Текст книги "Fortress of Dragons "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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One Shadow, one of the newest disturbances and blind to magic, challenged the barrier, and battered aside the weaker Shadows, and attempted harm; but it, too, could not break forth… a Shadow that held something vaguely of Cefwyn and of Efanor, a strong presence, full of powerful emotions.

Yet it was fear, not anger, that drove it to challenge the barrier.

It feared and fled something deeper and darker, something barriered in older Lines, far back across the floor that now was, that knew nothing of the music—but this Shadow, that had been a warrior and a soldier, and a king, knew the danger there, and tried to rally the others.

There was the real danger in this place. The tangle of Lines he had resolved, and freed the trapped spirits to an easier flow. But there was a reason, deep within, that the tormented Shadows had so persisted at the barrier, a deeper dark where something moved, or many things moved, like so many dark serpents, shapeless and powerful, and unwilling to be confined.

The collective presence in that depth, behind wards grown old and weak, had the coldness and the power of the stone faces, as adamant and as terrible, and what dwelt there was neither resigned to its prison, nor completely contained by the Lines that great Masons had drawn, even before later, lesser, masons had compromised those Lines.

Now, those ancient Lines far back, blue and red, grew weak and sickly at the points of its attacks, and the music faltered.

It did not augur well if that welter of dark breached the ancient barrier and assailed the new Line—if the Shadows of thatdarkness, full of malice, gained power such as the Shadows had at Althalen. Armed men had fallen under the assault of the haunts at Althalen, finding no substance their swords might strike and no protection in their armor or their skill. Only Auld Syes moderated the anger of those spirits, and ruled them.

But she was not here. Only this one Shadow of a soldier. Such was the threat in that depth: all the spirits that Men feared fled it. It was not Sihhë, nor even of Ynefel's age… it was older, older, and echoed of his fears in Ynefel's loft, or that night on the stairs, when all Ynefel had creaked and tottered.

And this danger lay in the heart of a sleeping town, at the heart of Cefwyn's kingdom. What precisely it was did not Unfold to him, but he knew it recognized him—he knew it wished him harm, but that thus far it could not press past the protections of his magic.

It hated him as it wished destruction of all that Men had built; and it hated him because he stood with Men, and wished them and their doings well.

It hated him as it had hated him at Ynefel and whispered outside his window.

It hated him as it had striven through Hasufin, but it was not

Hasufin: it had possessed Hasufin, and diverted him from Mauryl's hands.

It hated him because it knew its destroyer had come. And having failed in direct assault, it sought a weakness, any weakness, or an ally that might serve it for an instant—as Hasufin had served, and served more than once.

Here was a battle to fight, within these walls, within the mews. He had a chance here. It was willing to face him here.

But if he failed to be at Ilefínian, Cefwynwould surely die. If he failed to be at Ilefínian Hasufinwould prevail.

A sound disturbed him. He hurtled back to the world of Men, and the outer Lines, and stood by the altar rail, his hands and feet like ice.

Efanor had indeed come as quickly as he had asked, barefoot and wrapped in a sheet, and attended by two of the frightened priests.

"This place is in danger," Tristen said. "I need your help, Your Highness."

"What danger? From the enemy?"

He drew a breath, for there was so much to tell: "The Lord Commander brought Her Grace to Amefel. She's in Henas'amef, with Emuin; Idrys is going back to Cefwyn, in the north. All the south is crossing the river, coming north to Ilefínian, and Cefwyn is coming from the east… but so is Ryssand. Ryssand means to kill him. But worse, there's someone who's stopped the messengers reaching me, someone close to Cefwyn."

"A traitor!"

"Idrys doesn't know who. But he's going back as fast as he can, and I'm going north, to deal with Tasmôrden." Owl swept down from some height among the rafters and he unthinkingly lifted his gloved hand to receive Owl's taloned feet. "We can deal with all that. Hasufin is in this. He tried to take Tarien's baby, but we stopped him. Now he's helping Tasmôrden, who's helping Ryssand, and if Cefwyn defeats them, thisplace offers Hasufin a chance to break through."

" The Quinaltine? This is holy ground!"

"Henas'amef has a place, a doorway that opens sometimes to a wish from outside. So does Althalen: the Lord Regent wards it, and so does Auld Syes, and I know nothing gets through there. Ilefínian has such a place; so does Ynefel; and this is one, an old place, I think, old as Galasien. Cefwyn says your grandfatheris here… whoever it is, I think all the Shadows here fear what lies beneath this floor."

"Grandfather?" Efanor glanced wide-eyed at the shadows beyond the candles. "Grandfather never ran from anything."

"The wards were never right here. The Masons who raised this building made a mistake and I've set a new Line, but this is still where Hasufin may try to come." He dared no more detailed explanation: he saw the unease on Efanor's face. "I have to go to Cefwyn, to help him. Will youguard it?"

"Gods witness I'll guard it!" Efanor declared. "—But how do I do that?"

"You have the gift."

"Oh, no, not I!"

"It waked you from sleep, Your Highness. And you and the priests, gifted or not, must walk this Line, and wish it may hold, wish it with all your hearts and minds. Pray for it! Wish it strong. Let no Shadow break out here, not a single one, or the Line will break and terrible things will come. I've set the new Line on the pavings. Do you see?"

He marked it with his sword, and Efanor came, barefoot as he was, and looked along it, left and right, resolution and wariness in the lines of his face.

"It glows," Efanor said faintly, as if it were a fault to be mended, instead of an indication of its strength and health. "It glows."

"It must! Keep it glowing! Walk here, Your Highness. Walk this Line continually, and wish it strong, against all the ill it holds back." He sought for some reassurance to give Efanor that would keep Efanor's wits about him and remind him, come what might, of his sole, single-minded duty: and he found it in the little book he had brought, his proof to Efanor who he was, and that they still were friends. He gave Efanor his own gift back again and pressed his fingers about the beautiful little book, even as Owl fluttered up about his shoulders, urging him to leave. "Think on the good, never harm! Think only on the good, and on us living, and your brother being well, and walk the Line and wish it strong. Do you still see it?"

"I see it," Efanor breathed, looking along it.

"Do that for me," Tristen said, "and for your brother." He was sure now that he had made himself understood. He had faith in Efanor, as in no one else in the Quinaltine, and knew Efanor could command the priests as no other in the court could do. And now he felt the place beginning to fade about him. " Pray, Your Highness!" That was the magic Efanor knew how to work, and it would have to serve. "Pray and bless the place and think only of good and life! Walk the Line, and make it strong!"

The gray wind whirled about him again, cold this time, and violent. Sounds howled past him, and the gray place darkened around him as Owl flew ahead of him.

Then even Owl seemed uncertain, and took a new direction, and then a third.

Angry Shadows loomed up, old Shadows, those older than Men and resentful of those usurpers, and these Shadows seemed to track him with mindful attention. The dark was their weapon, and they wielded it with a lash of wind to make it more bitter and more biting. They wished to sweep him back again and, by defeating him, to breach the Line he had made, but it was no longer hisfight, that within the Quinaltine, where Quinaltine prayers went up. The soft tread of feet along the Line resounded among these Shadows like a single repeated chord, over and over, the same thing, endlessly the same thing—yet he could not tell from what quarter. He had lost his way for a heartbeat, he had lost Owl—then thought he saw a light.

He turned that way, then stopped and lost ground, belatedly aware of yet another hostile Shadow, a threat that prowled that region ahead, not behind.

He dared not even think, here. He dared not move. The enemy came as the Wind, both wary and angry, and the Wind blew and whispered to him.

– Ah, well, here you are.

He turned away from that Voice. He refused to be afraid, refused to run, but he would not deal with it, either, not now, not yet.

– Mauryl's mistake walks on two feet. Mauryl's undoing… all his efforts wasted in you.

It could not tempt him to argument. He was concerned only with the way out, and he searched for it.

But the Wind came near him, tugged at his cloak and his hair.

– I banished Mauryl as he banished the lords of Galasien. Was that not justice?

Questions. He would not answer, would not look, but his heart seemed apt to burst. He ran the loft stairs, he hid in the dark, and the Wind came and scattered his birds.

– Banished him, and I shall banish you. Make your wards. Seal your gates. I know the way to your heart, Barrakketh. I know your name and you know mine. Say it. Say it, and summon me. Do you dare face me?

– Nothing at your word, Tristen said, and caught after a thickness in the air of the gray space. It was Owl, who settled to his hand, and fought, rowing with his wings, for purchase there against the gale. Nothing ever at your order.

– Ah! Can you name me? So short a step! Declare my name, and let us deal together– let us bargain, you and I.

– I have nothing to do with you.

– Nothing? Not even hate? There is a darkness in you, there is an anger and I know the key to unlock it. I know what lies beneath the wards in that place as I know what lies behind the gates of your anger, Sihhë-lord!

– Leave me! Leave this place!

– Ah, but do you rule here? Threaten as you will, Shadow of Barrakketh, the hour will come… your hour, and mine.

– Not this day.

– I know a secret. Do you wish to know? Does curiosity move you? Ask. Ask the question.

Curiosity was his besetting weakness, and his prevailing strength. Curiosity had led him to good and to had and guided him through the dark.

But this question was no question. It led him to harm: he was sure of it.

Yet curiosity drew his gaze, even knowing better, and in the heart of the Wind he saw plains made desolate and homes laid waste… he saw battlefields and armies striving on them in the sunset, and above all the banner, the Tower and the Star.

So he stood bespelled for the space of a heartbeat, and felt the desolation of that sight creeping into his soul. This, this was his work, and the Wind beat his back like the buffet of vast wings. Owl fought to stay with him, but began to lose his footing: a presence clawed at Owl from the other side, a Shadow hating and hateful, resentful for her lost life.

But subtle as a sunrise, a presence crept up on him, a presence stealthy and persistent and suddenly headlong, an attack against the Wind.

It had opposed the Wind before, that presence. Something of Mauryl was in the heart of it, and something of Cefwyn, and something of Efanor and even of himself– old teacher, old master of unwilling students, old man curbing young mischief and directing eyes always to the sunrise, not the sunset.

– Tristen! he heard Emuin call. Young fool! Come back here!

He trusted and he went, while the Wind roared and rushed and buffeted his back.

He went, and sometimes Owl winged before him and sometimes behind, but he persevered… homeward. He was sure now of that word. Home.

And the gray grew lighter before him as he saw two, no, three and four and five and six faint shadows within a pearl gray dawn.

He walked onto solid stone, his hair stirred by the beat of spectral wings. About him was a corridor of gray brightening to a clear blue light, and in those beckoning hands knew Emuin's touch, and Ninévrisë's… even Tarien's, frightened and protective as a mother hawk above Elfwyn's sleepy awareness: she was there. There, too, was Paisi, the mouse in the woodwork, skittish and yet purposeful, and brazenly brave for his size.

It was Paisi who all but shouted for his attention now, and ran forward, to his own peril.

– Fool! Emuin cried.

But in that same instant another dared more than that, and forged ahead into the burning blue. Crissand came, never mind his orders and a wizard's will: Crissand had come, with a devotion like Uwen's, as determined, and as brave. Owl flew as far as Crissand's hand, that far, and hovered, and then flew past, out into the world of Men.

Crissand reached him just as Owl vanished from his sight… reaching out to take his hand and pull him home.

– My lord, Crissand called him, king though Crissand would yet be. They locked hands and then embraced, and all the Lines of Hen Amas rose up bright and strong around them. Emuin and Ninévrisë and Paisi hovered mothlike above the fire of the mews, and Tarien, too, with Cefwyn's wizard child– they all were around him; and in their collective will, and a wall went up against the Wind, making firm the wards.

Tristen let go his defense then, and trusted Crissand to pull him safely into the world of Men, and there to hold him in his arms, steadying him on feet that had lost all feeling.

He was cold: it had been very cold where he had walked last, a cold almost to chill the soul, but Crissand warmed his fingers to life, and Emuin reached his heart with a steady, sure light, driving the last vestiges of the dark from him, lighting all the recesses where his deepest fears had taken hold.

"Frost," Crissand said, and indeed a rime of frost stood on his black armor. Tristen found his fingers were white and chill as ice. So he felt a stiffness about his hair, and brushed the rime from his left arm, finding cause then to laugh, a sheer joy in life.

"A cold, empty Wind," he said to Crissand, and then cried: "Did I not say wait with Emuin?"

"I waswith Emuin," Crissand said. "Didn't you say in that place there's no being parted? I never left him… or you, my lord! Paisi and Her Grace of Elwynor never left us. Even Tarien. Even she."

Andthe babe, Cefwyn's son, her son, her fledgling she would not see harmed: Hasufin had bid for a life and now Tarien herself was his implacable enemy, the surest warder against her twin's malice. He knew that as surely as he still carried an awareness within him of the gray place: Orien Aswydd might have tried to drive him aside and make him lose his way, but Orien no longer had the advantage of the living.

Above all else Orien would not lay covetous hands on her sister's child, not while he was in his mother's arms. Tarien rested now, weary from her venture, still seething with the fight she had fought along the wards. She had become like Owl, very much like Owl, merciless in her cause, possessed of a claimant and a Place and let at liberty.

"Never trust Tarien too much," Tristen said on a breath, for he saw danger in that direction; but the danger where he had been was sufficient. "Did Owl come past?"

"Like a thunderbolt," Crissand said, aiding him to walk: Tristen found his feet had grown numb, as if he had walked for hours in deep snow. "He went somewhere in the hall. I don't know where."

"He'll come back," Tristen said, with no doubt at all, and no doubt what he had now to do. "Is it dawn?"

"Close on it," Crissand said. "All's ready. But rest a while, my lord. Warm yourself."

"We'll ride north," Tristen said. "North now."

"My lord, never till master Emuin says you're fit." Lusin had come to lend a hand with him, and supported him on the other side in what was now the downstairs hall, alight with candles and teeming with fearful servants. Paisi was there, and stood on one foot and the other, bearing a message from Emuin, Tristen was sure.

Paisi pressed something like a coin into his gloved hand. "Master Emuin says carry this and ride tonight."

"He's not fit!" Crissand protested, but Emuin's charge was all Tristen needed to reinforce his own sense of urgency.

"I'll be well when the sun touches me," he said, and took his weight to himself, unsteady as he was. "And Uwen expects me. I know him. He'll ride back, never mind my orders to wait at the river. He'll ride all the way back to town if I don't meet him." He found his stride and gathered his wind, seeing the stable-court stairs. "Is Dys saddled?"

" 'E will be," Paisi said, and sped ahead of him, small herald of a desperate, wizardous purpose.

"My lord," Crissand argued with him still.

"They'll kill Cefwyn," Tristen said to all the company around him. "If he falls, Ylesuin won't see the summer and Amefel itself won't stand." It was clearer to him than anything near at hand: all of that was in flux, but the great currents had their directions, clear to anyone who could dip in and drink—and did not Hasufin know these things?

Surely Hasufin knew, Hasufin who was older than he and canny and difficult to trap: he could no longer be sure of Hasufin in any particular, but what he could do, he had to guess that Hasufin could do as well—shadow and substance, they mirrored one another, and Hasufin tried to make that mirroring perfect, and tried to name him his name, and tried to make him all that Hasufin remembered him to be.

Foresight had advantages, he said to himself as he essayed the west stairs, above Orien's walled-up tomb. Foresight was a great advantage, but expecting everything to be as it had been… that was the trap, the disadvantage, in Hasufin's centuries of knowledge.

"Mauryl Summoned me," he said to those on either hand, "but it went amiss. Or did it? Was his wizardry not greater than his working? And didn't things go as he wished, in spite of his wishes?"

"I don't know these things, my lord," Crissand said, at his right hand, and Lusin, at his left. "Nor meself, m'lord. And ye ain't in any case to be ridin'."

"I can. I will." They were in the open air, now, and he knew Emuin had heard what he had surmised.

– As he wished, in spite of his wishes… all of that, you are, young lord. You're the substance of his wishes, and the sum of his courage. He let you free. He didn't Shape you. He left that to the world and this age. He left you to Shape yourself, young lord, andTristen he named you, and Tristen you are. Think of it. Think of it, where you go. Never let that go.

"M'lord's horse!" Syllan called out, and Lusin shouted: "Rouse and rise, there! Rouse out! Horses!"

Haman's lads appeared out of nowhere, and hard on that, Lusin sent a man to the barracks, and another to the gate-guards, and ordered the bell rung that would rouse all the troops.

Arm and out! the bell seemed to say, and within moments men appeared from the barracks, and horses were led out under saddle. Crissand's men reached the gates, and a boy brought the three standards, the black ones of Ynefel and Althalen, and the blood red standard of Amefel, in a light that began to supplant the light of the torches.

Arm and out! Arm and out! came from the bells, and Crissand's captain rode a thick-legged gray into the half-light of the yard, carrying a furled dark standard to the steps where they stood.

Crissand came to the edge of the steps and took it in his hand, looking up.

"My lord! This one, for the lord of Althalen and Ynefel! This one, with the others!"

"Unfurl it," he said, knowing which standard it was, and in the wind that began with dawn Crissand unfurled the Star and Crown of the Sihhë Kings, the banner Tasmôrden had tried to claim, and now would see carried against him.

One more Tawwys brought and saw spread against the wind, the Tower and Checker of the Lady Regent, until the standards that should go before a great army flew and cracked on the wind. Shewas with him, as she had helped draw him out of the gray space: she sat now by her fireside, wrapped in her own efforts, which were for the wards of the fortress, and for the watch Efanor had undertaken. With Emuin's sure aid she settled herself to watch all the accesses of the place, and nothing might pursue its occupants here, nothing might pass her awareness. She was the Tower, and she prepared to stand siege.

Paisi appeared at the top of the steps, smallish and wide-eyed, and scampering down the steps to the alarm of the horses.

"Careful there," Lusin chided him, and set a heavy hand on Paisi's shoulder, staying him short of the last dive in among the milling horses.

"Master wishes ye know he's watchin'!" Paisi shouted out. "An' bids ye sleep o' nights!"

Tristen waved at him, understanding, but coming no closer, for the men afoot and the horses being brought filled the smallish yard, and those of them that were mounted had to move to give the others room enough. His guard had mounted up, staying close with him, and new men, all of Meiden, carried the standards.

Dys and Cass would join them outside the walls, among the remounts, and Uwen was off on Liss. It was only Gery that awaited them here, and Tristen mounted up and took up his shield from Aran's hands, the red one, with Amefel's black Eagle. But he did not ride alone: Crissand joined him, on a thick-legged, sturdy gray, while his house guard under his captain waited just outside the Zeide gate, where there was room.

"Let us go," Tristen said, and Gweyl, in Uwen's place until they had regained him and Gedd, relayed the order to send the banner-bearers out before them.

They rode out under the menace of the gate into the chill, clear dawn, out into the town. The bell tolled above them, signal to all the town, and it waked every sleeper and brought shutters open and shadowy bundled figures to the streets.

Lord Sihhë! the people shouted, gathering everywhere along the main street of the town, some wrapped in blankets, straight from their beds and into the chill that frosted breath. All the way to the lower gates the townsfolk stood and shouted out, Lord Sihhë and Meiden!

So they shouted out for the other lords of Amefel as they, too, turned out with their house guards, joining them from side streets, and so a handful of enterprising boys shouted from the top of the town's main gate as they rode out, a last salute of high, boyish voices: The High King! The High King!

So they had shouted. Was it now or then? The High King and the king of Hen Amas!

The banner then seemed green, Aswydd green, and the dragons reared in defiance and threat as they had loomed above him in the hall.

"Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë for Amefel and Meiden!"

So the shouts faded, and, beyond the town gate, they turned first on the west road past the stables. They rode over the traces of other riders, past emptied camps. They were not the first, but the last of the army to ride out.

But with them came the signal for all the lords to move, to force war on Tasmôrden from the south—and to save the king.

CHAPTER 7

The army of Amefel moved at the brisk pace of the horses, so that they had progressed well out from Henas'amef before the sun rose above the hills—while signal fires lit on those hills advised all the outlying lands they were called to arms and must converge on the riverside by country trails and back roads and whatever served.

The whole land was now in movement. All the baggage that might have delayed them, even the equipage of the heavy horses, with the tents, all of that had gone to the river, the last of it following Cevulirn's passage, they needed no shelter with Modeyneth's hospitality halfway, and that left the Amefin nothing to do but make speed.

And sure enough, as the sun stood at noon, two riders appeared out of the distance and the folding of the hills.

Tristen had no doubt who it was. He knew Uwen by his riding and Gedd by his company. They came up on one another with all deliberate speed, and as they met, Uwen swung in close with him and Crissand.

"The Lord Commander's on 'is way," Uwen said first, "an' sent us back before he got to the river, but we told 'im all what he was set to hear, an' we come back fast as fast."

"The fires are lit," Tristen said. "I've taken precautions and left Emuin and Her Grace in charge, with Lusin. The Amefin that will march are marching."

"No delays as I can see, m'lord. I rode as far as Modeyneth. Lord Drusenan's gone to the wall, and roused out a good lot of archers to riverside, as ain't been needed yet, thank the gods, nor will be, if Lord Cevulirn's across."

"Good news," Tristen said, for Drusenan had promised archers, and if Cefwyn pressed too hard and fast from the east or if the enemy came south from the beginning without that encouragement, then archers on the southern bridges might serve them well.

But wizardry had now a third place to attack, and that was Idrys, riding hard toward the river… while Cefwyn, blind and deaf to magic, knew to watch Ryssand but not men closer to him. Still, the advantages wizardry had in Cefwyn's direction were all too attractive—for it was to protect Cefwyn that Tristen found himself constrained to take actions he would not of his own will take, when his heart told him to cast everything to the winds and follow Idrys to Cefwyn's camp.

He could not go as fast as his thoughts could fly: if magic alone would serve, he could have gone to Ilefínian before dawn, and stood face-to-face with Tasmôrden and the enemy. He could, he was sure, go aside now to the ruins of Althalen and have a way from there. Oh, there were ways and ways to reach Ilefínian, but only one to reach it with an army; and as much confidence as he had in his own strength, it was not enough to fling himself alone into the heart of his enemy's power: the temptation was there, the urge was there, but he trusted neither, fearing traps, not yet seeing enough into Ilefínian to know what he might face.

So he kept his pace at Uwen's side and at Crissand's, and they whiled away the time as they rode with Uwen's account and Uwen's questions, what had they done, who was in authority in Henas'amef and what time they hoped to make. Idrys had questioned Uwen and Gedd very closely, elicited every detail from Gedd, where he had lodged in town, when he had moved, when he had known men were following him and what he had done.

"Yet he gave no names," Crissand asked. "He gave no indication who it might be that he fears."

"Not a one," Uwen said. "Naught that we can do, 'cept by wish-in', which m'lord does, I'm sure."

"That I do," Tristen said fervently, "and wish him speed."

"Speed to us, too," Uwen said, and, turning in his saddle to glance back at the Amefin troop he had driven uphill and down, until men and horses alike had grown used to hard moving. "Ho, ye men, not so sore as ye'd ha' been wi'out ye rid through them hills, is't?"

"No, sir," the answer came back with many voices. "No, Captain, sir."

"Ain't sorry now."

"No, sir. No, Captain, sir."

"'At's the good word, an' gods bless!"

"Gods bless, sir!"

Tristen found himself moved to laughter despite the troubles of the night. So was Crissand. The sun was up, and the banners flew no matter the difficulty of flying them in the steady wind, for there were men on the move and on guard all across the land. To a man, they wore the red badges of Amefel, having no wish to run afoul of their own watchers in the hills.

And true enough, it was not so very long after that a copse of woods gave up two shadowy watchers who stepped out into the road.

"Lanfarnessemen," Crissand guessed, and Tristen was sure of it. The two went in forest colors and gray cloaks, and might as easily fade into the trees where they stood.

He was glad to see them, however, and drew rein where the rangers waited.

"Lord Tristen," the foremost said with all respect, and indeed, it was a man he had seen with Pelumer, once upon a time. "The El-wynim have moved from Althalen, all but a handful, who've raised an archer-tower there. The most have gone toward Modeyneth and toward the river."

Aeself had followed his orders. Auld Syes had culled her flock, he was sure, no less than the frozen bodies in the snow, but having Aeself's men out early and ranging into the rough lands gave him some trepidation… not least for Idrys, whose presence within their lines he had not anticipated. He hoped Idrys had gone as he planned, to the river, to Sovrag: but Idrys was a man apt to change his plans on the instant and do things no one foresaw… to his hazard, in a province ready to defend itself against Tasmôrden's men.

"The Lord Commander of Ylesuin is on the roads," Tristen said to the two Lanfarnessemen, "and he may take any sort of clothing and go by himself. No one should harm him."

"A number of men with the red cloth rode out on this road and two rode back to you," the silent man said. "There was a dark man of rank, who stayed with the main body, and where they went is under others' watch. We'll pass that word as quickly as we can."

"Nothin' faster 'n the Lord Commander's apt to move," Uwen said under his breath.

"Do what you can," Tristen said to the rangers, who retreated back into the woods, a trickery of the eye the moment they were within the underbrush.

"Gods send he don't run into Aeself," Uwen said. "We told him about the red bands, and I saw to it he were wearin' one. Whether he'll keep it…"

That the signal they had agreed on, Amefin colors, a costly dye, none an intruder could find so easily in his pack or a piece of a common blanket: either cloak or coat, pennon or a scrap of cloth about the helm. It was Pelumer's canny notion, and even his rangers, colorless against the land, wore that one bright badge, scraps of red they showed about the wrist, no more, for Pelumer's men counted on going unseen.

"I shan't wish," Tristen said, fearful of intruding on Idrys' choices, whatever they were: he knew how stealthily the Lord Commander moved in the court and in the field, and there was a real chance that Idrys might at any moment change his mind and his direction and his apparent allegiance, either because the boats might not be where they hoped or because Idrys simply rode the currents of his own unmagical wizardry, and chose not even to have friends and allies know what he would do next. The one thing certain about him was that he was Cefwyn's man, and answered only to Cefwyn.