Текст книги "Fortress of Owls"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

And after their small gathering dispersed to their beds, “Captain,” Tristen lingered to say.

“Your Grace.” Anwyll’s shoulders were at once drawn up, wariness as quick as an indrawn breath.

“The highroad passes by Henas’amef on its way to Guelessar,” Tristen said. “Don’t send Idrys dispatches by the riverside. There’s no gain in speed and a great risk to the couriers.”

“I assure Your Grace… there is no disloyalty…”

“I know there is not, sir, and I regard Idrys as a friend. He’s an honest man, as I know you are, and I know you are his man. Send to him what you will, with my goodwill. I ask only your courier gather messages from me as well, so we need not have two men risking life and limb on the roads in bad weather.”

Anwyll showed himself overwhelmed, and if manners had allowed it would surely have sat down. “Your Grace, I have never reported anything against you.”

“Yet have reported to Idrys.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“I know you have your own orders. The Dragon Guard is mine only for the season. You should know Uwen has sent home certain of the Guelen Guard, men who wished to be released. I’ve had him take command himself, for the while, until I can muster a force to defend the province.”

“Which officers were dismissed, if Your Grace please to say?”

“The captain and the senior sergeant, both, and certain of the other officers whose names I did not inquire.” He found himself on the edge of his knowledge of what, as duke of Amefel, he could order; and had ordered, by those senses of danger which sometimes ruled his actions. Nothing had Unfolded to him in so doing except the small, steady unfurling of logical steps: take command, hold command, shape it until it fit the hand and the man that must lead it. “I said to the Lord Commander that Uwen Lewen’s-son would be my captain. So he is. And the garrison is what is his to command, since king Cefwyn set me over it.”

“The Lord Commander so advised me,” Anwyll said, with a resolute look. “And I am to command the Dragons, over which I am instructed Your Grace has noauthority.”

That was Idrys’ caution, which far from offending, had a warm and familiar feeling. He smiled, hearing it.

“Fair,” he said.~“Yet you came here.”

“I’m instructed to obey reasonable orders, in the king’s interest.”

“And will you name officers for the Guelens? Uwen gave me a list. He says he can’t appoint new officers, but you can. Who do you think is the best man?”

“Wynned.”

“Will return when his mother mends, which I wish she does soon. He seems a good man.”

“A wall in Bryn’s lands and a guard captain dismissed. Your Grace, I had as lief not become adviser to this. And I will send to the Lord Commander, I advise you so.”

“Idrys wishes me to do what keeps the king safe… have this province strong and ready, and not to admit a flood of Tasmôrden’s men or to have Her Grace’s men slaughtered against the river.” It was very clear to him, clearer than all the debates they had had in councils before this, now that he had seen this place by the river, and that identical, snowy shore. “Did you approve the Guelens’ officers, the things they did?”

“No, Your Grace, I didn’t, nor do. If they were my command, they’d be set down.”

He became aware, though how he was not himself sure, that the captain thought himself superior to the Guelen officers, and well he might: it was the truth. But Anwyll was wellborn, and Uwen was always daunted and quiet when Anwyll was about, falling back on his claim he was a common man.

And that was also behind his decision to send Anwyll to the river, that there was a certain reluctance in the man to deal with Amefin, Teranthines, Bryaltines, common sergeants, or peasants. It seemed a fault in him, one hard to lay hands on or to catch with the eye.

As now, Anwyll was sure he would have dealt differently with the Guelens, yet would likely defend them against any charge laid against them in the town.

He gazed at Anwyll, and Anwyll seemed entirely disquieted.

“What they’ve done was wicked,” Tristen said. “I don’t quite know all that the Quinalt means by wicked, but to kill prisoners was wicked. The men they led aren’t bad soldiers, Uwen says so, and he should know, having been one.”

Again that small hesitation, as if what Uwen said and Uwen thought was not, perhaps, what Anwyll thought.

“Wynedd is a good man,” Anwyll said. “I have no trouble naming him. And Ennyn to hold as his second. I’ll write out orders and place them in your hands.”

Anwyll continued to be troubled, and wished he were not in Amefel. Tristen took that thought to his tent afterward.

“I’ve no doubt Anwyll will write to Idrys tonight,” Tristen said when he joined Cevulirn in the soldiers’ tent they had claimed for the night, all their guard sleeping the night in the mess tent which, against a shed now devoted to equipment, had a solid wall for a windbreak.

Cevulirn occupied his half of the tent, sitting on his pallet, their only light from the general fire outside.

“Should he not?” Cevulirn said.

“He should. But I mean so urgently he’ll likely slip a rider out before morning, and I only hope he sends him by the Modeyneth road. He doesn’t trust me, and I wish I could mend that. He doesn’t quite trust Uwen, either, or doesn’t think he should command the garrison, and to that I don’t agree.”

“You should have no illusions, Amefel: he is Guelen, wellborn, and Quinalt, and sees much that troubles him.”

“He’s Idrys’ man, and I do trust Idrys.”

That drew a silent, rare laughter from the gray lord of the Ivanim. “As I think Idrys trusts you, but beware of that trust of his.”

“Why do you say so?”

Cevulirn, looking at him in the almost-dark and leaping light of the fire outside, was all shadows and surmise. “Because, lord of Amefel, Idrys trustsyou on grounds of your honesty and your friendship for His Majesty, and if he ever doubts the friendship, or the honesty, or the gift Mauryl Kingsbane gave you, that trust will go with it. And you will never know at what moment. That’s the difficulty of trusting loyal men.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Mauryl? Or Idrys?”

“Kingsbane. Kingmaker, in the Red Chronicle.”

“Bane to Elfwyn, at very least. Kingmaker, Kingbreaker. Words.”

“Wizards’ words mean things.”

“That they do,” said Cevulirn. “And so I say again, Idrysis aware what they called Mauryl Gestaurien, and he thinks on it daily, I do assure you, Amefel.”

“I shall neverbetray Cefwyn.”

“You,” Cevulirn said, “are Mauryl Kingmaker’s Shaping. And you are Lord Sihhë of the grateful Amefin. With the best will in the world toward Cefwyn, and all love, do you deny either?”

Perhaps it was a chill draft that wafted through the tent, but it was like Mauryl’s questions. They sat in shadows, and shadows flowed all about them. He trembled when Cevulirn said that; and the trembling would not let him, for a long, long moment, utter any objection.

“I know your heart and your intent,” Cevulirn said relentlessly, “and with the best will to His Majesty in the world, I willanswer your summons this Wintertide, and bring the lords of the south with me. That, too, will trouble the good captain, beyond any news the two of us have brought him. But I don’t trouble my sleep over the fact. Anwyll for all his good traits is a Guelenman to the least hair on his head. So I am Ivanim, and southron, and have blood of the Sihhë in my veins. And good Guelen will I never be, lord of Amefel, but a strong friend of His Majesty and friend to you, yes, I shall be. For that matter, Idrys himself is southron, Anwyll’s Guelen loyalty notwithstanding; a man, a Man, and not of the old blood, nor will he trust me or thee entirely, but trust him, I say, and write him often and keep him apprised of what you do. Above all His Majesty must not lose faith in the south, and just the same as that, neither must Idrys. There. Do I go too far?”

“No. No, sir, you do not.”

He understood, both that he was right about Cevulirn, and that he was mapping a dangerous path through Guelen resentments. The northern barons wanted nothing more than to find a cause against him. They would not like the river camps, would far less like his breaching of the king’s law to build the wall near Modeyneth.

Bring your men, he wished to say to Cevulirn, tonight, the two of them alone to hear, and plan. Bring me the army, and we’ll cross the river and bring aid to Ilefínian.

But the words would not come. When it came to defying Cefwyn’s direct order, he had a sudden vision of blood, of fire, and if he were not anchored by Cevulirn’s still-waking presence and Cevulirn’s next, unanswered question, he might have gone wandering to learn what he was almost certain of just now, a desperate, a sinking feeling.

“What’s wrong?” Cevulirn.

“The gates,” Tristen said, for he saw tall gates and fire and figures moving in the light.

“What gates?” Cevulirn asked, for there were none here.

Tristen drew a sharp breath, seeking the place where he was instead of the riot of fire and the clash of arms. “The gates have come open. At this very moment.”

“Where?” Cevulirn asked. “Whose gates?”

“Ilefínian has fallen.”

Cevulirn heard him in utter silence.

“We are too late to prevent it,” Tristen said. “I don’t know how I should know, or how I do know, but I think someone has opened the gates.” He thought, more, that a breath of wizardry had pressed the situation, working quietly and for the merest instant flaring forth. He thought it the more strongly when he had formed the thought, and then flung a defense up in the gray space, strongly, strongly, nothing subtle.

Then the smothering feeling lifted.

“Now the birds will come,” he said, thinking on Auld Syes. “That was what she foretold. We should send to Cefwyn ourselves. Tonight.”

No question it must be one of Anwyll’s men, to hope to get to Idrys.

“Your lordships?” Anwyll asked when they called on him, and he came, roused from bed and with a cloak clutched about him in the dim forechamber of his tent.

“Ilefínian has fallen,” Tristen said, with Cevulirn at his back, and both of them determined.

“Did Your Grace receive a courier?” was Anwyll’s reasonable question.

“No,” Tristen said, “but I’m sure it’s so. Deck the bridge.”

“Your Grace—” Clearly Anwyll had had his wits shaken, and smoothed hair out of his eyes, trying to compose arguments. “You mean to let them across?”

“The ones to come first will be Her Grace’s forces.”

“His Grace thinks Tasmôrden’s men are in the town,” Cevulirn said, “and if that’s so, devil a time holding them from the ale stores.”

“Aye, my lord, I understand, but no messenger, as you say…”

“Disarm any soldiery,” Tristen said, “and send them under escort to Modeyneth. He’ll escort them to refuge. I need a rider to go to Guelemara, to His Majesty, to tell him.”

“Word from the watchers on the river northward may get there first, Your Grace.”

“And if something befalls the messengers, no word at all. There must be a messenger.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“For seven days leave the decking in place on the bridge. Then take it down again.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Anwyll had the look of a man utterly confounded. “And what if the Elwynim come, the wrong Elwynim, and the bridge is decked?”

“You can hold them, Captain,” was Cevulirn’s short answer. “There’s more than enough force here.”

“Your Grace,” Anwyll answered, passion rising. “We did not plan to stand with the bridge open! We need archers!”

“We’ll have them here,” Tristen said, “from Bryn.”

“Amefin, Your Grace.”

“This isAmefel,” Cevulirn said. “Amefin are in good supply here.”

“Your Grace.” Whatever Anwyll had been about to say he thought better of, and collected himself. “I’ll have you a rider immediately, Your Grace.”

Tristen penned a letter in haste and gave it to Anwyll’s messenger. Anwyll added another dispatch, and the rider left. There Was little to do then but return to beds and rest what of the night remained, he and Cevulirn, in quiet converse for the better part of two hours into the dark, coming to no conclusion but that they must set a force here sufficient to hold, and that archers and a muster of Bryn to the wall-building and the defense of the bridge was inevitable.

And if Elwynim arrived who had a disposition to fight their war on Amefin soil, there was a hard choice, separating the two sides and being sure, as Cevulirn said, that the ones they might let abide in Amefel accepted the authority in Henas’amef.

“I’d hoped still a small force might have reached through and broken the siege,” Tristen said in the shadowed dark, all the troubling visions roiling and leaping in the firelight that came through the flap. “But that won’t happen now. Now it’s Cefwyn’s war, the sort he wanted.”

“I’ll post my guard here,” Cevulirn said. “It’s the only reasonable choice. A handful, but the best. They can use the bows.”

“I thank you,” Tristen said into the dark, having no idea else where he could lay hands on more troops this side of Assurnbrook, besides the troubled Guelens. And for a moment the small glow that was Cevulirn in the gray space was a greater one, and the bond of wizard-craft touched one and two out in the camp, smaller lights, but true.

Then, quietly, secret in the deep of night, Tristen set himself to wish such fugitives well and guide them to the river.

And he began to wish snow about Ilefínian, thick, blanketing snow, not so far as the river, where fugitives might strive to cross, but all about the sack of the town, a white blanket to cover the ugliness of death and fire and wounds.

A pure and pristine white, to cool angers, drive men indoors, and give Tasmôrden an enemy that would not yield to the sword.

He did so, and it seemed he was not quite alone in his effort, that in utter silence something in Cevulirn answered, and something in Henas’amef reached out to him, and something in the tower there waked and listened.

Ilefínian is fallen, was the burden of the night. And on the road, two riders, Anwyll’s, and the one Anwyll had sent for them, on to Modeyneth, to Henas’amef, and to Guelessar.

Chapter 4

In the morning was time enough to discuss explicit orders with Captain Anwyll, who had heard the news in the middle of the night with doubt and anger.

But Anwyll had not failed his instructions, and had ordered the bridge decking restored at first light. His men, the elite Dragon Guard, accustomed to clean quarters and the finest fare, swore and struggled and pressed into service the oxen that should this very day have been moving the long-purloined carts back to Guelessar. The drivers were angry, and protested, and were pressed into service, handling the oxen, so Anwyll reported. Where there was not snow and ice, there was mud.

The drivers would be angrier yet to hear they needed remain to take the decking off in another sevenday, Tristen was well sure. They would need the oxen for that, and the carts would not move.

That the Ivanim guard, who were fair shots with a bow, would also remain until the bridge was closed and undecked again, however, improved Anwyll’s mood marvelously.

And that Cevulirn’s lieutenant would remain to lead those men heartened Anwyll even more so, for by that establishment of another senior officer, not all the burden of decision and judgment was on him. Cevulirn’s lieutenant was veteran of numerous independent actions, as Anwyll was not; he was brisk, decisive, and confident, as Anwyll was not; and he was capable of distinguishing one band of Elwynim from another, as Anwyll was not, which made Tristen easier in his mind.

Since the Ivanim lieutenant had set to work, in fact, there was already a different sense of order, men and horses rapidly establishing a more permanent camp with no resources to begin with and abundant resource within an hour, and the Ivanim seemingly everywhere at once, considering winter stabling and timbers they might use for the purpose, if the weather worsened over their week. They accomplished wonders of organization before the morning fires had produced water hot enough for porridge, and by then Anwyll was in far better humor.

So with farewells to Cevulirn’s men, and setting out by a good hour with only Tristen’s small Guelenish guard force and bodyguard around them, they put the river at their backs in short order.

They kept the horses not to a courier’s pace, for their armor and arms and heavy saddles were too much weight on the horses for that kind of riding. But all the same they pressed hard, and reached the ruined wall near Modeyneth at midafternoon, where the area around the old wall and towers already showed signs of clearing, timbers cut, fallen stone swept clean of snow.

The new earl himself was overseeing bands of workers in the brushy woods that had grown up about the old stones.

“My lords!” it was, when Drusenan saw them; and then a more sober reckoning when he saw how they came, without their guards.

“Grave news,” Cevulirn said, and reported what they knew, regarding Elwynor and Ilefínian. “Captain Anwyll of the Dragon Guard will deliver any fugitives to you, and he may ask you to raise a local muster,” Tristen said. He was keenly aware how great a burden he had put on a new man, one time experienced in battle, yes, and a dreadful battle, but not having directed anything more than a village levy on the march. “I’ll ask Lord Drumman to move to your assistance, with carts and oxen, as soon as I reach Henas’amef. I need all the oxen I have at the river. Above all, be very certain whoever you set at Althalen bears no weapons. Collect them if you find them. I’ll have none of the war there brought here.”

“My lord,” Drusenan said in great earnest. “All that you wish, I’ll do. Let me get my horse, and I’ll ride with you to the village.”

“No stopping tonight,” Tristen said, but the reason of their overwhelming haste, that would send Cevulirn riding hard for the south, he did not confess even to this well-disposed and honest man. Rumors enough were likely to fly and would fly, no few of them to the Elwynim, and whence next, there was no limit of possibilities.

All the same Lord Drusenan rode with them as far as Modeyneth and some beyond, after a welcome cup of mulled wine and a breath for the horses.

“I’ve already sent out word to the villages,” Lord Drusenan reported to them, “and told them the state of affairs in Bryn, and our charge from Your Grace, as I’m sure they’ll come to help.”

“You have Bryn’s town resources to draw from,” Tristen said, “and no few men there, with its treasury: I didn’t let it go. I’ll send what I can with Lord Drumman. And horses, which Anwyll may need, if you’ll send them on in good order.”

Another man, Tristen thought, might have sped straight for the town and the court and bought himself fine clothes, but Lord Drusenan had not even delayed for a ceremony, owning his modest swearing as binding on him as any in the great hall. He had gone to the wall to clear brush and snow from about the fallen stones and plied an axe until his hands were blistered. His lady, Ynesyne, had set up great kettles in the center of the village, expecting, she said, a hundred men from surrounding villages to come to the work. She had made provision for them to lodge in the stable and in the hall and wherever the village houses could find a little room.

Besides that, the village wives were packing the village’s sole horse cart with supply for the fugitives in the ruins, while two of the local men had gone ahead with axes, so Drusenan had reported, to prepare shelters and firewood, and added, as everyone did, if only the weather held good.

It should, it must, it would, unless some wizard opposed him; and he might meet that challenge and hold it, too.

“I wish the snow will fall north of us,” Tristen said, with great insistence in his heart, for all the while he and Cevulirn had ridden since dawn, he had held that determination, for whatever, force it had, and now he was sure it would.

He wished health and good fortune on the village; and also on Syes’ sparrows, traveling by now afoot to the ruins at Althalen, where other men of the village would guide them.

“And excuse Anwyll,” he said. “He’s a good man. He has a better heart than one might think. No one of Meiden would have survived at Henas’amef, if not for him coming to advise me what Parsynan was up to. Meiden owes him their lives.”

“I take your advisement, my lord, and will remember.”

But the new lord of Bryn, understanding their haste to reach Henas’amef by dark, few as they were, had no inclination to delay in debate, only offered himself and two of his young men to add to the guard they had.

“You’ve enough to do,” Tristen said, as they were getting to horse, “and I fear nothing from bandits. See to the wall, that’s what I most wish.”

“See the young men exercised in arms as well as building,” Cevulirn advised Drusenan, too. “If there’s any place Elwynor might attack early and hard, it’s this road, and that bridge, with the wall building. Tasmôrden won’t like the look of that at all, and won’t like the rumors out of the south of a strong rule here.”

Amefel, which had used to be the softest approach to Ylesuin, was shored up with stone and soon to be edged with steel and muscled with horses and Ivanim cavalry. And that, Tristen thought, served Cefwyn better than carts and a company of the Dragons.

They made speed homeward bound after Modeyneth, camped but briefly and late, and that more for the sake of the horses that carried them, were on their way again at the first light of a clear, bright dawn, and laid their specific plans on the way, for the guard they had closest to them were trusted men. Cevulirn would write to the other lords, and surmised what force and support they might look for from each… Midwinter Day was the day they set for the lords and their escorts to gather at Henas’amef, a festive day, a time when friends gathered and saw in the new year—could the Quinalt fault a gathering of friends, be they lords with numerous men in their escort? The lords who had fought in Amefel this summer past would gather to give thanks, to share the feast, no less than peasants did around their year-fires, and noble families across the land.

That they might lay their plans then, that, their enemies would know.

But their coming depended on the will of the lords… and on what the weather might hold.

And the latter, Tristen thought, might lie within his hands. But while he might wish the snow away from them, or a moderation in the weather, he was far from certain he could manage something on the scale of hastening a season.

Yet wish he did. They had a great deal to accomplish, and instead of a long time to Midwinter, they found the days until Midwinter a very short time for them to bring together all they wished… for what they wished and planned was to have a force capable of striking through to Ilefínian and threatening the rebels’ gains.

If they could do no more than embarrass Tasmôrden and make him look the fool, that would raise hopes of defying him, and raise men in support of Ninévrisë’s claim… and that would also support Cefwyn’s heavy cavalry and strong force coming from the east… for Cefwyn’s reliance on heavy horse with the roads uncertain as they were alarmed him. Every sense he had of warfare, every sense he gained from the maps said that there was a reason Selwyn Marhanen had not pressed into Elwynor from the east, where roads were not up to Guelen standards, where brush was thick along the roads… he had never been there, but he was sure that was the nature of the land, as sure as if he had seen it, and anything he could do to the south to distract Tasmôrden onto two fronts eased his fears for Cefwyn.

“So the king and the north will have the victory and Murandys may look a valiant soldier,” Cevulirn said in a tone of derision. “Let him, only so we have free rein here, and can raise an army out of the stones of Elwynor.”

“If only Umanon will join us,” Tristen said, for Umanon was the chanciest of their former allies, a heavy horse contingent, in itself, but a valuable one, with their light horse to probe the way. More, Pelumer of Lanfarnesse was not certain, especially if Umanon should hold back. Pelumer, Cefwyn had said, managed to be late to every fight, and they feared he would manage to be late to this one.

“But Sovrag will come,” Tristen said. “I do rely on him.”

“The man was a river pirate,” Cevulirn said, “and the Marhanens ennobled him and granted him the district he holds because that rock of a fortress of his was too much trouble to take. Andthey needed his boats. As we do.”

“Yet he’s an honest man.”

“An honest thief, nowadays. A reformed thief. Which turned the Olmernmen,” Cevulirn added, “from brigandage against my lands and Umanon’s toward occasional brigandage in the southern kingdoms, a great improvement for us, if it brings us no angry retribution. That in itself was a wonder. More than that, they’ve even planted small fields. That we never thought to see. I confess I like the man better now than two years ago. And he’s learned things from being in Amefel. He’s seen how farmerfolk live fairly well on the land. And he’s learned how to sit a horse, if it’s old and docile.”

“What do you say of Pelumer?” Tristen asked, intrigued by Cevulirn’s reckoning of the brigand lord, whom he did understand. Pelumer, however, blew both hot and cold, to his observation.

“Hard to catch,” Cevulirn said of Pelumer. “Both the rangers of Lanfarnesse andtheir lord. Apt to take the cautious view, apt not to risk his men. Late to every battle. Yet no coward.”

Pelumer’s light-armed forces were better suited to moving in small bands among the trees, skills of little use in a pitched battle, as Cefwyn had tried to use them. In some measure he did not blame Pelumer for his reluctance to throw them onto the field: for all Cefwyn’s virtues of courage, he had a hardheadedness about the way to win a battle, which was a great deal of force moving irresistibly forward. Pelumer did not like the notion… nor, he found, did he, and he feared for Cefwyn, locking in that reliance on the Guelen forces.

Of Umanon of Imor Lenúalim, canny and Guelen and Quinalt, unlike all the rest of the southrons, he had the most doubt. He was the most like Cefwyn in some regards, but independent and interested primarily in his own province. “And Umanon?” he asked. “Will he agree with us, or with Ryssand?”

“He detests Corswyndam. And since Lewenbrook, he despises Sulriggan.” This was the lord of Ryssand, and the lord of Llymaryn, two of the principal forces in the north. “He’s capable of surprises. And he’s more a southerner where his alliances and his purse are concerned. Nor is he that much enamored of the northern orthodoxy.”

“The Quinaltines?”

“The doctrinists among the Quinaltines. A handful of troublesome priests, clustered around the north-lands, some in Murandys, strict readers of the book and strict in interpretation… neither here nor there for you or me, here in the south. But it’s a reason Umanon doesn’t stand with Ryssand and Murandys. He detests the priests that espouse it, since the orthodoxy, mark you, faults Umanon’s birth.”

“How might they do that?”

“Oh, that Umanon’s mother and her folk are Teranthines, and stiff in their faith as Umanon is in his. He won’t condemn his mother and his aunt and her house, nor his cousins, who are wealthy men and the owners of a great deal of the grainfields that are Imor’s wealth: he trades grain for northern cattle and the cattle for southern gold, to the seafarers, down the Lenúalim. His dukedom may be Guelen and Quinalt as you please, but the Teranthines are best at dealing with foreign folk and best at trade. They fear nothing, accept the most outrageous of foreign ways.”

“And wizards? They accept them.”

“Look at Emuin.”

“Are there wizards in the wild lands south?” He had never read so.

“Assuredly. Perhaps even fugitive remnants of the Sihhë. We Ivanim trade along the border in silk and horses, with the Chomaggari, and farther still. And a modicum of wizardry has never troubled us.”

“You yourself have some gift,” Tristen observed with deliberate bluntness, and Cevulirn regarded him with a sidelong glance. “You use it. You used it during the business at Modeyneth. I think you know you have it.”

“Our house is admittedly fey,” said Cevulirn, “and I confess it, to one I think will never betray that confidence. We aren’t wizards. But the gift for it is there.”

“Between the two of us,” Tristen said, “we might have no need of signal fires. I think you would hear me even in Toj Embrel.”

Cevulirn regarded him a long few moments in silence, and the gray space seethed with Cevulirn’s strong forbidding.

“I will not,” Cevulirn said, “not unless at great need. I have trusted you, Amefel, as never I have trusted, outside Ivanor. And so if you need me, call by any means you can.”

“I think that I did call you,” Tristen said after a moment of thought on that point, “though not by intent and not by name. I needed an adviser, and here you are. And you’ll come back, that I believe, too.” It was in his mind that even his own wish might not be all the reason for Cevulirn’s coming to him, for there were many wizards, Emuin had said, wizards living and dead, their threads crossed and woven, and hard to say which juncture mattered most to the fabric.

Wizardous elements came together in his vicinity, gathered by common purpose, common loyalties, common necessity… Emuin in his tower, he and Cevulirn; Crissand and Paisi; Ninévrisë in Guelemara and Uleman in his grave at Althalen.

Not discounting Mauryl… or Hasufin, though both were dispelled.

We are all here, Tristen thought to himself.

And all through the journey the sky stayed brilliant blue and the land gleaming white, except to the north, where clouds gathered dark and troubled, and pregnant with winter.

The sun was low when their reduced band drew in sight of Henas’amef, and it was a welcome sight, with lights beginning to show, peaceful and familiar with its skirt of snowy fields. A curiously warm feeling, Tristen thought, and how many faces it had, in summer, in winter, by day and by twilight.