Fortress of Ice

“Come,” Cefwyn said. There was worry enough, all considering. Ninévrisë would be waiting for him, with the baby, who was not a patient child, particularly when waked and dressed before sunrise. Aewyn would be fretting in the hall, or off looking for his half brother, to be sure, this morning, that Otter showed up for services.

He by no means liked the advice he had had from Efanor and from Idrys.

But if there were anything untoward in Amefel, Efanor was right: Tristen would know it.

Would you not, old friend? he asked the amulet he wore. Would you not know if that vile woman had breached the wards?

You promised us to watch over us. I’ve tried not to do foolish things.

I’ve kept my word to you. That was never foolish, no matter what Crow and my brother think.

viii

READY, READY, THOUGH OTTER WAS ALMOST LATE, AND BROTHER TRASSIN STILL fussed with his cloak pin and wanted to teach him the morning prayers.

“Please you, sir, I mean to learn, only His Majesty is waiting. I have to go downstairs. Gods bless us.” He perceived it mollified the man when he said that, and he said it twice, breaking away. “Gods bless us, the Five bless us…”

It was the start of the prayer at least. The Five bless us at sunrise and sunset, in sunshine and rain…

And shall they bless us in snow, his rebel wits wanted to ask, and his terrors conjured worse than that. And shall they, in fire? Save us from fire. Gods save Gran from the fire. Oh, Paisi, go, hurry as fast as you can…

He escaped Trassin’s attentions and hurried as fast as he could keep his footing on the polished floor, out the door and down the hall, past the doors from which the few other residents would already have departed, onto the grand stairs, with a quick grip on the balustrade, his feet skipping ever so fast.

He heard a gathering below. He was not too late. He saw the glitter of gold, a red cloak—Aewyn’s. He himself wore his new dark blue coat, his good black boots, restored by the servants. Brother Trassin had insisted on helping him wash and dress, and, it turned out, had wanted to pray over him at every stage, while he tugged his shirt on and fastened his laces himself.

The blue cloak, accidentally pi

“Here you are, on time, and you look grand,” Aewyn declared, and turned to his father. “Doesn’t he?”

“Perfectly fine,” His Majesty said, laying a hand on Otter’s shoulder, “and just in time. Move us out, if you please, Lord Marshal. Move us on, here, and let us get this under way.”

The assembly began to move. The queen carried the baby in her arms, and Aewyn walked beside his father. Otter lagged back, finally securing the pin, hoping just to follow as quietly as possible, losing himself among the Guard and the officials who thronged the hall. Aewyn, however, turned half-about, caught his sleeve, and drew him forward without a word.

A gust fluttered all the candles and blew out half of them as the great doors opened on the dark outside. Staffs began to turn, unrolling ba

The way led along the center of the paved courtyard to those gates that were rarely open, tall iron gates with spikes along the top. Torches went before them onto the street, a war of fire and ba

From there the way led beside the tall windows and high walls of the Quinaltine, and around to the broad, high steps where a throng of people had gathered. These steps were sanded, and easier than they looked. Having braced himself at the sight of them, Otter let go a wider breath and walked up with ease in among the columns of the porch, and, beside Aewyn and the king and queen, into the echoing dark beyond the great doors.

A shiver took him there. It was warmer inside, but only tolerable. The massive candles, posed at intervals, relieved only the dark immediately about their flames, cast light on the lower portions of towering marble pillars, while the space above and behind was lost in dark. Shadowy crowds of richly dressed people stood on either hand, having reached their seats before them. The end of the aisle was ablaze with light, a diffusion of a hundred pale candles of every size, like looking at the su

Otter wanted to sneeze. He wanted to very badly, and choked it back into an embarrassed hiccup as they reached their benches and filed in. His eyes watered.

The king sat. Everyone sat down, with a rattle and bump of the benches throughout the great sanctuary. Aewyn sat on the side nearest his mother, Efanor came next, and Otter sat at the end of the row. He watched as a bearded old man all in white and gold stood up in front of all the candles and the altar and lifted his hands. He began to talk about sin and dark, then the coming of the sun.

That last was comforting. Otter supposed this was the Holy Father himself, and found he had a persuasive, calming voice: he even agreed with what he heard, thus far; but then a pair of priests accompanied an even older man into the place of the first, and that old man began to chant in a reedy voice about sun and shadow, and the willfulness of Men, and the sins of the age.

It was not so pleasant as the other voice, and the reasoning eluded him, but Otter listened attentively, and stood when everyone stood and sat when everyone sat, and tried not to fidget as Aewyn did—Aewyn swung his feet, and his father had to put a hand on his knee and stop him. Aewyn heaved a heavy sigh, then, and meanwhile the old man had directed more incense be waved about.

Otter pinched a sneeze up his nose, and tried not to blink. Tears from the smoke shattered the candlelight. A baby began to fret, somewhere in the assembly, and other babies took it up, including the Princess, who let out a protesting wail.

Otter dared blink, finally, thinking the tears dry enough, and the light cleared into discrete, though blurry, points. There was a darkness between those points, and while the old man chanted, that dark in front of the front row, under the railing, seemed to move strangely, like spilled ink. The shadow began to run along the rail that separated the choir and the other priests from the assembly. It flowed down from there like black water, and ran down the baluster at the corner, spreading across the floor right by the table where the candles sat. Otter leaned forward a little and watched in horrid fascination.

Gran could do things like that, making sparks march in a line on a straw, or making a puddle of water go silver, reflecting the light. But this trick with shadow felt quite threatening to him, like a rip in the world that swallowed in the light, and if it was a trick, Otter wished the priests would stop doing that, and they would just preach and be done soon.

But there was more singing, and more incense waved about, until at last the old man, with all the shadow now swirling about his feet, talked about sin and the wickedness of their forebears, about the world being divided into the gods’ own and the others, and those trafficking in shadows, who were damned.