Текст книги "Fortress of Dragons "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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But where had they gone, one by one? Had they died as Men died?

Or had they wandered across the Edge in the gray space and joined the Shadows that way, as Uleman of Elwynor had gone? Was thatthe darkness he recalled at the foundation of everything?

If he had ever died, the memory of death eluded him. If he had met defeat, he had never recalled it. If he had loved a woman of the race of Men, he had no memory of it. There was danger, he suspected, in slipping too far back, and remembering too much, and becoming bound to it.

Yet there was danger in not knowing, too, insofar as he had weaknesses. Of harm he had dealt with since Lewenbrook, he suspected it was Hasufin who had moved Cuthan, and Orien. It was Hasufin who had attempted to steal his way among Men, and it was surely Hasufin's wizard-work that had moved the archivist, for more than any other thief, principally a wizard would want to know the things hinted at in Mauryl's letters, would seek after any ragtag piece of knowledge, something that might fix only one date, one hour, to make clear all the others, and find a way into Mauryl's workings to threaten him. Indeed, wizardry could harm him, as wizardry had Called him.

But to him, what were hours and times? To him and, he thought, to all the Sihhë, the whole of the world and the life within it flowed like a river, and moved with a sure power he felt rather than knew. What he did was no matter of charts, and plans: it was like sliding on the snow, like that glorious morning when they had come out of doors and men had gone skidding on the steps. That was the feeling he had when he tried to move the weather. So many things changed at once there was no time to ask what had changed: he simply changed more of them, until for one glorious moment he had his balance… that was what it was to work a great magic. The little changes just happened, wordlessly, soundlessly, fecklessly; he shed them as he shed raindrops, and such, he feared, was his enemy.

He knew to his regret how great a fear he had evoked in master Emuin at first meeting; he knew how he must still drive Emuin to distraction… and he deeply regretted all along having made the old man's calculations so difficult. He had never completely understood what a trial he had been. Now he did know, and knew how brave Emuin was, and how very, very skilled, to have kept him in close rein. With all his heart he wished the old man well… wished well all the company that rode behind him, continually, as the sun beat down on them and the world went on as orderly as its folk knew how, in spite of the mischief magic might do.

And of all those near him, only Crissand was completely aware of the frantic racing of his thoughts, and did not interfere or question or pursue him, was not appalled at him—only bore him up with the wings of his selfless, reckless will. It was love that made Crissand a safe companion for him, and adoration that kept Crissand staunch and unquestioning in his tumble of thoughts and this reckless exploration of the world. And that gave him courage when his own courage faltered and when that Edge seemed all too close.

– I'm here, Crissand said, when he no more than thought of him. I don't understand all the things you say. But I'm here.

– I've never doubted, Tristen said. I don't doubt you. Nor ever shall.

So he said to Crissand as the descent continued around that long hill, and in that moment they had had their first sight of the river and of the camp to the left… such as remained. Where once rows upon rows of tents had stood on that flat expanse was now a flat scar of bare, trampled earth. Where Cevulirn and the lords of the south had camped, five tents remained in that trampled desolation, with a handful of horses.

But the bridge that Tristen had last seen as a ruin spanned the dark flood of the Lenúalim with stout timbers and the substance of Cevulirn's good work.

"Nary a soul stirrin'," Uwen muttered at the sight, "nor any boats in sight. Which should be good."

Beyond any doubt of his, Cevulirn had crossed the river and set up camp on that far side, a base from which they might advance north.

But whether Idrys had found one of Sovrag's boats to carry him east was still in question.

They left the road and set out across the bare earth toward those remaining tents, but before they had reached them a handful of Ivanim came out and stood waiting to give them all courtesies.

"Is Lord Cevulirn across the river?" was Tristen's first question, from horseback. "And have you seen the Lord Commander?"

"Our lord and the army have their camp just the other side." the seniormost Ivanim said cheerfully, a man with a scarred chin and gray in his hair. "And the Lord Commander's sailed on with Sovrag's men, upriver, on account of your word, Your Grace, as we hope did come from you."

"It did." Idrys was a man hard to refuse, and might have given Cevulirn himself qualms in his haste to be on eastward, but that Idrys had found passage and was on his way to Cefwyn was a vast relief.

Yet the instant he said that, and thought that Idrys was safe, an uneasy feeling still ran through the gray space, the flitting of a thought that passed him in the same way he was aware of creatures in the woods and men around him. It came to him that he had not seen Owl for some time, and that they were at an edge, of a kind, here on the river shore.

Here was where the war began, and here was where he committed himself and other men to reach Cefwyn and keep his pledge to Her Grace.

Most of all… for a moment he could not draw his breath… ahead was the reason Mauryl had called him into the world, and he was sure now as at any Unfolding that a rebellious student was not the enemy that had driven Mauryl to the Hafsandyr or the Sihhë to leave their fortress in the high mountains.

He did not detect the danger as near them, nor was it the sort of threat that would have had him order shields uncased and the warhorses saddled. But danger there was. Their camp was on the other side of the river, and what he felt urged him to move on and quickly. It Unfolded to him not as a Word or a slight illumination but as a stroke of lightning across all the heavens, the ultimate reason for all Mauryl had done.

"Good day," he remembered to say, however, recalling Men and their courtesies and their due with the same awkwardness he had felt in Cefwyn's court. "Thank you."

Then he turned red Gery and rode at an easy pace toward the bridge, with Uwen and Crissand close on his heels and the company falling in behind them. The banners streamed past on the right as the bearers sought to get them to the fore just before the three of them rode onto the bridge, and when they had climbed up the slanting approach and onto the rough, newly planed logs, the horses went Warily, looking askance at the broad current of the Lenúalim and the height of the span, the like of which they had not met. The wind blew unrestrained here. The thunder of so many riders behind them, even slow-moving and deliberate, drowned the rush of the river under the wooden spans.

"Never crossed the like in m' life," Uwen put it, "nor's Gia. This is a grand work, this."

"Grand work, indeed," Crissand said.

And at the end of the bridge, before they were halfway across: a handful of men stood forth from the woods, occupying the end of the bridge, waving to them, seeing the banners and signaling them, if they had failed to ask at the camp, that it was Lord Cevulirn's men on the far side.

"Welcome!" they said. "Well come, indeed. Go on, go on, our lord will expect you!"

They passed from that meeting into the woods, on a road long unused until the recent passage of oxen and horses. Last year's weeds, brown and limp from melted snows, lay trampled into the mire by shod hooves and pressed into the ruts left by cart wheels. Small brush was crushed down and broken, while the new track deviated around the occasional stout sapling that had sprung up in the old roadway, and others were hacked half through at the root, bent flat, so the carts could go over them.

And at the end of that course was the first of the gray-stone hills this side of the river, wooded and brushy and guarded by some furtive presence atop it: Tristen felt it rather than saw.

"Lanfarnessemen," he said to Uwen, directing him with a shift of his eyes, and Uwen looked up at the nearer hill. At that, the presence ebbed away, shy as any deer: it was a danger not to them, but to their enemies.

Just beyond that stony, forested outcrop, the brush gave way to brown, grassy meadow, and there white canvas had bloomed into a sizable camp, yet a discreet one, too, a surprise to come upon just past the forest and between the hills, and warded by watchers on the heights.

And still that presence on the hill tracked them, watching not them, perhaps, but any action that might oppose them. Intruders under any strange banner would surely have met arrows flying thick and fast: Lanfarnesse rangers seldom used presence-betraying canvas—but they were there. Their Heron banner flew with the Wheel of Imor and the White Horse of Ivanor and the Wolf of Olmern in the heart of the camp, announcing the presence of Pelumer with Umanon and Cevulirn and Sovrag in this gathering… welcome sight.

A man ran ahead of them, and told an officer, and that man , hurried into the centermost tent as they rode up the aisle of this gathering of tents. Cevulirn came out with Umanon, and Pelumer came close behind, all cheerfully welcoming them in.

"His Grace's banners wi' the rest," Uwen ordered the banner-bearers, and smartly then the banner-bearers dismounted and with manful efforts drove the sharp iron heels of the banners deep into the soft earth, one after the other, until the Eagle and the several standards stood with the others, the Tower Crowned and Crissand's among them.

Tristen dismounted, and of a sudden a night without sleep and the long day in the saddle caught him unawares, sending the world to shades of gray and causing him to hold his saddle leathers a moment as his feet met the ground. He tried to wish his sight clear again, but it was as if the gray insisted, and closed around him, a chute down which it was easy to fall.

But Uwen was there, a hand to his elbow, and Cevulirn named a man to guide the Amefin to their tents, which were pitched and ready for them, and a hot meal besides, while Crissand's voice in Tristen's left ear assured him he would personally see to the guard.

"Go in, my lord, rest."

"There's no rest," Tristen said, and drew a breath and managed to see the camp again, how it stretched off into the trees beyond, the horse pickets out under the branches, under the watchful eye of the rangers… he could not miss that presence, as he was aware of every heart that beat within the camp, the converse of men-at-arms, low and wondering at his lapse.

There was nothing so wrong with the place, Tristen said to himself; it was simply fatigue. Indeed the offer of a good meal and a rest from riding came very welcome… he might rid himself of the armor for a brief while… might sit with friends, a privilege rare in the world, and rarer still on the edge of losing everything. So much… so very much he loved; and it all seemed fragile at this moment, on the edge of the enemy's attention.

He drew a breath. He summoned his faculties away from that brink, and steadied himself away from Uwen's supporting hand. He gathered up the threads of things he had meant to say, and walked, and gathered strength with every step

"The Lord Commander," he was able to say to the other lords as he ducked through the tent flap, "brought Her Grace to Henas'amef, for safety's sake. Did he tell you why?"

"Not two words," Cevulirn said, "except it was your bidding…"

Another presence had joined them, filling the tent door when Tristen turned about, and that was Sovrag himself.

"Aye," the river lord said. "And all full of mystery he were, an' if the wind hadn't served, why, damn, he'd have driven them lads to row 'im there. What's toward?"

"Cefwyn's in danger." Words poured out of him, and he wished to sit down, but found nowhere. "One of Ryssand's men is beside him and Cefwyn doesn't know."

That brought somber looks.

"Gods save the Marhanen, then," Umanon said. "And a good wind to the Lord Commander's sails."

"So I wish," Tristen said in all earnestness. "And wish it twice and three times. Ryssand's coming to the muster, but he means no good to Cefwyn. Tasmôrden's promised him part of Elwynor for his own if he takes the crown."

"I should have stayed at court," Cevulirn said. "I might have stopped this."

Tristen shook his head. "Wizardry's in question. It reached past all of us."

"We can't reach him," Umanon said. "Gods speed the Lord Commander, indeed."

"Aye," came from Sovrag and Pelumer, with a nodding of heads.

"What says Amefel?" Cevulirn asked, grim-faced and with his arms folded. "If it's to ride this hour, we're ready."

"I'm less and less sure I know," Tristen said in utmost honesty, for Owl was not to be found, and had shied from him—yet he knew nothing to do but forge ahead with the plans they had. "But we have to move. There's no time to sit here."

"Late afternoon now, but men and horses well rested," Cevulirn said. "We can give the order."

"To march at night?" Umanon asked dubiously.

"To move as far up the road as we can," Tristen said. "I can wish winds on the river, but stone is stone and the hills won't move for us. We have to go closer. Tasmôrden surely won't rely only on Ryssand."

"No one should rely on Ryssand," Pelumer said.

It was true. And it was true, after all, that the hills might move, but they were stone and sluggish things and could not change precipitately. Tristen drew in a breath, suddenly apprehending a power rising out of the land and a power rising within him, different than the weary body that housed it. He felt he could scarcely move, scarcely draw breath without breaking lives and men, and yet the ones he would strike… were not in his reach. Only friends were. A shield stretched across the north and the west, subtle, and con-raining men, but it was not men. It was their enemy Tasmôrden, but Tasmôrden was not all of it.

He felt an opposing magic, felt it slip like a step on ice, one matched against the other, and like a third lightning stroke he knew he had met the enemy, met, and slid aside, unwilling to engage.

"Ilefínian," he said on a breath. " Ilefínian! That's his place of power in this world, and from it he draws his strength. The closer he is to it, the stronger he will be."

"Tasmôrden?" Pelumer asked him.

"Yes, Tasmôrden. But that's not all." He must sit down, or fall down, and groped blindly after the tent pole, but met instead Uwen's arm, and Crissand's.

"My lord," Crissand said. "What's wrong?"

Owl. Owl was in danger, winging through the woods, diving from left to right, through the trees, with something streaking after him, dark, and broad, and filling the woods.

"Sit, sit down, my lord."

He obeyed, calling Owl with all his might, and Owl heard him. Owl came, through a place of blue light and rustling wings. Owl came as he had come to the hall at wintertide, and burst back into the world again. A tilted view of tents came to him, an evening sun, and he swayed where he sat, then let go the vision.

"Good lovin' gods!" Uwen said, for Owl flew through the door in a buffet of wings, dived past Cevulirn, and hit the canvas wall in a flapping lump that slid to the floor.

Owl gathered himself immediately and fluffed his feathers into order.

A narrow escape, Tristen said to himself, and offered his arm. Owl ducked his head, gave a great flap of blunt wings, and managed to reach him, to settle on his arm, ruffling and settling his feathers.

There was silence all around. Tristen looked up at a circle of dismayed faces.

" 'E all right?" Uwen asked, in that deep silence of the lords of the south.

"He's well." Tristen stroked Owl's breast feathers, and caught a resentful look of two marigold eyes at close range that held his gaze. He knew what Owl had fled, yet had no idea in what words to tell the rest of these men, even Uwen.

"Let him rest," Crissand said.

"Break camp," Tristen said. He saw Uwen's unhappy look, saw the worry on Crissand's face and others'. "There's no rest here."

"Then we break camp," Cevulirn said. "Do as he says." To an-other man, one of his guards, Cevulirn said, "Food and drink for all these men, and Lord Tristen, whatever we can provide until we get to horse."

"Is it a fight comin'?" Sovrag asked, perplexed as the rest. "Give me what'll yield to an axe, an' I'm ready."

"There's a great deal that will yield to it," Tristen assured him, and reached out for all the rest of them. "I may not ride with you all the way. I don't know. If I can't be there when the time comes, I set Cevulirn in charge. Our enemy won't make the mistake with me he made at Lewenbrook. What comes won't be just at us. It's not one enemy."

"Is it thatone?" Cevulirn asked in dismay. "The ghost at Lewen field?"

"More than that," Tristen said, uneasy in naming entirely what Unfolded to him, as if by never saying it he could dispell it. Yet he must say it. "It wasn't only Hasufin who brought down Ynefel. And it wasn't only Hasufin who drove Mauryl north to find the Sihhë-lords." Even as he said it he saw icy mountains and a wizard much younger in those days, riding through trackless snow. He saw a great black height, and a fortress of dark stone, and a hall without servants. He felt the cold, and recalled the clean sting of the north wind on his face and the icy stone through the soles of his boots.

He had known the battlements, and all the chambers under his feet; and he had known before Mauryl came what Mauryl would say… all these things, all at once. He longed for Mauryl's face, the word, the kindness… he watched that lonely figure leaning on the wind beneath his walls, and yearned with all his heart to give the old man at once what he had come to find.

But that was now. Thenhe had foreknown the quest itself, and the middle-aged wizard at his gates.

He knew the peace of the ice, and the company of his fellows. They were only five, five who bore the gift and the curse of magic, and foreknew this wizard's seeking them.

He drew a deep, ice-edged breath, and saw through the years.

" 'Ere, m'lord." Uwen had his arm.

"Ale," Sovrag said. "The lad's seen a haunt, is what."

He was no longer in that place of black stone. He sat beneath a canvas roof, with canvas under him and the lords of the south serving him with their own hands. Uwen set his hands on his shoulders, saying, "Brace up, m'lord, there's a lad, come, take a sip, take a breath."

"I saw the Hafsandyr," Tristen said in the breath of a voice he commanded. "I saw the Fortress of Mists." He did not know how he knew its name, but that was the fortress the Sihhë had held in the far northern mountains, the Qenes, in the language they shared with Mauryl, far, far from Elwynor. He found Unfolding to him a host of things nameless and thoughts unthinkable in the language of Ylesuin and Elwynor, things his hand had written in that small Book he had given to the fire, the night before Lewenbrook.

As now… he recalled the north, and the black peaks crowned with ice, and the rap of a wizard's staff against the gates.

Once.

Twice.

Magical thrice.

He ceased to breathe, and then must, and saw all the faces of his friends as strangers' faces, perhaps enemies' faces, even Uwen's.

Had he known these folk? Had he foreseen them?

Then he was mortally afraid, and reached for Uwen's hand and gripped it as Uwen gripped his, until bone ached and flesh turned white-edge. He looked into Uwen's grizzled face and dark eyes and saw a Man, and a good man, and the one above all others whose voice could Call him.

"Speak to me," he begged Uwen. "Say anything at all."

"Ye're me dear lad," Uwen said. "An' my lord, and I'll have no other. Steady. Take a breath. There's a lad."

"I'm here," he said, for those threads bound him to safety and let him draw breath. "I am here."

He knew Uwen would do his best to make sense of half answers, and he fought to leave that other place, to be unequivocally in the world of Men. He wished to make Uwen at least understand, and then Uwen would tell the others.

But another hand took his arm, and a faith as clear as the morning sun shone in that face, and out of those eyes.

"My lord," Crissand said, the aetheling, the foretold, and the long-remembered.

"I know he'll strike at Cefwyn," Tristen warned him. "And he'll strike at you."

"Tasmôrden?"

"Tasmôrden?" For a moment, the name was only sound, a sound bearing no relation to his fears, and once the name did achieve meaning, he shook his head in denial. Then on the next breath he realized: "Possibly. It's well possible, if Hasufin had his way about it, isn't it? Hasufin moved Tasmôrden so long as Hasufin was enough to move him. Whatever houses our enemy… it might be Tasmôrden, but more likely… more likely our enemy has no Shape in this world. Hasufin dealt with him. Hasufin brought him to Ynefel… but such Place in the world as he's claimed now, is never far from Ilefínian. Uleman didn't know the enemy's presence there. He only saw the rebels that rose against him. Orien didn't know he was speaking to her. She only heard Hasufin. I didn't know what brought down Ynefel. I only heard the Wind, as I heard it behind Hasufin, when he killed one of the birds; I only saw the Dark, when it rolled down on Lewen field."

"So we all saw the Dark," Uwen said. "Gods save us, this Wind and the Dark… Is that ahead of us?"

"It may be. It may. But Hasufin is a shell for it. He's all hollow, behind. Mauryl knew what Hasufin had listened to. That's why he called down the Sihhë to deal with it…"

"What d' ye say, lad?" Uwen had his hand on his shoulder, and pressed it hard, that voice, above all voices, commanding him to make clear the things he saw.

He struggled with words. But he found several. "Old. Very old. Hasufin listened to it in Galasien the way Orien listened to Hasufin in Henas'amef, with no better result."

"Summat else, ye say."

"Before Mauryl. Before Galasien's towers stood." He was aware of his gaze fixed on nothing, on darkness and deep, on the depths of Ynefel's foundations, the work of the master Builders, and the Masons who had laid the Lines. "They weren't content to observe the seasons, these old ones. They shaped Lines to master the Shadows, and make Seemings stand in the light of day." It too aptly described him. He was not unaware of the irony of his struggle against this darkness that Mauryl had fought. He had ridden so far and set all this in motion, mustered all these men, and now that he was called to ride for the very purpose of Mauryl's Summoning him, did he fall down in trembling and weakness? He was angry with himself, and afraid for the outcome for these men he loved, and took one deep breath after another until the shapes of the world came clear to his eyes, at least as far as a huddle of pale gray that hovered about him.

He clung to that sight. He sought to leave the reckoning of things insubstantial and the maze of gray that wanted his attention, and to shape that maze in substance, of lords of Men who stood for powers on the earth, and men-at-arms of flesh and bone who stood for the earthier, more common magic of hearth and fence and field.

Menruled the earth now, and the Shadows obeyed the stones that Masons laid in rows on the land.

"I must face him," he said, for himwas as apt as any word. It thought. It moved. It wished and worked and willed, and the Qenes stood againstits wishing and working. He was sure of that. The Qenes, the work of master Masons, the home of Shadows and the fortress of the Shadow-lords: there all the powers within the earth held a Line that must not be broken.

He drew a calmer breath. Shadow-lord. Thatwas the thing he was. That was whohe was. The knowledge was no blazing noon of clear understanding. It was a moonrise in a still, cold night, gathering shadows into shapes, and Shadows into power.

– Auld Syes, he said to the Queen of Shadows. Faithful lady. Cross the water. I need you. Come.

"Tasmôrden?" Crissand asked, and he realized he had lost the thread of speech. "Is it Tasmôrden you mean, my lord? Or is it something less substantial we face?"

"Tasmôrden, if we can reach him in time. And Ryssand. Ryssand will be the hands and the feet of this attack. Should Cefwyn die, the army would break apart and fight each other, Maudyn against Corswyndam and Prichwarrin, on Elwynim soil. What then could we win?" Owl spread his wings, rowed against the air, settled again on his wrist. "But others must stop Ryssand. Idrys must stop him." And with that realization, the acknowledgment that he could not be in both places, the fatigue settled in full. "I'll sleep an hour, until we ride. Is there a place?"

"Here." The lords might regard him with misgivings, the one who had summoned them who now nodded like a man with too much ale, and after speaking nonsense, began to slip toward dreams. But one quiet, sure voice drew him with its slight wizard-gift, and gained his wide-wandering attention. "Rest. I'll attend the breaking of camp."

"Sir." He knew the name, then, in his distance from the world: Cevulirn would watch over all that had to be done and Uwen and Crissand would care for him, and so he let the two of them draw him to his feet and guide him.

"He ain't taken ill," Sovrag said in troubled tones. "He ain't fevered nor any such."

"Tired," Uwen said out of the gray mist in which the world of Men proceeded. "An' hearin' summat we don't hear. He's a'ready fightin' the fight we ain't come to, your lordship, an' scoutin' ahead of us, don't take it for aught less, beggin' your pardon."

"Gods bless," Umanon said solemnly, but seemed not to condemn him; and Pelumer's presence flitted close and offered comfort and a sense of stealth that Unfolded in all its skill.

… Like Emuin, who studied at his charts in Henas'amef, in his tower… subtle, and present without even paying close attention to him. Emuin was always doing something else, but he did many things constantly. It was very hard to evade him.

Ninévrisë was a whisper in the gray space, listening, Tristen thought, and wary of what was within her, and wary of that third presence, and the fourth, and the fifth and sixth, Tar ten's son, and Tarien, and her sister Orien pacing the Lines of her confinement, as their brother continually attempted the greater Line of the lower hall.

The Aswydds would take any alliance that opposed their confinement. They would steal Elfwyn away with them if they could: that was always a risk, for as long as Tarien lived she had that tie to him… but Elfwyn seemed protected, loved, held.

In seething confusion the living mingled with the Shadows, all through the fortress at Hen Amas. Far to the west, within the Lines of Althalen, another Power quietly knew his daughter's presence in the land, knew, and welcomed, and waked to the growing danger of his people.

"My lord!" It was Crissand, returned from the rows of tents and men, aware of his drifting at the edge of the gray space. Crissand's concern flared brightly in the mists. Uwen was there to caution him, however, and Cevulirn steadied him, and the flame that burned so dangerously bright slowly ebbed to a flickering candle.

There was a guide, should he need one, a guide who could fly through any confusion.

… Owl swept close, a shadow across his sky, and winged past him, directing his attention northward. Here, Owl seemed to say. This way!

And with the crack of Mauryl's staff, he heard: Pay attention, boy!

Ilefínian… there was his battle. Owl drew him there, to where the enemy waited, urged him to leave the battle of Men to men, and abandon Cefwyn to his fate.

And in that mere wisp of an outcry against that notion Tristen knew he exposed his weakness to his enemy, and showed that enemy most clearly the way to his heart, if ever it had doubted it.

It was folly to have followed Owl here, utter, dangerous folly. He drew back from that place, to that flickering candle that was

Crissand's presence. He refused Owl's urging– for the first time in his presence in the world refused what his guide asked of him.

No purpose of wizards was worth Cefwyn's life. Nothing in the world was more precious to him than that. Cefwyn had banished him, severed him from the court, but entrusted him with all that was most precious to him: never had they been closer friends than now.

And could he knowingly ignore Cefwyn's peril? He could shake the mountains and the hills and will them to future courses… but he could not gain Cefwyn's attention, could not warn him, could not reach him, not with magic enough to shake the earth.

Cleverness, perhaps, would serve where magic failed.

His battle was joined now, in this very moment, and now he and his enemy alike drew back to consider one another, to reason out what was the feint and what was the true intent.

And Owl urged him northward, constantly northward, as if there were no other course.

As if there were no other course.

Back! he bade Owl, and: Away! he bade all advice from wizards, even Emuin, even Mauryl's Unfolding spell. Neither wizard had defeated the enemy. Mauryl had never seen clearly, never understood how little of Hasufin remained, how small a soul still yearned for life and worked at the edges of greater, more terrible ambition: he had had the knowledge to seek powers outside wizardry to repair the breach, but he could not himself repair what Hasufin had done.

Mauryl or Emuin singly or together could not win past what Hasufin had loosed, only delay its ascension.

Emuin would have had him learn the way of wizards, that being what Emuin understood, but, his greatest wisdom, Mauryl being Mauryl and not suffering foolishness easily… Mauryl had simply wished him to be, grow, learn… become what he could become. And that was the greatest spell of all.

He was not through. Not yet.

He knew, if he fell, Cefwyn would fall. If Cefwyn fell, it was for Emuin to steal Elfwyn away, cloak him in his subtle grayness, and carry on in whatever way he could.