, the balconies creaked, and candle flame wavered in the drafts.

Ynefel, which held always a warm, homelike feeling for him—was a terrible place, where he—he!—had done something unthinkable and destructive.

“M’lord,’ Uwen said, moving his horse close. “M’lord?”

He could not move. He could not look aside from that structure of glowing lines, feeling always less than he needed to be, less wise, less kind, less—able to create something like this, so fair and so bright in the gray world.

His handiwork—was other than this.

Men feared him. All men did well to fear him.

Uwen took the reins somehow, and turned Petelly about, and once they were faced the other way he realized that Ninévrisé was close beside him on one hand, and the guardsmen had gathered about them, hands on weapons and yet with no enemy against which they could defend him.

He put his hands on Petelly’s neck, and patted his neck. “I can n age, Uwen,” he said as steadily as he could.

“M’lord,’ Ninévrisé said—frightened, too, he thought. He had takenher into danger. “I saw nothing—nothing amiss here.”

“Then the harm, if there is harm, is in me.”

“No such thing, m’lord,” Uwen said firmly, and, leaning from his saddle, managed to pass the reins over Petelly’s head again, which require his help to straighten out. Petelly lifted his head, making the maneuver more difficult; but he secured the reins, settled Petelly’s anxious starts, one direction and the other, and as their small party began to ride hoi went quietly, reasonably back the way they had come, among the hi, shadowing with night, and finally across the road, down the busy center lane of the camp, where wagons and men continued to come in.

He said, to the men, when they crossed the road, “What I saw boded no harm to you.” He knew that he had acted in such a waythat might spread fear through the army. “I beg you not mention it. Ishall tell His Majesty when I know the answer.”

The leg ached, ached so that a cup of wine was Cefwyn’s chief wish, far mo than a supper, no matter the servants’ efforts. It was past dark, there was r sign of Tristen and Ninévrisé, and he had debated with himself whether t offend Ninévrisé by sending men out—or whether to sit and worry.

But the mere sight of Cevulirn and Umanon was reassuring, and persuaded him he had so many men in the vicinity that no enemy scout would be too daring, and that the Elwynim rebel that tried Tristen’s mettle, would find that small band no easy mark at all. Sit still, he told himself Let them learn what they can learn in their own way. Sending someone into wizardous doings was not wise.

Sending two most valuable persons to seek out wizardry worried him intensely.

But he had trusted Tristen too little so far. He could not rule by hampering his best counselors, whatever the frightening nature of their investigations.

Outside the royal pavilion, the White Horse of the Ivanim and the Wheel of Imor Lenfialim were snapping in a stiff wind alongside the Dragon and beside them, the Tower and Star, the Regent’s Tower and the Amefin Eagle. The wagons belonging to the Guelen regulars were disgorging their supplies. The Duke of Ivanor and the Duke of Imor had pitched their tents alongside his, with Tristen’s on the other side, next Gwywyn’s tent, which was the command post for the Dragon and the Prince’s Guard. They made no individual fires tonight, in the tents of the common men, so as to give any spies that did venture onto surrounding hilltops no convenient way to count their number. But fires were starting outside, and cooks were hard at work with the big kettles, boiling up soup and unpacking hard bread they had brought from town. The common men would not fare at all badly tonight, mutton stew and enough ale to wash it down, very good ale, he had ordered that personally. But it would not be enough to become drunk.