Страница 118 из 121
Anger will be your particular struggle. He recalled Emuin saying that. And of Aewyn: He is your chance for redemption and your inclination toward utter fall. Do you understand me?
If I betray him, he had said. And Emuin had said:
If you betray him, it will be fatal to us all.
He had not, had he, betrayed his brother? He had stayed steadfast. He meant to do so.
Emuin had said, too, regarding his mother: As near as she can come to love, she loves you.
Love, was it? Wrong in one, perhaps wrong in both. Perhaps Emuin had not seen as much of his nature as he ought…
Vision. Was that not the word Tristen had given him?
Seeing. Seeing things for what they were. Seeing the truth, without coloring it, or making it other than it was. Was that the begi
Be Mouse, Tristen had said, Mouse, not Owl. Mouse looked out from the base of the walls, was low and quiet, and looked carefully before he committed himself. He more than looked, he listened, and measured his distances—was never caught too far from his hole.
He certainly had been.
And he had forgotten his other word. So much of a wizard he was.
Spider, Emuin had called him. Spider Prince. And he had said pridefully that he didn’t live in a nasty hole.
He was certainly in one now. He’d spun his little web, his wards, and Sir Wisp had smashed right through them without even noticing.
All he could do was do them again, and again, and again, and maybe, as long as he might be a prisoner here, he might do them well enough to be a nuisance, then a hindrance, then, maybe, a barrier… spi
Patience.
Patiencewas his other word. Now he remembered it. Patience, and waiting to talk to Paisi, and waiting to get advice, and approaching things slowly—would have saved him so much grief.
Patience instead of anger. Patience instead of rushing into things headlong. Patience, and Vision… would have mended so much that had gone wrong.
Lord Tristen had advised him of the truth. Would someone do that, for his enemy?
Lord Tristen might. He would have, because that was his nature to deal in truth, not lies.
And what did that say, for the advice he had just been given?
Maybe it was time not to be Otter, diving headlong from this to that, nor Mouse, watching from the peripheries of a situation, but patient Spider, simply building, over and over, and over again.
He sat, hands on his knees, and rebuilt his path, from the cottage, to the woods, to the battlefield, to the bridge, to here, in the u
Too strong for Aewyn.
Or too foreign to Aewyn, being sorcerous in nature.
Sorcery was a path that might be open to him. He might learn it and use it.
But it did not mend its nature simply because he used it; and he did not think it would improve his own.
So there was wizardry, which Tristen had refused to teach him.
Make me a wizard, he had asked. Or, had it been: Teach me wizardry?
And Lord Tristen had said: You are not yet what you will be, and added, and I have been waiting for this question for longer than you know.
How did he hear that answer now, in light of what his captors had said he was?
Teach you wizardry? He remembered Emuin saying that. Useless. Teach you magic? I ca
He had scorned the answer. He had disbelieved it.
And he named you, Master Emuin had said of Lord Tristen. Then I suspect he did see what I see.
And he had asked, disturbed: What did he see? What do you?
A conjuring, Emuin had answered him. A Summoning that opens a door.
What door? he had asked, straight back at Emuin. Make sense, please, sir!
And Emuin:
You govern what door, if you have the will. Do you have the will, Spider Prince?
A chill ran through him, deep as bone, a chill that had him shaking in every limb. He looked down at his hand, where, forgotten, Lord Crissand’s ring shone in the firelight, dull silver, and festooned with cheap silverwork.
It had not tingled since all this last mad course began. It had not warned him against Emuin. It had lain inert during their precipitate rush from Marna to Lewen Field to the river. It had not warned him of Sir Wisp or his mother. Perhaps his captors had killed the virtue in it. He wished he had given the ring to his brother when they were at the begi
He wished… like the spider. He chained one wish to the other, starting not with what was impossible, but what was possible. He sat down before the fire, and wished one spark to fly out, and to land on his hand.
It flew. It landed. Without hesitation he seized it, and patiently wished the next thing. He wished the chill away, wished himself warm. One thing after another, one thing after another.
He wished Aewyn safe.
The fog appeared again—not around him—but where the door had been. He saw just the least glimmer of light.
iv
SNOW STILL FELL IN THE DARK, AND THEY RODE THROUGH THE REMNANT of walls… walls lit by ghostly blue lines, which Cefwyn himself could see tonight. He rode by Tristen’s side, Uwen just behind, and all around them, like a ghostly city, old Althalen rose, not just its foundations, but the outlines of its long-fallen towers, and the soaring height of domes greater than any in the realm. It was a glimpse of the Sihhë capital, as it had been, and a Marhanen king knew what his grandfather had brought low.
But things changed. There were bonds made. And the heart of that maze of blue light led to a simple place, a corner of what had been the palace, and a wall, where a tomb was set—they had not been near it a moment ago, but then they were, and Cefwyn had the heart-deep conviction Tristen had magicked them a bit, just a little, over a hill and down it.
He saw then a gathering of haunts, in a little low place, at that corner, ghosts that, at their coming, turned and stared at them with gray and troubled eyes, before they shredded away on the winds. Layer after layer of haunts fled their passage, wisps that left an uneasiness in the air.
But a young lad sat against that wall—no, he rested against the knees of a bearded old man, whose ghostly hand stroked his blond, curly head, and by that man stood, gowned in cobweb, Auld Syes, the gray lady—her, he knew for long dead; and on the other side, behind the old man he now recognized for the old Regent, his father-in-law, stood a woman in a shawl, who was his other son’s gran, likewise perished. These three had his son in their keeping, and his heart froze in him. He swung down before his horse stopped moving, and ran to his son, heedless of haunts or spirits or whatever magic might be here. He was an ordinary man. He brushed it all aside, and seized his son up in his arms, and hugged him as hard as he could.
“Ow,” Aewyn cried. “Papa!”
“He’s alive,” he called to Tristen and Uwen, who, likewise dismounted, were right behind him, and he looked around to thank the dead, at least— old friends, old allies.
But there was nothing there but a crumbling stone wall, and the stone they had set there for Uleman Syrillas.
“It was Grandfather,” Aewyn murmured against his collar. “And Paisi’s gran. And a lady I don’t know.”