Fortress of Ice

Paisi might indeed ask him, now that they were away, why they ran. He was less and less sure he knew the answer, except he had gone mad for the moment, and panicked, and the terror of his mother’s sorcery grew less with every stride the horses took.

Fear had driven him. Fear had taken away Guelemara, and now it had taken his own town, and with Gran gone, fear behind him was all he had left for a guide.

iii

THERE WAS A DISTURBANCE OF SOME KIND, SOME RACKET FAR AWAY IN THE apartment, which roused Crissand from his wife’s side. She slept, but he leaned on one arm, sure he had heard something, and grew surer still, when he heard the sounds of quiet debate, far off in his chambers… debate, then very quiet footsteps and a mouselike knock at the door.

Crissand got out of bed, reached for his dressing robe: Cenas, his valet, had already let himself in, and soft-footed it over to him.

“My lord, a difficulty with your guest,” Cenas whispered. “He’s gone.”

His heart sank. “Gone where?” he whispered back.

“The gates, as seems,” Cenas said, then hastened to stay with him as Crissand strode out the door and down the hall, wrapping his dressing robe about him and still barefoot.

The night duty captain was there, with another guardsman, grim-faced and still a little diffident.

“What’s the matter?” he asked them sharply. “What’s this, gone?”

“Your Grace, the boy, the boy who carries your ring—”

“My cousin,” Crissand said sharply. “What of him?”

“He’s taken to horseback,” the captain said. “He and his man. He was in the library—”

“The library?”

“A fire was burning there, late, and when the guard roused out the librarian and investigated, for the safety of the premises, Your Grace—”

“What has this to do with my cousin?”

“He had one of the keys. Your Grace, there was plaster, loose plaster, and a hole dug under a counter, right through the wall. And the fire was burning.”

On the surface, it was ridiculous. The whole story was ridiculous. But there had been a dark deed in the library, the murder of an elderly librarian, the flight of a thief, the burning of certain wizardly manuscripts—Mauryl Gestaurien’s, no less. They had thought they had recovered the remainder, those that had been carried off. He rubbed his face, asking himself if he had slipped in time, in a dream that had subtly changed the shape of things.

“And the librarian said he didn’t know, that there were four keys, and he had one, and you another, my lord, Master Rue the third, and your cousin— your cousin the fourth. So we went upstairs. No one was there, and the fire was left burning in the hearth…”

“Plague take the fire! Where is my cousin?”

“We looked to the kitchens, where boys do go, Your Grace—”

“Go on.”

“And found tracks in the snow, from the side entry and from the kitchens, both to the stables, and the night watch had saddled their horses. The boy showed your ring.”

“Clever lad,” Crissand said, with a sinking heart.

“And they went out the town gate, the same way. It’s come on a blizzard, Your Grace. It’s snowing to beat all.”

“It would,” he said. “Double the watch on the tower. Search Lady Tarien’s room for any book or scroll or scrap of parchment. Whatever you find, take charge of, keep, and throw her in irons if you find any such thing. Tell her nothing. Nothing! Meanwhile, get my horse and get the guard out to ride with me. Good gods, why didn’t you rouse me before this? Which direction did he go? Has anyone looked out to find the tracks?”

“The gate-guard didn’t say, Your Grace.”

“Damn!”

“Your Grace,” the captain protested, but Crissand stalked back to his bedchamber, the servant chasing him and calling on others to wake.

Clever, clever boy, he said to himself. Snowing heavily, no report on where he’d gone, and no tracks left by now. Elfwyn had searched for something lost before he was born, something no one expected ever to find, and, if the recovered books were any guide, he had looked for something that any witch or wizard would give his soul to obtain.

Then he’d run, whether or not he had found what he was looking for.

But there was the ring. There was that, once he wondered about it, and once he simply wanted to know. Tristen had bound it to him in that way, so that his idlest wondering would find it, if he wished.

The boy had gone west. No question.

iv

SNOW, SNOW SO THICK IN THE DRIVING WIND THAT IT WHITED OUT ALL THE world, and it was only themselves, and the horses. They moved, and seemed to go nowhere at all, like a dream of pursuit in which one could not gain, only lose. The only measure of distance was the anger that came at them from behind, sorcerous anger, sorcerous desire, so dark and hot a passion it burned through the cold, and snarled even conscious thought into a tangle of guilt and uncertainty.

Elfwyn glanced back from time to time to be sure at least of Paisi, riding near him; but the cold and the wind discouraged any attempt he made to speak, or explain. Paisi had never questioned him, beyond knowing that the guards were after him for theft, and he didn’t know how he would explain to Paisi what had driven him to this extremity, or why he was so sure this thing, this horrid thing, would reach to his mother if it stayed where it was. She might have lied and murdered and prodded and tormented him into laying hands on it for her, but she could not get up him those stairs.

But someone else could bring it into her reach. And Crissand would blame him. His mother’s spite would whisper into Crissand’s dreams at night, reminding him that his guest had lied, and stolen, and deserved only his contempt. Things would happen, until Crissand believed it, and worse and worse happened.

He should take off the ring Crissand had given him, the thing Crissand had said would betray him if he betrayed Crissand’s trust. He should take it off and fling it into a snowbank, but it was a precious thing, and in his keeping; most of all it was Tristen’s magic, not his mother’s sorcery, and he was not sure but what it was the protection that had let him, however belatedly, recover his wits and run away. It might even be leading him to Tristen.

And if it had any power, he should try to use it. Shivering and blasted by the wind, he tried to marshal his thoughts, and to tell the friendly powers of the world, as best he could, that he was no thief: he muttered into the wind, “Lord Tristen, can you hear me? Can you find us? We can’t see, we can’t find our way, and my mother wants this thing I have. I think it belongs to you. Maybe I should never have taken it, but now it has to come to you. Please answer me.”

But no answer came.

Maybe, he thought, he should just have left a note in his room, explaining all he could. But he had thought only of ru

Are we so sure? a voice said to him. Is this thing leading us to him, or wide astray in this storm? Has it urged us to honesty? Has it led us to any good act?

Maybe he could have stayed where he was and sent Paisi with the book. He could lie to Crissand. He could even tell the truth. But the book would be away from his mother.

No. He would not have sent Paisi alone with this thing. Paisi had always taken care of him, but now, all of a sudden, he found himself trying to protect Paisi, and taking care of him, and he could never ask Paisi to take on his mother, which was what it would amount to. His mother might try to stop him, might try to kill him, for all he knew, but she would not come at Paisi—he would not let her come at Paisi, come what might.