Fortress in the Eye of Time

But the mirror’s image of the Book was blurred to him, until he could manage the mirror with one hand in the gray place, and angle it just so, and the Book in the hand that was in the other world, so that he could see the reflection of the page in of that gray world.

Then he could see the letters. Then he knew what they were:

It is a notion of Men, it said, that Time should be divided: this they do in order to remember and order their lives. But this is an invention of Men, and Time is not, itself, divided in any fashion. So one can say of Place. That there is more than one Place is a notion of Men: this they ... this they believe; but Place is not itself divided in any fashion. Who understands these things knows that Time and Place are very large indeed, and compass more than Men bare divided and named ...

He was no longer reading. He was thinking the Words and they echoed ahead of his reading them. He thought ahead, further and further into the pages, and knew the things the Book contained. He had written them. Or would write them.

That was what it meant—to one who could move things between the gray space and the world of substance.

He let down the Book and folded it on the mirror, and took up the sword again, not for a sword, but only for something to lean on while he thought.

That was how he waked, bowed over the sword, Uwen’s hands on his; he lifted his head and Uwen took the sword from his fingers and laid it carefully aside.

“It’s time, m’lord,” Uwen said. “The lamps is lit next door. His Majesty is arming and he’s ordered out the heavy horses. We’re leaving the camp standing and going on. The lady’s seein’ to that. Scouts ain’t seen nothing, though that ain’t necessarily what we want to hear, may be.

I hate like everything t’ wake ye, but there just ain’t no more time.”

In the sense Uwen spoke—there was no more time. But things he knew rattled through his thoughts. He bent and took off his ordinary boots.

And stood up.

Chapter 34  

He held out his arms patiently as Uwen assisted him into his armor, still by lamplight, with great care for the fittings. He stepped one after the other into the boots that belonged to the armor, and Tassand buckled them snugly at the holes that were marked. Uwen belted his weapons about him, sword and dagger, and slipped the small boot knife into the sheath that held it.

There was only the lightest of breakfasts, a crust of bread, a swallow of wine, which took no fire-making, and put no stress on the body. So Uwen said. And he knew Uwen was right.

Mauryl’s Book—his Book, held no comfort at all in the sense that he understood now what Hasufin had understood all along and that he knew what Hasufin wanted.

Most of all he knew what Hasufin wanted to do, which was to unmake Mauryl’s work: him, for a begi

Hasufin wanted Galasien back, for a second part.

Hasufin wanted substance enough to use what was in that Book, for a third. Those desires were enough to account for all that was and might be. But that was not all Hasufin wanted. Beyond that—he could also imagine. That was what put him out of the notion of breakfast, and made him certain that, whatever defense the armor was, Hasufin would be determined to turn every weapon on the field toward him—for Hasufin, he was sure, cared very little about Aséyneddin, only to maneuver to his own advantage. All, all that would be out there was nothing other than what Hasufin willed, substantial so long as Men were willing or able to contend; and in so many places.

He even guessed what had brushed past him that night while he slept on the Road in Marna, and why he had dreaded it so. It was, in a strange sense—himself.

But this time he must go toward that sensible fear from which he had once fled—and what there was to meet, he must meet, and go wherever he must.

He was glad that Uwen saw nothing of what he saw. He would not wish that understanding on him for any price, not on Idrys, or Cevulirn or Umanon; nor on Pelumer, in whatever nightmare the Lanfarnesse forces might be struggling next the woods.

And not on Sovrag, who, if things went well, might yet arrive to strike at the Elwynim from the river, but he much doubted it: the Olmernmen had Marna to traverse to reach this far past Emwy, if they would go by water, and Marna of all places would not aid them.

But now with all the fear, came an impatience for this meeting. Something in him longed in a human way for encounter with Ninévrisé’s enemies, to feel the wicked certainty of himself he had felt before, with the sword in his hand, and such certainty what had to come next. Nowhere else and at no other time did he have that.

And for no reason, tears flooded his eyes and spilled. He wiped them unconsciously.  “M’lord?”

Uwen thought he wept for dread. But he wept for Mauryl’s gentleness, which only he had seen; he wept for Cefwyn’s, for Uwen’s kindness, which he did not have—not in their terms. He knew what he could do.

He knew what he had done, and knew that he could not, by the nature of what Hasufin had loosed in the land, wholly win.

If there was disaster about to fall on those he loved, it was of his attraction, and he-    He had one thing to do. Beyond it—he could not see anything for himself, but he wanted it: he could no longer temporize with it, or delay it, or understand any more than he did, and he could not bear the increasing burden of his own household, his own following—men who looked to him for reason and right, men who wanted to pour out their devotion on him, never knowing him as he was, not seeing into his heart, and not knowing-not knowing he enjoyed that dreadful time when the sword flew in his hand like a living thing and he had no questions.

“Well, I done what I can,” Uwen said, testing the motion of his arm.

Uwen looked him in the face. “M’lord, take care of yourself today.”

“Take care for yourself,” Tristen said. “Promise to care for yourself, that is what you can do for me. You will know the time, Uwen, and you must take no shame in turning back: I know this is the most difficult order I could give you; but do not follow me too far.”

“Ain’t retreating before I get there, m’lord.”

Uwen had made up his mind not to listen. With curious abstraction, then, Tristen reached back into that place of white dreams and snared something of that blinding, peaceful light. It took form in his hand, bluish-white, and he passed it to the other hand, tossing it back and forth, back and forth, a little illusion that whitened the floor and the canvas.

That was, he thought, illusion enough to frighten any Man, the simultaneity of Here and There which men did not ordinarily see.

For a moment the faint letters on the sword blazed bright.

He let the illusion go.

“Gods,” Uwen said.

“Uwen, believe me that I am capable of going where you dare not.

Where you must not.”

“I’d still try, m’lord.”

“I know you would. I ask you not to. You could endanger me. I would have to defend both of us.”

“Then I ask ye to come back, m’lord. Ye swear to me ye’re comin’ back or I’ll swear I’m goin’ behind ye, and I don’t break my given word.”

Yesterday he would have had no hesitation to swear what Uwen asked. But now every binding of him to one realm or the other seemed full of dangers. The small illusion he had wielded to scare Uwen was no weapon potent against a wizard who had the skill of Shaping—and thereby of unShaping.

“Uwen, —no. I shall not swear that. I swear I shall try. But there may be frightening things, Uwen. There may be reasons you should retreat-believe them when you see them.”

“Horses is waiting, m’lord,” Uwen said. “I heard ’em come up.”

So Uwen chose to look past illusion as well—in his own way, the Edge that moved between.