Fortress of Ice

He had a lifelong friend in Tristen, a friend who’d been unable to stay in the world of Men simply because, in some ways, Tristen was still that i

Gran was dead, her protections evidently inadequate. And a book had gone missing, from a hiding place they had supposed empty, the books in question either destroyed or in Tristen’s possession, at Ynefel. The boy was right: if, all protections fallen, he had found something of the sort, that was exactly where it belonged.

Breath in the room seemed very close at the moment. He looked into Paisi’s eyes, and into Crissand’s, no king in that moment, but a Man with other Men who’d seen the same improbable things he’d seen and carried the scars of it.

The amulet he wore gave no clue, no hint of a clue what was happening in the world, or where Tristen was.

Find him, he wished his old friend. Find my son. Keep him safe. A book is loose in the world.

And nothing answered that plea, not a whisper or a sensation.

“Your men will not arrest Otter, will they?” Aewyn asked, breaking the spell.

“By no means,” Crissand said earnestly. “But persuade him to come back, that, if they can.”

“I could persuade him,” Aewyn said. “He would believe me.”

“No,” Cefwyn said, more sharply than he intended. He softened it immediately, seeing the shock on his son’s face. “No. For his sake and yours.” The thought of what they might be dealing with turned him cold as ice, and he reached a hand to his son’s arm, wondering what he might do to occupy his son and keep him safe and busy, this close to Tarien Aswydd and without Tristen or Elfwyn to protect him. “Best you go to Captain Awen and get down to the kitchens: there’s a good warm spot, and you can do as I used to do, nip a late meal from the cooks. See the men are fed. That’s the job you can do for me.”

“I don’t want to be down in the kitchen! I want them to find my brother!”

“Well, they can’t do it on empty stomachs and no rest, young sir, and don’t dispute me in front of another lord, even if he is an old friend.”

“Father,” Aewyn said, looking quite undone, and having just let fly, when very good behavior had been the rule for two whole days, even when they had come on the ruin of Gran’s farm. “Forgive me, sir.” This last to Lord Crissand.

“Your Highness,” Crissand said, with a sober nod of his head, and a very weary prince got up from a hard chair and limped on out the door, collecting his cloak as he left.

“The boys got on well,” Cefwyn said, an understatement, in the boy’s departure. “He’s had a long, hard ride, he’s seen unpleasant sights, and he’s chilled through.”

“Understandable in a grown man,” Crissand said, formality gone.

“Paisi, sit down.”

“Your Majesty.” Paisi made that diffident little protest, but he sat down on the raised hearth of the fireside, without fuss or ceremony.

There were matters to discuss: old murders, old wars, in which they all three had had their part. An absent friend, who should have arrived much before this, if things were ordinary. Magic had that way about it: ordinary Men might be diverted by a stray breeze or a whim, but when the real storms of magic raged, determined Men, being blind to it, could sometimes blunder on by sheer will through forces that would stop a wizard cold.

Had he blundered through such opposition, he and his ungifted son, in getting here at all? Gran was dead. Crissand had had to turn back. Paisi, trying to track Elfwyn, had simply blinked and lost him into the night. And after, Crissand had lost all awareness where Elfwyn was. Crissand knew that situation, when magic moved things where they had never intended to be.

A Man fell right on through the sieve of magic and stood staring and wondering what was happening, when the shadow-ways were at issue. And gods knew where Elfwyn was now, or who had moved him. He only hoped it was Tristen himself; but Tristen, years ago, had not found the book his sorcerous-born son had found, despite his searching, and Tristen had greatly desired to find anything left of that cache, which no one had ever explained being there in the first place—not to mention the murder of one elderly librarian by another.

A book had been left, after all the murder and co

That was not a good thing, either, not at all.

ii

CAST OUT, AFTER A REASONABLE OBJECTION, WAS AEWYN’S VIEW. OF COURSE HE knew the men were tired and his father was tired—and cross. He was tired and disappointed and vastly upset, and he had been a little forward, but he would go on and look for his brother, if anybody listened to him, and all that his father and Crissand were doing up there they could do on horseback, out looking in the meanwhile. This was a town. There were other horses. He was tired, but he could keep going. He hadn’t meant to be disrespectful to his father, who often talked to Lord Crissand as if he were family… but he was right, and they weren’t finding his brother, and he certainly didn’t deserve to be sent down to the kitchens and shut out of any news they might get.

But his father being king, everyone had to obey him even if they didn’t like it, and if his father said he was to see the men were fed, nobody else was going to do it if he didn’t, and they would all suffer for it. So he walked on to the guard station where all the soldiers gathered—there were enough inside that they were spilling out into the hall and hanging in the doorway, exchanging rumors. They stood up straighter when he walked up.

“I’m to go with you to the kitchen and be sure you have your suppers,” Aewyn said.

“Your Highness.” There was complete attention from his father’s guard.

“And sometimes staff knows things the lords don’t,” Aewyn added, “so we may learn something while we’re there.” He had learned that wisdom from Paisi, who despite his scruffy appearance and his southern speech, was a very wise and clever man. He had been a thief, and knew all sorts of ways to get past precautions and locks, and to go unseen.

And that thought put an idea in his head, a wicked and desperate idea, and one he knew would upset his father, but things were more desperate than anyone seemed willing to say. Paisi’s gran was not just sick, as Otter— Elfwyn—had thought; she turned out to be dead in a fire, and Elfwyn had run off from Paisi, or Paisi hadn’t been able to keep up with him, which was the same, so things couldn’t wait until morning. Elfwyn never would part from Paisi, especially if something had happened to Gran… Elfwyn hadn’t stolen any book because he was naturally a thief, or because Paisi was; he’d stolen it either because it was his, or because it was important for him to do that, and maybe even Lord Crissand wasn’t supposed to have it in his possession.

Otter had gone to Lord Tristen and come back again, and maybe it was Lord Tristen who had wanted him to do what he’d done and sent him here to do it. Wizards… and Lord Tristen was something more than a wizard… did things for reasons nobody could understand at the time, but it was for the good, if it was a good wizard doing it. The things Lord Tristen did were good things, white magic, hadn’t his father told him that, and told him never to say that to the Quinalt brothers?

That was because Amefin folk and Elwynim did things differently from the start: they respected witches like Gran, they hung charms in their windows, which no Guelen dared do, and they danced at festival—altogether a wilder, freer folk than Guelens, in his estimation, and maybe one reason why he had always liked his brother, who was ever so ready to enter into a bit of mischief and never really feared any rebuke but Gran’s. Who was dead. And it was very sure that whatever had caused that fire was not Lord Tristen, and was not friendly to his brother, who was alone out there.