Fortress of Ice

The old man had done them and their horses nothing but kindness. Elfwyn tasted the food very gingerly, and decided he took no harm of it. Aewyn supped it right down, with bits of bread, and Elfwyn found it so filling he had no need of cheese or sausage to go with it. Aewyn, beside him, had propped himself against the stonework of the fireplace, and nodded, but Elfwyn kept staring at the bowls, which he would swear had not been there before the old man wanted it, and the remnant of the broth, which could not have come from anything he had seen go into the pot.

The old man had worn a tattered brown cloak; but when he looked up, it was gray, and the old man wore a silver medallion, a design he had never seen before, a twisting thing, like a snake, or a dragon, and what had been grizzled gray hair streaked with black had become snowy white.

Worse and worse.

He would have run out into the night if he’d had a choice, but Aewyn snored away, beside him, and one of the horses had been indiscreet, right in the corner—it lent a touch of rural strangeness to the night.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, and got up and went to clean up the problem with a ratty broom and some straw from a pile in the corner: he swept it out the door, not without traces, and a lingering barn smell. He could run, he thought. But he could not leave Aewyn helpless. It was impossible to run.

He set the broom aside, and went to sit at the hearth, arms about his knees, looking steadily at the old man, wishing desperately for the sun to come up.

“You push at the world itself,” the old man said, “but ca

“No, sir,” he said, more and more disturbed, distracted by dread. How had the old man known what he was thinking?

“The sun will come in its own time,” the old man said, and wove a little pattern with his fingers. The gusts of cold air, the drafts… all stopped, and the room was breathless.

“My name is Emuin,” the old man said, “and yours is Elfwyn.”

Emuin. The Emuin of Gran’s stories was dead. Surely he was dead. That Emuin had been an old, old man, even his whole lifetime ago.

“You doubt my claim?” the old man asked, with the arch of a brow.

“I’d heard you were dead.”

A chuckle now, gentle and distant, as the old man gazed into the fire and grew somber. “I had heard you had gone to Guelemara. And then you came home to Amefel. Or did you? Didn’t you run from Guelemara? I think you’re given to ru

Straight to the heart, which beat hard, like a trapped thing. “How did you hear, sir?”

“Oh, a wayward bird.” A light and careless answer, to a question carefully guarded. “And directly from your father, who arranged a message you weren’t in any wise supposed to act on.”

“He didn’t.”

“Oh, but he did. He wanted to get the Quinalt fellow out of your way and get you home to Gran before there was more trouble of a magical sort. And he ever so greatly regrets that letter.”

“ Wheredid you meet my father?”

“Oh, here and there, through the years, on the stairs, in the hall, in the scullery and the courtyard…”

“Just last. Where did you meet him, sir?”

A slow smile moved amid the mustaches, a darting look of very thoughtful eyes.

“Cautious lad.”

“I must be, sir. I have to be. People I would believe have lied to me.”

“Elfwyn. Elfwyn. Elfwyn,” the old man said, and Elfwyn felt a band close about his chest, and loose again. “A fey name. The name of an ancient king, a dead and betrayed ancient king. But you, who bear that name, play at stableboy in a cottage.”

“I’m not meant to be a king,” he said. “I’m illegitimate.” That wasn’t the word he’d used all his life. He’d learned illegitimatein Guelemara. “I don’t want to be a king.”

“Do you say so?” The old man reached a straw into the fire and let it burn, delicately. A draft wafted the little flame toward the fire as it consumed the straw. It burned right to the old man’s fingers.

And died with a little curl of smoke that flowed away as the flame had bent away from his hand.

“Do you say so?” the old man asked again.

“Where did you meet my father recently?”

A little frown knit white brows. The old man said, faintly, a wisp of a sound: “In the Zeide, in the Zeide just now. But I didn’t stay for Tristen—the fool boy. The whole world is astir, and he’s lost himself somewhere, and here you go trudging off through the snow. For what purpose?”

“To find Lord Tristen.”

“To find Tristen, is it? Why?”

He had not thought of the reason of his quest in hours. He had struggled so to live he had not thought until that exact instant of the book he carried next to his skin, and now it seemed the most dangerous thing in the world to have in this man’s close presence. He felt it tingle, like the ring. And he wanted to take Aewyn, ride to Ynefel, and put that terrible thing somewhere safe and never touch it again.

“Why should a boy search for Tristen, at peril of his life?”

He looked away. He had no wish to meet the old man’s eyes: guilt for theft and folly overwhelmed him. He looked into the fire, and saw the ruin of old wood: he saw castles and fortifications of fire, crumbling in the heat.

“He will be by now where you were,” the old man said. “Where I had rather be, this chilly night, instead of this place. Dash off into the dark, indeed. Dash off into storms the like of which your little wisp of a life has never seen. Have you ever seen the like of this weather?”

“No, sir,” he said, bewildered into a glance toward the old man, which caught him, snared him, held him. “I never have.”

“I have seen worse. Do you think it natural, this storm, the storms of this whole winter?”

“I think it very bitter cold.”

“And yet you risked it. You fled. For what?”

He could not but think of the thing against his ribs. He didn’t want to think about it.

“I know,” the old man said. “Do you think I do not? What would your gran say? Why didn’t you take it home?”

He was shaken. And angry. “If you’re Master Emuin, you know my gran is dead. I have no home.”

“Otter,” the old man said, surprising him. “Slippery as an otter. Diving into dark places. Being the fool only for others’ amusement.”

That drew a frown. “I may be. But I look for advice from people I trust, not from strangers who may not be who they say they are.”

“And you have very sharp teeth.”

“Only if someone comes at me.”

“Otter… or Spider? Which had you rather be?”

“Otter, thank you. Spiders live in nasty holes.”

“Fastidious, then. You have a prince’s tastes.”

“No prince. A bastard, is all.”

“His brother.” This, the old man said with a gesture at Aewyn, whose fair hair curled in grimy ringlets about his unconscious face.

It was not a notice he wished to bring on Aewyn. If he could humor the old man until his bones warmed, until the horses were recovered, until the sun rose and dispelled this wizardous haunt, he would do that, and hope to keep Aewyn out of the old man’s thoughts entirely until he waked. This man could conjure: he had seen that, and it was beyond him to deal with such a man, a wizard, who might have been drawn to them by what he had stolen and what he carried…

“A true prince of Ylesuin,” the old man said. “ Theprince of Ylesuin. His father fears for him. And fears for you.”

The first saying he easily accepted, that his father feared for Aewyn, though he by no means took for granted that this old man was his father’s old tutor, or even his father’s friend. The second thing stung. If his situation had risen to any care of his father’s, it could never match his father’s love for Aewyn, and he knew his brother’s danger was all of his making. He was being led, and if he made a mistake in judgment of this old man and grew softheaded in his desire to hear what he wanted to hear, it could be his last mistake.