Fortress of Owls

“I wasn’t here yet! Mauryl hadn’t Summoned me.”

“All the same.”

“ Why? Whyshould anyone fear me?”

“Why shouldanyone fear you? What do you think? And considering the small matter of His Reverence, tell me what you think he’s apt to do.”

“Spread trouble in Guelessar.”

“Is it absolution you want or a better answer?”

“What shall I do about it?”

“Why did you bring Paisi out of gaol? Why was it important to find him?”

Wizards. Like Mauryl, Emuin shifted the ground under his feet and answered questions with questions on an utterly different matter: aim at him, and the shot came back double… and with terrible, dreadful surmises.

He mustered his wits to answer that question, as levelly and patiently and completely as he could: no lies, no evasions with master Emuin… to lead his guide to wrong conclusions served no good at all.

“He was my first guide when I came from Mauryl to Henas’amef. Paisi was. Should I leave him free, sir, counting all you’ve taught me of wizardry, to fall to other influences? Something moved him to bring me to the right place on the right night. As it moved me to settle the fugitives at Althalen.”

“A question, is that? Shouldyou have heeded Paisi in the first place?”

“Do you think Maurylsent him to guide me? Was it his doing?”

“Think you so?” Emuin asked him.

“Who else might?” The impatience in him scarcely restrained his hands from clenching into fists. He wished to leap up and move, tear himself from this uncomfortable confrontation he had provoked.

But he had not sat learning of wizards for no gain. Listening and trying to answer Emuin’s questions was the best course, the only course that would ever bring him an answer.

And it was so, that Mauryl, lost with Ynefel, had reached far, very far with his spells. At one time it had seemed perfectly clear that Hasufin Heltain was the cause of Emuin’s fear. But Hasufin was gone now, was he not?

And yet Emuin seemed more afraid than before.

“Who indeed else would have sent the boy?” Emuin said. “Since no one but Mauryl knew the why and wherefore.”

“Might Mauryl’s wishes for me,” he asked, “have entered into some other pattern, one of, say, someone else’smaking?”

“Troubling thought,” Emuin said faintly, rapping the soup-coated spoon clear on the rim of the pot. “There are so many choices.”

“You.”

“Not to my knowledge. I assure you I had never besought the gods for another student.”

“The enemy… Hasufin.”

“A remote chance,” Emuin said, and plunged the spoon back into the pot. He swung the pot off the fire.

“But you think not.”

“I think not.”

“Paisi himself guided the meeting?”

“Possible, too, remoter still though it be.”

Remote, yes. So he had thought. “Someone should care for the boy,” Tristen said, attempting a diversion of his own, from an area hedid not now want to discuss. “And you lacked a boy. You need a good pair of legs, and he needs a Place, or something else may indeed find him. I think I was right in that.”

“A gift, now drawn into our web. What more?”

“A very little of the gift, I think.”

“Has the calamity of his presence been little? His Reverence sped to Guelessar? And now this boy in my care? Doubly dangerous to be poking and prying around a wizard’s pots with gifted fingers. I had trouble enough with the brothers from Anwyfar, and them scared witless. A gift is not to judge by its surface or its apparent depth. By the waters that churn around him, mark me, this boy is dangerous.”

“He may be,” Tristen said, “but that means he’s dangerous to be wandering free, too, and moiling other waters.”

“Perhaps.”

“He needs a Place, does he not? Is he not more dangerous without a Place?”

“And so you lend him thisone, gods save me. He’ll go through clothes, he’ll eat like a troop of the Guard, and his feet will grow. I do not cook, mind you! Nothing except my own meals.”

It comforted him, that Emuin did not seem as set against Paisi as he had feared, and within the mundane complaints he heard nothing so grievous as their prior discussion. “All that he needs the Zeide has for the asking. And he can cook for you.” Another shift of direction. “He’s ru

“I sent him after turnips yesterday.”

“Turnips. Is there some flaw in Cook’s turnips?”

“You’re such a troublesome young man!”

“I fear I’ve become so,” he said sadly. He envied Paisi, to do no more than run a wizard’s errands, and to learn the ways of bird nests, and all such things as had passed his reach. Another boy belonged to Emuin. He did not. He had become something else, as Cefwyn had passed through Emuin’s hands and become something else. A severance had occurred without his seeing it coming.

But he had learned Emuin’s greater lessons: patience, and examination of himself. And what had he interrupted Emuin saying to him: something about turnips and the marketplace?

“Taking in thieves,” Emuin muttered. “Conversing with exiles…”

“Cevulirn came north to discuss Cefwyn’s affairs with me,” Tristen said sharply, “and something very powerful wished to prevent him. I’m all but sure it wasn’t Auld Syes who raised that storm. Tell me again and tell me true: was it you?”

Emuin’s brows lifted in mild wonder, and Emuin did look at him eye-to-eye, his gaze for the moment as clear as glass. “No, not I. Have you another thought?”

“What do youseek in the market?” Tristen asked in Emuin’s style: divert, feint, and under the guard.

“Much the same as your questions to the boy, thank you. Especially the old women have ears, andthe sort of awareness you and I have. They’re a valuable resource, the witches, the wisewomen of Amefel. I’ve used them from time to time. Now you’ve thought of the same resource and asked the right question. Shall I tell you what I know?”

“Yes, sir. If you please.”

“Then look about you: the people have had a rebirth of their faith. So the Bryaltines say. The old symbols appear openly in certain alleys, and people wear charms and set them in their doorways. They hang bells in the wind, so their dimmer ears can hear what we hear in it. All this affronted the good Quinalt father, and scandalized our missing sergeant, I’m sure, gods save his devout soul.” This Emuin said not without sarcasm.

“I suppose I’ve seen it.”

“You know you’ve seen it. You’ve not found it remarkable until I mention it. And in your absence, however brief, the Bryalt father turns out to have gained two nuns of his order, women formerly in the service of the Zeide, who two days ago were prophesying in the street… saying openly that the Sihhë have risen in Henas’amef and in Amefel. And, do you know, they prophesied the rewakening of Althalen?”

Tristen was appalled.

“Oh, and this beforeyou came back to say so, perhaps on the very day you did it. So they have the Sight and have it in good measure. And on thatnews, the good father quit the town and struck out down the road in mortal offense, behind the captain and the sergeants who alsowent to Guelemara. Can you imagine the meeting at Clusyn?”

The monastery where travelers stayed.

“So you’re building at Althalen,” Emuin said, “nuns are in the street foretelling the rise of the Sihhë-lords and the return of the King To Come, and gods save us all… they saw what you were doing.”

He heard. The words echoed in the air, off the walls of events past and present. He heard the hammer strokes of men at work on stone, not uncommon in the Zeide these days; but it echoed work elsewhere, on a ruined wall; he heard the whisper of the wind at the eaves, warning of change in the weather: he heard the ru