Текст книги "Fortress in the Eye of Time"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 45 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

Came Cevulirn, and Annas had the royal pages hurrying about, harried lads, pouring wine into any outheld cup—Tristen lacked one, but Annas provided it.

“My lords,” Cefwyn said, sat down with a sigh and extended the aching leg. “Supper will be coming. In the meanwhile, sit, ask any comfort—I would you had had your season at home, but we had treachery in Henas’amef, plans were betrayed, and tonight the enemy’s overrun Lord Tasien, gods preserve his unhappy soul, so Tristen informs us, by sources—I don’t think dismay you gentlemen.”

“Treachery,” Cevulirn said. “Of the Aswyddim?”

He gave a rueful nod. “Clearer-sighted than your King, sir, and hence I limp, gentle sirs. Which does not hamper my riding. Nor will it keep me from answering this incursion. Thus the summons. Which you answered in excellent order. Tristen says that Althalen is made safer than it was.”

“It’s safe to leave the tents here,” Tristen said. “And we must move, before light.”

“Our men have ridden hard,” Umanon protested. “If they’re across, they’ll loot the camp. And we’ve Pelumer to find.”

“Pelumer will not reach us,” Tristen said, “and the enemy will not delay. They are closer. They’ve camped, I do think, but not—not longer than they must.”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the tent. The servants had begun to bring the food in, and stopped where they stood.

“A disciplined army,” Umanon said, frowning in clear disbelief, “that can move on its forces past a chance for loot even at a fallen camp. This is not what I’ve heard of Asdyneddin. The Lord Warden is venturing a prediction—or has he certain knowledge? And whence the news of Lanfarnesse?”

“Late,” Tristen said. “We dare not wait for him. We must not, sir.”

“Sorcery,” Cefwyn said, and said to himself he had no knowledge. “If he’s met ambush of some kind—Lord Tristen might say.”

“I cannot see through it,” Tristen said.

“What,” asked Umanon. “Through Marna?”

“I dare not,” Tristen said, “reach toward it. But Asdyneddin will face us. Tomorrow. And all Hasufin’s wizardry aims at that. These men will move because Hasufin wills them to move. They will not do as men might do otherwise.”

“We,” Cefwyn said quickly, before Tristen could say more to terrify sane men, “we found treason, sirs. And sorcery. Orien Aswydd betrayed our plans, so we made new ones.”

Suddenly Tristen stood up, staring elsewhere, toward the northeast, though the blank walls of the tent were all anyone could see.

“For the gods’ sake,” Umanon said, and even Cevulirn looked alarmed. Cefwyn quickly rose and took Tristen’s arm.

“Tristen. Sit down. Is something amiss? Is there something you should say?”

“No,” Tristen said shortly. And without leave or courtesy he drew aside and left the tent.

Uwen looked distressed, gathered up his sword and Tristen’s, and rushed after him. The servants stood confused, with dishes in hand.

Cefwyn rose, and went to the door of the tent.

“My lord King.” Idrys met him outside, and was in clear disapproval of such mad behavior, but he had done nothing to prevent him. Tristen was beside the fire, calling for his horse, in the aisle of the camp, then running past the tents, toward the northern end. Uwen had overtaken him—trying to press weapons on him, to no avail.

“The man’s quite mad,” Umanon said, behind Cefwyn’s shoulder.

“Idrys,” Cefwyn said, “for the gods’ sake stop him.” But then he knew in what bloody fashion Idrys might prevent an act that endangered him or the army, and caught Idrys’ arm before he could move. “No. Get my horse and the guard.”

“No, my lord King. You should not!”

“I said fetch my horse, damn it!”

He went back inside, limping, swearing as he struggled back into his armor while the guard and the horses were on their way; Erion Netha helped him, doing Idrys’ ordinary service, for Idrys was ordering the guard, and Cefwyn endured the mistakes of unfamiliarity with impatience; but Umanon and Cevulirn, who had not entirely disarmed before arriving for supper, were on their way after Tristen. Ninévrisé was directing the anxious pages to take sensible action to save the supper—practical, in a descent into chaos: whatever fell out, men who had run off to what might be another hard ride would come back wanting something in their bellies.

He is not mad, Cefwyn said to himself, sick at heart. He is not mad, and all that he does has our interests at heart. He could break Amefel out of the army if he wished. He could be king of Elwynor tomorrow if he wished.

But sometimes his wits go muddled. Damn him!

But he had no sooner come out the door of the tent than a Guelen man came running up, saying, “My lord King!”

At the same moment he saw riders coming down the dark aisle of the camp, and Tristen returning with them—”My lord,” said Erion, but Cefwyn could see from where he stood that there was no use chasing out into the dark, now, as sore as he was, after all the trouble of arming. Tristen, and Uwen, Cevulirn and Umanon all were riding back with several other men in accompaniment.

“What is it?” Ninévrisé asked, peering past him into the dark. Then:

“Oh, merciful gods,” she said, and went past him, running, while, in a sore-legged and kingly dignity, he could only watch and ask himself what in the good gods’ name they had found.

But Ninévrisé’s recognition of someone in the company could tell him something, if it was not some wizardly notion of hers to do with Tristen or her father’s grave—and he thought not, for her concern was for one rider in the company, a man whose horse was walking, head hanging, coughing. A crowd had started about the rider and the company, men rising from their campfires and gathering in the aisle. In the next moment it was a matter not only of escorting a stranger in, but of clearing the man’s and Ninévrisé’s path. Tristen led them through—a messenger, it seemed certain now, and a leaden foreboding had settled into Cefwyn’s heart even before they brought the procession to a halt in front of his tent.

The rider slid down, but his legs would not bear him. Guards, Uwen among them, caught him and carried him, and Ninévrisé came with him, trying to help, and finding no means.

“Lord Tasien,” the man began his account, straining to see Nin6vrise.

“My lady, —Lord Tasien is dead—they are all dead—the winds—the dark—came over the river—”

Uwen slung off his own cloak and put it about the man, who shivered and could scarcely, but for his and other help, stand on his feet.

“The rebels,” the man said, shaking as if in the grip of fever. “My lady, my lady, I was to ride—ride for help—for m’lord—when it began—the winds—”

“Inside. Inside,” Cefwyn said, conscious of the men gathered about, common soldiers who had heard enough to send fear into the army. Gossip was inevitable. The men had to know and it was going to run through the camp on the fastest legs. “Deal with the matter!” he said to Gwywyn. “We know the message already. We are marching early to meet it. —Damn it!”

They had borne the young man into the tent, into light and warmth, and set him at Tristen’s bidding into Tristen’s own chair. Annas gave the man a cup of wine to drink, and Tristen steadied the man’s hands, while Ninévrisé, all dignity aside, knelt down and had her hand on the man’s knee. “Palisan,” Ninévrisé said. “Are they across? Have they crossed the river? Have any lived?”

“They—” The man lifted his head and stared in fear into Tristen’s eyes, and went on gazing, Tristen’s hands holding both his hands on the cup. He had a gulp of wine at Tristen’s urging, and only then seemed to catch his breath.

“Sorcery,” he said. “I saw this camp—I was not certain—I was not sure it was friendly.”

“What did you see?” Cefwyn asked. “Speak it plain, man. Your lady is listening.”

“I—grew lost. I didn’t know which way about on the road I was. I couldn’t tell east from west, though the sun was up. —I lost the sun, my lady. It changed.” The man struggled to speak amid his shivering, and he took a third gulp. “It was noon. And the sun was dark. And they were coming across. And the winds were blowing. M’lord can’t have held them. They were so many—”

“When did you leave the battle?” Idrys asked coldly.

The Elwynim turned a frightened glance on him, and began to shiver so his teeth chattered, and Tristen set his hand on his shoulders.  “Where did you ride?” Tristen asked him.

“My lady.” The Elwynim looked to Nin6vris& And she drew back.

“My lady—”

“You could not have come so far so fast,” Ninévrisé said, “without help.”

“He had help,” Tristen said.

“What help?” Cefwyn asked. A King should not be caught between.

His men ought to inform him. “Damn it, what do you know? —Tristen.

What more?”

Tristen walked away from him and stood looking at the canvas side of the tent.

“Answer the King,” Idrys said, “lord of the Sihhé. You swear yourself his friend. What are you talking about?”  “A Shadow.”

“It’s another of his fits,” Uwen said in anguish. “M’lords, it’s another one. He had one out there, and they pass.”

The messenger cried out, and the wine cup left his hand, sending a red trail across the carpets that floored the tent. He fell, sprawled on the stain. And he had wounds—many wounds.

“Gods!” a page whimpered. “Oh, blessed gods.”

“Sorcery,” Umanon muttered, and others present, even servants, were making signs against evil. Ninévrisé’s face was white.

“Tristen,” Cefwyn said. “What’s happening? Tell me what you see!

What is this Shadow?”

“Evil,” said Cevulirn.

“Tristen.” Cefwyn seized his arm, hard, compelling his attention.

“As6yneddin provided a Place,” Tristen said, “and it must have a Place.

Shadows are coward things. But this one.., this one.., is very ...”

“Tristen!”

“The lord Regent denied it a Place here. But ... it can find others-even here. It’s trying. Men in camp mustn’t listen to it. Hasufin sent this man. He helped him through the gray place, to see us. To see us, and know our numbers.”

“Tristen!” Cefwyn shook at him, aware of the fear of the lords near him, and the priest-fed superstition and the palpable terror this messenger had already engendered.

“It shifts,” Tristen said faintly. “It moves. The trees of Marna are its Place. The stones of the river are its Place. The Road changes and moves.

The things that are—change from moment to moment. It’s advancing.

But it much prefers the trees.”

“What is he talking about?” Umanon asked. “—My lord King, do you understand him?”

“I should take him to his bed, Your Majesty,” Uwen said.

“No!” Tristen said. “No, Cefwyn. Hear me. We must ride and stop them.”

“Now? At night? Men are exhausted, Tristen. We have mortal limits.”

That seemed to make sense to Tristen, at least. But he made none to anyone else.

“We will have panic in the camp,” Cevulirn said, and cast a fierce look about him, lingering on the servants. “Say nothing of this death, do you hear, you!” It was a voice very loud and sharp for Cevulirn, and it sent cold fingers down the backbone. “Sire, we must send men through the camp, to quiet rumors. Very many saw this man come in.”

“We must advance,” Tristen said with a shake of his head, and in a voice hardly more than a whisper. “Nothing can help Tasien. The enemy is advancing. There’s a Place we must meet it. But that Place could become closer, and worse for us. We must go.”

“Now?” Umanon asked sharply, and Tristen left that hazy-eyed look long enough to say,

“Emwy would help us.”

Cevulirn was frowning, Umanon no less than he; and pressing exhausted men on this advice, in the chance of catching the Elwynim at some sorcerous disadvantage—it might be their only hope. It might be their damnation. Tristen knew no common sense at such moments. What Tristen might do—other men might not.

“No,” Cefwyn said, then, deciding. “Weary as we are, we cannot. In the morning, before dawn, we will move, with horse and foot, as fast as we can, and still arrive fit to fight. Lady Ninévrisé will command the camp. —Tristen?”

But without a by-your-leave, Your Majesty, Tristen had simply—left, with Uwen close with him.

That Distance came on him, and he could not breathe. He went to his tent past startled guards and servants.

He had not reckoned that Uwen had followed him; but when he reached the shelter of his own tent, he caught his breath and wiped his eyes, and turned to find Uwen staring at him.

Trembling, he shrugged as if it had been nothing.

Then the shadow came on him again, so that he caught for the tent pole and leaned there, half-feeling Uwen’s hands on him. Uwen gripped his shoulder hard and shook at him; and he saw the two boys had somehow retrieved the chair from Cefwyn’s tent.  “Uwen. Ask them to go. Please.”

Silently Uwen braced an arm about him, and said to the servants what he wished him to say, in kinder terms than he could manage, and steered him for his chair. He sat down. He saw that, clever as his servants were, by whatever means they knew such things, they had his armor laid out ready for him—the suit of aged brigandine, of all that the armory had had, the one that best pleased him, because of its ease of movement. That was as it should be. And he already wore the sword he would use.

He took the sword from his belt, and sat with it in his arms.

“M’lord,” said Uwen, and knelt by him, hand on his knee.

“Uwen,” he whispered. “Go away.”

“M’lord, ye listen to me, ye listen. What am I to do wi’ ye? Out wi’ the army and one of your fits come on ye—what am I to do? What am I to do when some Elwynim aims for your head and ye stand there starin’ at him? Nothin’ ye done has scairt me, m’lord, but this—this does scare me.

I don’t like ye doin’ that on the field. If we go to fight tomorrow—ye can’t do this.”

“It will not happen.”

“I didn’t like goin’ out to them ruins. I had bad feelings.”

“It will not happen. —Uwen!” Uwen had started to rise and Tristen gripped his shoulder hard enough Uwen winced. “Uwen, you will not go to Cefwyn. You will not.”

“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen muttered reluctantly, and Tristen let him go.

“Please,” he said carefully. It was so great an effort to deal with love ... that, more than anything, distracted him, and caused him pain. “Please, Uwen. Believe me. Trust me that I know what I do.”  “Ye tell me what to do, m’lord, and I’ll do it.”

He held the sheathed sword against him, rocking slightly, gazing into the fire as he had done at Mauryl’s fireside. “When the time comes, tomorrow, I shall know very well what I must do. Never fear that.”

“And I’ll take care of ye, whatever, gods help me. But, m’lord, give me the sword.”  “No.”

“M’lord, I don’t like ye sittin’ like that when ye hain’t your right wits about ye.”

“Please,” he said, for the grayness was back and he could not deal with here and there together any longer. “Please, Uwen!”

Uwen tried all the same to take the sword from his hands, but he clenched it to him, and Uwen abandoned the effort.

Then he felt a manner of peace, a time in which his thoughts were white dreams, neither past nor future, only a sense of warmth, with, now, the consciousness of Emuin hovering near him in the grayness, a presence as safe as the shadow of Mauryl’s robes, anxious as he had become about venturing into that gray space.

Puddles and raindrops, circle-patterns, and the scudding clouds ...

Pigeons and straw and the rustle of a hundred wings ... Candle-light and warmth and the clatter of pottery at suppertime ...

The dusty creak of stairs and balconies, gargoyle-faces, and, seen through the horn window, golden sun ...

“Silver,” he murmured, coming back from that Place, remembering the black threads and the silver mirror. He wondered where he should find silver other than that—then put a hand to his chest, where the chain and the amulet lay, which Emuin had worn, before he gave it to Cefwyn and Cefwyn had given it to him.

He took it off, silver and belonging to two people who had wished him well, one of them not unskilled in wishing. He eased the sword from its sheath.

“My lord,” Uwen said in a hushed and anxious voice, and stirred from his chair. “What in the gods’ good name are ye doin’, there?”

He could not spare the thought to explain. He took the Teranthine circlet on its chain and held it in his hand while he passed the blade of the sword through it. He saw no way to anchor it but to bend it, and he bent the circlet until it met on either side of the hilt with all the strength of his fingers he bent it, and shaped it, and bound the chain around it.

When he looked up at Uwen then, Uwen was watching in mingled curiosity and fear. “Silver. And what beast would be ye hunting wi’ such a thing, m’lord?”

He had no idea why silver should have effect—only that in that Place the dark threads evaded it.

And it shone. It soothed. It felt right. Mauryl had done such odd things. The pigeons had known. The old mice in the walls had known.

He had known. Could living things not feel, smell, breathe, sense such things when they were right? He would ask Emuin how that was, but Emuin had faded away into distance, having, perhaps, prompted him: the touch had been that slight.

He fingered the worn leather hilt, the iron pommel. It was an old hilt, but a new and strong blade, so the armorer had declared; and so he felt with his hands and his sense of what should be: it was a blade forged in fire for honor, carried in stealth for murder and taken for defense of a dead king and a living one, by a man himself neither dead nor alive.

There was enough improbable about it to satisfy whatever oddness he could think of, and whatever demand there was in attacking a Shadow without substance.

“Uwen. You have that little harness knife.”

“Aye, m’lord,” Uwen said, and pulled it from his belt and gave it to him, a very small blade. And with that sharp point, as if it were a pen on parchment, he began to work on the surface of the blade while Uwen watched over his shoulder.

Designs: letters. On one side he scratched laboriously the flowing letters of Stellyrhas, that was Illusion; and on the other face he wrote, in severe characters, Merhas, that was Truth. What speech it was, he did not immediately know, but in one world or the other it had meaning. It was hard to make any scoring on the metal. The knife grew blunted. His fingers ached. But he persisted, while sweat started on his face.

Then he began to work, slowly, painstakingly, to widen those letters, though scarcely could the eye see them.

Uwen watched in silence, perhaps fearing to interrupt him, although he would not have objected to interruption now: it was only a task; his thoughts were at peace. Sweat ran on his face and he wiped at it with the back of his hand and worked on what had now become elaboration in the design, for beauty’s sake, because he did nothing haphazardly, on what became determination, because he would not abandon the small idea he had of what he faced, in substance and in insubstance.

Perhaps Uwen expected some magic. After a long time Uwen gave up and sat down on his cot.

“You should go to sleep,” he said to Uwen. “You should rest.”

“Are you going to do something, m’lord?”

“Not tonight,” he said. He rubbed the design with his hand. Marks on the metal wove in and out, and it at last seemed right to him.

–Finished? Emuin asked him, at cost, and from two days away. He had known Emuin was there—or at least knew Emuin had come close for the last several moments. The letters shone under his fingers, bridging here and there, as though he could thread one within the other.

–Am I right? he asked Emuin. Or am I foolish? —I was afraid today, master Emuin. I saw Ynefel. I was almost there. I fell into his trap, and I had no weapon—I could not take it there.

–The edge too has a name, Emuin whispered to him, ignoring his question. Emuin’s presence in the grayness very quickly became drawn thin, scarcely palpable, and desperate. He will know. An old Galasieni conundrum. The edge is the answer. I cannot help you further. You are Galasien’s last illusion, Man of the Edge, and, it may be, its noblest. I hope for what Mauryl did. I hope– Boy, —boy. Did he show you—did he show you—

–What, sir?

g/bat should be bare shown megEmuin began to say. He thought so, at least. But the presence had gone.

Deeply, finally, the weak threads of communion with Henas’amef were pulling apart, the fabric unweaving in little rips and gaps. He could not reach it now. He tried, and was back at that lattice-work of Lines and light that was Althalen. It answered to him. But Emuin did not.

Not dead, he thought. But at the end of what strength Emuin had mustered for himself. He feared for the old man, who, not brave, had found courage to fight not for his own health, but for Cefwyn’s. He feared for all of them—and he did not know what Emuin meant—or even how he had come here, except that Henas’amef still stood untroubled, and that Althalen had become safe, sheltering all of them within its reach. It was Althalen that gave him respite from the Shadow and rest from his struggle.

It was Althalen that would keep Ninévrisé safe tomorrow. It was Althalen that had taken the messenger to its rest.

But he himself could not hide in it. Resting here was not why Mauryl had Summoned him into the world.

He drew a deep breath. He plunged his face into his hands and wiped his eyes, then flung his head back, exhausted, not knowing, save from Althalen, where he was to get the strength—not the courage, for tomorrow, but simply the strength to get on a horse and go, knowing that Cefwyn relied on him, that Emuin relied on him, that the lady relied on him—and that, in a different and far more personal way, Uwen did.

Uwen was sleeping—Uwen dropped off so easily, and slept so innocently: he envied that ability, only to sleep, and not to find the night another journey, to worse and stranger places than the day, and another struggle, that did not give him rest.

But he had hours to spend before the dawn, and if he could do more than he had done, he had to try. He had Althalen, if he knew how to use it, if he dared another vision such as he had had on the brink of the ruin.

He knew of himself that he was not good—or had not been, once and long ago.

He knew of himself that such as Ynefel was, he was responsible for it being.

He knew of himself that he had more than killed his enemy, he had used the innocent.

Or—he thought that he knew these things. He had no map to lead him through the gray place. He had no Words written there to say, this is Truth, and this is Illusion.

Here he had made a sword to divide them. Here he had Mauryl’s Book, and Mauryl’s mirror—though only the sword seemed of use to him, he did not think it was Mauryl’s intention. It was not, it occurred to him, Mauryl’s gift.

He had a few hours yet. He had not failed until those hours were gone.

So while Uwen slept, while the servants slept, and even his guards drowsed, he moved his chair closer to the tent-pole, where the lamp shed its light.

He sat down with his Book, then, and opened it to the place the little mirror held—blinked at the flash of bright, reflected light, and moved the mirror so that it did not reflect the lamp above him, but the opposing page.

The letters were backward in the reflection—no better seen in that direction than the other, though it seemed to him a small magic in itself.

He wondered if all letters did that in all mirrors, or whether it was a special mirror, or whether, after all, just to reflect his face.

It was a changed face the mirror cast back to him. A worried face. A leaner face, not so pale as before. His hair he never had cut, and it fell past his shoulders, now. He had not realized it had grown so long. He had not known his face showed such expressions. He knew all the shifts of Uwen’s expression—while his own were strange to him. That seemed—like inspecting his elbow—an inconvenient arrangement.

Silly boy, Mauryl would say. There’s so little time. Don’t wool-gather.

Reflection in the rain-barrel. Light coming past his shoulders. Reflection of sky. The shadow of a boy who was not a boy. He had not known how to see himself, then. He had not had the power.

He wondered what he was in the gray space. And as quick as thinking it, he saw—he saw–  Light.

He shut his eyes and came back, his heart pounding in his chest. It was so bright, so bright it burned, and burned his hand.

It was hard to hold the mirror. But he could call the light into it. He could see his own face, blinding-bright, and frightening in its brightness.

He could take the silver mirror into that Place.

He wondered if he could take the Book—or reflect it there—and when he wondered, a light from the mirror fell, a patch of brilliance, like sun off metal, onto the page of the Book.

Moving the mirror into the gray place, and calling the light back onto the page was the first magic he had ever worked that succeeded, just to move light and the reflection of light from place to place.

So he did know something now that he had not known before; and he tried, though it was hard, to manage both Places at once, the one hand with the Book, the other with the mirror, until, out of the gray world the mirror drew into the world of substance, and looking only at the mirror, and reaching into the gray place, he saw the Book appear in the reflection the mirror held.

But the mirror’s image of the Book was blurred to him, until he could manage the mirror with one hand in the gray place, and angle it just so, and the Book in the hand that was in the other world, so that he could see the reflection of the page in of that gray world.

Then he could see the letters. Then he knew what they were:

It is a notion of Men, it said, that Time should be divided: this they do in order to remember and order their lives. But this is an invention of Men, and Time is not, itself, divided in any fashion. So one can say of Place. That there is more than one Place is a notion of Men: this they ... this they believe; but Place is not itself divided in any fashion. Who understands these things knows that Time and Place are very large indeed, and compass more than Men bare divided and named ...

He was no longer reading. He was thinking the Words and they echoed ahead of his reading them. He thought ahead, further and further into the pages, and knew the things the Book contained. He had written them. Or would write them.

That was what it meant—to one who could move things between the gray space and the world of substance.

He let down the Book and folded it on the mirror, and took up the sword again, not for a sword, but only for something to lean on while he thought.

That was how he waked, bowed over the sword, Uwen’s hands on his; he lifted his head and Uwen took the sword from his fingers and laid it carefully aside.

“It’s time, m’lord,” Uwen said. “The lamps is lit next door. His Majesty is arming and he’s ordered out the heavy horses. We’re leaving the camp standing and going on. The lady’s seein’ to that. Scouts ain’t seen nothing, though that ain’t necessarily what we want to hear, may be.

I hate like everything t’ wake ye, but there just ain’t no more time.”

In the sense Uwen spoke—there was no more time. But things he knew rattled through his thoughts. He bent and took off his ordinary boots.

And stood up.

Chapter 34  

He held out his arms patiently as Uwen assisted him into his armor, still by lamplight, with great care for the fittings. He stepped one after the other into the boots that belonged to the armor, and Tassand buckled them snugly at the holes that were marked. Uwen belted his weapons about him, sword and dagger, and slipped the small boot knife into the sheath that held it.

There was only the lightest of breakfasts, a crust of bread, a swallow of wine, which took no fire-making, and put no stress on the body. So Uwen said. And he knew Uwen was right.

Mauryl’s Book—his Book, held no comfort at all in the sense that he understood now what Hasufin had understood all along and that he knew what Hasufin wanted.

Most of all he knew what Hasufin wanted to do, which was to unmake Mauryl’s work: him, for a beginning, but, oh, more than that.

Hasufin wanted Galasien back, for a second part.

Hasufin wanted substance enough to use what was in that Book, for a third. Those desires were enough to account for all that was and might be. But that was not all Hasufin wanted. Beyond that—he could also imagine. That was what put him out of the notion of breakfast, and made him certain that, whatever defense the armor was, Hasufin would be determined to turn every weapon on the field toward him—for Hasufin, he was sure, cared very little about Aséyneddin, only to maneuver to his own advantage. All, all that would be out there was nothing other than what Hasufin willed, substantial so long as Men were willing or able to contend; and in so many places.

He even guessed what had brushed past him that night while he slept on the Road in Marna, and why he had dreaded it so. It was, in a strange sense—himself.

But this time he must go toward that sensible fear from which he had once fled—and what there was to meet, he must meet, and go wherever he must.

He was glad that Uwen saw nothing of what he saw. He would not wish that understanding on him for any price, not on Idrys, or Cevulirn or Umanon; nor on Pelumer, in whatever nightmare the Lanfarnesse forces might be struggling next the woods.

And not on Sovrag, who, if things went well, might yet arrive to strike at the Elwynim from the river, but he much doubted it: the Olmernmen had Marna to traverse to reach this far past Emwy, if they would go by water, and Marna of all places would not aid them.

But now with all the fear, came an impatience for this meeting. Something in him longed in a human way for encounter with Ninévrisé’s enemies, to feel the wicked certainty of himself he had felt before, with the sword in his hand, and such certainty what had to come next. Nowhere else and at no other time did he have that.

And for no reason, tears flooded his eyes and spilled. He wiped them unconsciously.  “M’lord?”

Uwen thought he wept for dread. But he wept for Mauryl’s gentleness, which only he had seen; he wept for Cefwyn’s, for Uwen’s kindness, which he did not have—not in their terms. He knew what he could do.