Fortress of Owls

“Which,” Emuin said above the protest, “the stars declare is wise! There would be no good outcome of a venture pla

“And after?” Sovrag asked,

“Tonight is not for war,” Tristen said, for Emuin’s warning had struck a certain chill into him, and he foresaw that very soon they would be saying things he had as lief not have laid before every visitor to the hall tonight… the Teranthirie father was there, and the Bryalt abbot, with the two nuns, the thanes and squires of villages, and the ealdormen, not mentioning their wives, and the guards and servants besides. Any one of them might spread news that might not serve them… whether it reached Ilefínian—or Guelessar and the north.

But he looked at all his guests, his friends— Crissand, Cevulirn, Sovrag and Pelumer and Umanon, Merishadd and Azant and the earls, and he saw around him, willing and earnest, all the power of the south, all on the verge of motion.

He saw the ladies, all in their finery, and the meal ended. But not the evening.

It was Midwinter Eve, the night the heavens shifted… and he felt an equal disturbance in the gray place, between one deep breath and the next, as all the hall hung momentarily silent, awaiting the next move.

“Play,” he said to the piper, ending all discussion. “Move the tables back.”

Servants hurried to obey, and in high good cheer. For a moment thereafter everyone was disarranged and the squeal of wood on stone and the laughter of well-sated guests alike underlay the music.

The shriek seemed to go on, shooting through stone, into the earth, wounding the ear.

Hinge of the year, Emuin had said, hinge of the Great Year and the Year of Years. Shriek by shriek, tables and benches moved, the arrangement of things undone, set aside, drawn back to clear the floor. It was so common a sound. But the gray space roiled of a sudden, and the very air turned to liquid silver.

Lewenbrook itself was a heartbeat away. So was Ynefel. There was suddenly so much chance and harm flying in the wind that Tristen found no quick counter to its malice.

And when the moving of tables was done, and before the couples took the floor:

“I wish our happiness and the king’s,” he said, standing, lifting high the cup he held. And wish he did, with all his might. “ I wish happiness for all of us, when the world is turning round and the new year is coming!”

“And happiness to you, sir,” said Pelumer, lifting his cup, and so did they all. “To all our lands, happiness and good outcome.”

“And happiness to the king in Guelessar,” Crissand cried in that moment of warm extravagance, not base flattery, but the outpouring of a generous heart. “Happiness to him for sending us our lord! Gods bless His Guelen Majesty!”

“The Guelen king’s health!” said Merishadd, and Azant lifted his cup, and all the rest in a body as Azant added, “And our lord’s!”

“Hear him,” said Pelumer. “Health to our host, Lord Tristen! Long may he prosper in Amefel.”

“Long may we all prosper!” said Umanon.

Tristen drew a breath, feeling steadier, as if in such a great number of good wishes from those he counted friends the dark of midnight had passed and the currents of the new year had begun to find a direction.

How could one do better for a begi

How could he have any more profound a shift in the currents than for Amefin lords and southerners to drink the health of the Guelen king? He could wish— and so could Crissand, who had set wizardry behind that generosity.

The piper played, and a handful of the younger folk moved to the floor, eager to dance.

But one lady in attendance came from the shadows by a column, all in gray and gold, a wisp of a woman gray of hair and hung about with cords and stones and charms.

The incipient dance paused. Guards moved, and hesitated in doubt. Emuin stood forward, but not far, and the priests rallied uncertainly to Emuin as the woman came. ,

But only Uwen set himself directly in her path, as the music died.

The woman’s gown seemed old fabric and strange, like cobwebs over lace, like gold cloth dimmed by dust. The ornaments, that she wore were perhaps costly, perhaps not. She was neither old nor young, and she made a low and graceful bow, sinking into her gold-touched skirts and rising from them like gray smoke from embers. It seemed a music played, but none that the pipers made, a gentle, eldritch air like the stirring of broken glass.

With a nod and a quizzical look, the woman held out her hand, invitation to the dance. And still Uwen barred the way.

But on a breath and accepting a challenge, Tristen moved past him, reached out, took dry, cool fingers, moved in stately paces, turned as the woman turned, all to that strange, distant music.

Within the murmur of consternation the piper took up a wavering tune, the same that filled the air, and the drummer found the hum and thump of a rhythm different than the tune they had played, haunting, majestic measures.

It was Auld Syes, whose eyes sparkled and whose whole bearing held the dignity of a queen.

“Lady,” Tristen said, when the measures brought them close, eye-to-eye, and her gaze was dark and deep. “Welcome.”

But while the musicians played on Auld Syes stopped the dance and stood, breathless and aglow.

“Lord,” she said then, and made another deep bow, rising again to face him. “Lord of Althalen, of Meliseriedd, of Ynefel! High King and lord of all the middle lands! Beware your enemy!”

“I am no king!” he said doggedly. But Auld Syes backed away from him bowing yet a third time. The candles blew sideways, threatening darkness, and a small shadow skipped around Auld Syes and him alike, then nipped after a tray of honeycakes at the side of the room. A sudden whirlwind ran the circuit of the room, blowing up skirts. The guests cried out in alarm, but the whirlwind ran toward the doors with a laughter like harp strings, a wind spi

For a moment in the gray space, pipes sounded, and a woman ran lightly over a ghostly meadow of gray almost green, a child chasing in her footsteps.

Auld Syes had left the hall, and as she did the massive doors of the hall burst open, and the doors of the i

Winds swept through, riffling all the candles, then snuffing them, every one, leaving all there in utter dark.

A smell of evergreen attended.

“Light!” Emuin cried furiously, over the cries from the guests. “Gods bless! Give us light!”

Men were blind in the darkness, blind and afraid, and still the wind blew. Yet it needed nothing but the wish to see, to draw the gray, bright light out of that place and touch the candles with it, and Tristen did that, obedient to Emuin’s wish to lend light. His wish lit the hall not with the warm golden glow those candles should bear, but the icy silver of the gray place, every candle aglow, but casting little light abroad. The candle-sconces all became islands of scant luminance, and the hall outside the open doors appeared as a place of darkness similarly lit, every candle in the hall aglow but doing little good.

The guests were cast into strange, small groups in that pale gray light,

Lord Umanon and Lord Cevulirn both had found their swords.

Of Auld Syes there was no sight nor sound.

Beware your enemy, Auld Syes had said, but if there was an enemy he had to fear, it was not the darkness.

But suddenly something reached through his source of light, through the gray space itself, and threat streamed like poison through the light he had gathered and set atop the candles.

That was not the enemy, either. It remained out of his reach. He sent challenge back through the gray: he was in a Place, had his feet set, and would fight for these lives if it came.