Fortress of Ice

He leafed through, standing, finding nothing in particular that caught his eye, except a grand illumination of the Battle of Lewen Field, with soldiers dying and the Eagle ba

The fear, however, dogged him, like something standing just at his shoulder, something that darted from one side of his vision to the other, taunting him. He strayed from the table to the shelf the old man had pointed out.

He saw, on the shelves, a large, ancient volume: The Art of War, translated by… but the name had worn off the spine. There was The Red Chronicle. That book drew him, as one he had long heard mentioned, and he reached toward it, thinking to take it from the shelf.

Steps came up behind him. He turned, empty-handed, and the librarian passed over a heavy volume. He felt, for some reason he couldn’t understand, an unaccustomed guilt and distress at the interruption in his reach, as if he had lied to the old man and could not even remember the lie he had told.

The codex the old man gave him was, indeed, A History of Amefel.

“You may read it at this table,” the librarian said, and drew back a chair for him. He sat down, and opened it very carefully, and read at length. It was not the best copyist who had produced this volume, in an overblown script. It was a labor to read it, and he found it a dry, scholarly style, nothing that informed him, nothing so perilous or exciting as he had hoped to find in The Red Chronicle. This one began with very old records, back in the reign of the High Kings, and named every single lord of every single holding, with all the begetting and descending and disputing.

Still, in courtesy to the old librarian who had particularly offered this to him, he stayed at it, laboring over the obscure script, and curious, stiff illuminations of people who stood like pillars, with exactly the same faces and differing gestures. Paisi finally surprised him, having tracked him down.

“I wondered where ye’d gone, m’lord,” Paisi said.

“I wanted to read,” he lied. He suddenly realized everything he’d done since leaving Paisi outside was one long lie, and he didn’t know why he wanted to be here now, but he did and was afraid to be. The book at least gave him respite from dreams and uncertainties: its dry difficulties drew all his faculties into one effort, and left no time for extraneous thoughts, or remembering Gran, or wondering what he would do with himself hereafter. It was only time he had to fill to get from waking to dark, and reading filled it well enough.

Paisi was all over dust and smelled of the stables, not books. “So shall ye be up to supper?”

“In a bit. Go up to the room and rest if you like.”

“More like down to the kitchens to get a bite,” Paisi said. “I’m half-starved. D’ ye want anything, m’lord? Shall I have your supper sent upstairs?”

“In an hour or so,” he said. “Thank you, Paisi.” He didn’t feel hungry. He turned a page carefully, wishing only not to be distracted from where he was, as if he were walking a rail and mustn’t fall off, mustn’t distract himself.

Paisi, probably a

This book was not the thing he wanted. But the library was the place he wanted. He didn’t want to leave it. He didn’t want to look away from his pages. He just wanted to stay where he was, where his heart didn’t hurt and his memories and his dreams didn’t keep slipping into his head.

“Might I stay longer?” he asked when the librarian said that he had to go to supper, and went about to turn out the few old men who had occupied other tables.

The old man looked at him carefully and gave him a key. “These are very, very few,” the old man said. “You may come in and read, lad, as pleases you. I can see you read like a scholar. Admirable. Admirable in a lad. But have extreme care of candles, bank the fire, and lock the door when you leave. These books are the kingdom’s treasures, and irreplaceable.”

“I shall be careful, sir,” he said, taking the key, which tingled in his fingers, the longed-for prize. “I shall be ever so careful.”

He stayed a little while after. Once he was sure the old man was gone, he got up and took The Red Chroniclefrom its shelf. He read by close candlelight—the windows were dimming—how the Sihhë-lords’ reign had extended over Amefel, Elwynor, and most that was now Ylesuin. In those days magic had been ordinary, and the Sihhë lived long lives, spa

Nothing was then as it was now. Gran had never told him these things. Paisi hadn’t.

And this Selwyn Marhanen, this warlord out of Guelessar, had defended the borders of the Sihhë from attacks from the south, while making secret alliances with a priest of a militant sect, the Quinalt—in that day when most Men were Bryalt, or, always in the case of wizards, Teranthine…

Was the Quinaltine not yet built, then? Or all the great city of Guelemara? He tried to imagine the world as it had been, and leafed carefully ahead to see that Selwyn Marhanen had killed several of his brother lords among the districts of Men, and entered into agreements with others. The Sihhë King in those days was Elfwyn, Elfwyn Sihhë, who relied on the Marhanen and trusted him.

The guttering candle wavered, making the letters crawl and move. He looked up, realized that the windows were now completely dark, the fire in the little fireplace was out, and his whole body was stiffened from long sitting.

He shivered, held his chilling fingers above the candleflame to warm them, and simultaneously realized, with a little touch of dismay, that Paisi might not realize he was still here, now that the door shut.

There was tomorrow. There were any number of tomorrows for books. He shut the History of Amefelon the table, to protect its pages from drafts, before returning The Red Chronicleto the shelf. He would, he told himself, be back when he was not cold and hungry and getting to the end of a candle stub. He lifted the candleholder to light his way to the door, careful not to spill the brimming wax, and as it tipped, a little did spill into the catch-basin, and the flame leapt up on a clear wick, showing him the way, indeed, but making all the room a threatening place, the tall cases and the looming stacks full of secrets, tales that had shaped his present existence, laws and rights of rule—so, so many things he didn’t understand and needed to know, if only to defend himself from forces he did not comprehend.

But for now he took his single candle to the door and let himself out, blew out the candle stub, and left it on the ledge outside the door, to be renewed by servants who saw that such things appeared in due order. The halls were mostly deserted, and he remembered that horrid apparition—he hadn’t realized he’d trapped himself on the other side of it, after dark, and he didn’t want to go near that place, not even with his mother’s guards on watch down there.

There was, however, the way the servants used.

He went down to the end of the short hall, and found, indeed, the servants’ stairs, and climbed up those short, dark stairs to a dimly lighted hall above—one bend and another, which took him above the haunt. He hurried along, breathless, trying not to break into a fearful run. Servants were going up and down the halls at this hour, collecting the washing and used dishes of other residents, the minor lords of the town and the province, lords who lived here, or visited here, where now a witch’s son found refuge from calamity.