Fortress of Dragons

Yet the fear persisted, the retreat within the gray space. Nothing they had said had drawn Crissand out of it.

"Yet it is something," Tristen said. "It's a warning. But don't think it was all Orien's doing. Wizardry isn't anyone's. It's patterns. There and here are the same thing. Now and then are the same thing—left and right to the same design."

"I don't understand."

"Why did you go to Drusenan?"

Crissand blinked.

"Why to Drusenan," Tristen asked, "and not to, say, Levey, or somewhere within your own lands?"

Crissand shook his head slowly. "It seemed that was where I had to go."

'So we look instead for those who might have sent you there." listen said. "Emuin might have had something to do with your going there. I might. For that matter, Paisi has the gift, and Cevulirn.

Even Drusenan himself does, though very little; and certainly Lady

Orien and Lady Tarien have gift enough, but I doubt Drusenan was in their thoughts at all. You didn't fall in a ditch in the drifts and you escaped alive, and you come back with news about Tasmôrden's movements, which is something we all desire. So however it was— it wasn't that bad a venture."

A wry smile touched Crissand's mouth, and that knot in the gray eased the slightest hint. "As always, my lord sees the pure snow, not the mire."

"I see the mud, too. But it's the snow that's marvelous. Isn't it? I see the mud, and the ill my wishes can cause; but I wish better than that.—Yet leave wishing to me. I ask you believe me in this, and think about it at your leisure: what brought me to Henas'amef isn't a little pattern, and that means a great many men move to it. All the lords camped outside the walls, and Lady Orien in her nu

"Even my father dying?"

It was a thought on which he had spent no little pain, and no little doubt.

"It might have been… because youhave to be where you are. It's nothing I willed or intended. It's nothing you willed. That's the point. Orien wanted to be here, I very much believe it. Cuthan wished harm; both of them have the gift. Most of all Mauryl Gestaurien did, and he set me on the Road I followed. The pattern sent me here. Do you see? I wished nothing but my safety and Cefwyn's friendship. Nothing was intended. But your father was in the pattern, and when it moved… he drank from Lady Orien's cup. There's danger in my company. There's dangerin my wishes. And because you stand near me—with the gift—there's danger in what you do, and danger in what you wish."

Crissand left his seat as if the vicinity had grown too close, action preferable to the pain his wound cost him. Or perhaps it was the distraction of the pain he sought.

"Parsynan killing my men and my cousins, and Orien's cup poisoning my father… and Cuthan betraying him… these were all foredoomed?"

"No. Nothing was foredoomed. But we two have to be here, as we are right now, in this room." It was a terrible truth that he had to tell, but he trusted Crissand to withstand it, as he trusted only his closest and dearest friends. "Emuin says that what I will and will not is dangerous. It took me a long while to understand that, but I do. He's very much afraid of me, and he ought to be. He tells me very little, I suspect so I won't make up my mind too early. He says I don't have wizard-gift, but magic. And that means I don't depend on times and seasons: I can wish at any time, for anything. And that's terrible. That is terrible, do you see? No seasons govern me. No timeslimit me. I learn wizardry not because I have those limits, but because I want to learn what those limits are—of my friends, and of my enemies. You are the Aswydd, and you will be the Aswydd, no matter Lady Orien's demands. Auld Syes said it; and you aremy ally."

"Beyond a doubt in that, my lord."

"Yet everyone I love, everyone who loves me, is in danger… from my wishes, my mistakes, my idlest thoughts… and most of all, in danger from my enemies, especially when they venture outside the bounds. Tasmôrden has the gift. If he can't strike me, the wizard-gift that helps him will try to harm something dear to me. I can protect only what's close to me. Like warding a window. Like making the Lines on the earth. Inside is safe. Outside is dangerous.— Don't leave me again."

In the world of Men the things he tried to explain were all but inexplicable, difficult even for a man with his wits about him. Cris-sand trembled with exhaustion, and his fear of the gray space and what was Unfolding within him even now kept him balled and silent there… small wonder he had a distracted look, and seemed lost.

Tristen reached to the tea tray and moved one cup, which nudged the pot, the other cups, and the spirit bottle.

"Move this, it moves that. That's wizardry. It's that simple."

"It's mad!" Crissand protested. "How do you know what moves the right thing? How does anyone deal with it?"

"I left on such a ride as yours," Tristen said, "and came back with Ninévrisë. I didn't know she was there. But someonehad to bring her to Cefwyn. I was able to, and I was there. But she would have come, by one way or another. When things need to happen, they happen."

"Yet you say it's not foredoomed."

It's not. She would have come not because it was foredoomed, but because wizards wished her to be with Cefwyn. Even I, perhaps, since I wished Cefwyn well, and certainly he's happiest with Niné-vrisë. The wishes of all those with the gift wishing at once shape Patterns, and within those patterns we can move. Within the design, we can choose what we do, and by our choices, shift the pattern that is and change the choices of what can be." So he hoped, who had met himself in Marna Wood, and again at Ynefel, or at least had come fearfully close to it: how mutable time-to-come might be was of vital interest to him. "Only, being Sihhë, as Emuin supposes, it seems I can go counter to that pattern and throw it all into confusion again. I can change what wizards have set and I can do it even contrary to the pattern of the world itself. That's magic, as best I understand it. Magic, as opposed to wizardry. And I think that frightens wizards most of all. Ask Emuin. He explained these things to me. I learn wizardry, because it shows me how to work within the patterns Emuin sees, and not overthrow things. It's hard to be patient. But it's safest for everyone."

"I don't understand," Crissand said earnestly. "But I do hear, my lord, with all my heart, and I do know I do my lord no service by acting the fool—least of all by flinging myself into Tasmôrden's hands. But—"

"But?"

"I thought I was right!"

"Within the pattern, you were."

"But how—if these fits come on blindly… how can I know what's truly right? How can I say no to them?"

It was a question, one he had had to answer for himself, by having Emuin in his tower, and always within reach.

"Come to me. Not to Uwen, not to Tassand, no messages by way of Lusin. Come to me and tell me what you feel in the least moved to do, at whatever hour. That's the only way."

He had flaws of his own, he knew: latest of them, he had brought the Aswyddim into Henas'amef, endangering people who loved and trusted him, and never consulted Emuin. It was much the same as Crissand's riding off to the river. He found no difference, at least.