Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

  But— but if magic was in question, separating off his son and sending him back alone was not a safe course, either. Aewyn, with a little of the old blood from his Syrillas mother, had only the disadvantage of that magical heritage at his age, none of the protection it might give him if it ever fl ow-2 8 8

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  ered. He himself was blind to magic, but Tristen said things magical outright glowed in the daylight to certain eyes. And if his son glowed like that to certain eyes, then he was a damned sight safer with Tristen in the neighbor-hood than he would be going off into the dark with a covey of equally blind Dragon Guard.

  “What else?” Aewyn wanted to know, tugging ever so slightly at his sleeve.

  “That your brother is no longer Otter. He’s now saying his name is Elfwyn. And he seems to have visited Lord Tristen, who told him that was his name. Here, you can read it. What questions you find in it, I fear I can’t answer. Just keep the letter safe.” He stood up and gained the attention of the Guard captain. “Make a litter. Two men to take Lord Crissand’s messenger to the monks at Aelford at a gentle pace, his care at Crown expense: his message is delivered and his duty discharged. He may go where he pleases when he is able to ride, and the monks are to provide him a good horse.

  The rest of you will go on with me. No canvas spread. Better the clean wind than seal us in with the smoke.” The sound of an axe resounded through the shelter, a tree going down. It would be green wood and, indeed, a great deal of smoke when it burned. It would be well, too, to leave more wood curing for the next occupant of the shelter, who might come in likewise in dire need. The messenger had lain here, burning what he must to keep himself from freezing, and had had the bad luck to have no merchants come along for days.

  “Did his mother cause all his trouble?” Aewyn wanted to know, regarding Otter, now Elfwyn, while the Guard started breaking out their supper supplies. “Could she?”

  “It’s a good question,” he said. It was not a matter he wanted to discuss in front of the guardsmen. “I don’t know what she can do nowadays. I don’t know the answers, I warned you that. And let’s not discuss it here.”

  “Is it a magical ring?”

  He touched his own amulet beneath his coat where it rested, against his bare skin. It often lent a warmth to him, if only the comfort of friendship. “I suppose in a sense it’s magical. But a prince of Ylesuin doesn’t talk about magic. It’s not something we bruit about recklessly in front of honest Guelenfolk, even if our good friends use it.”

  “But I’ll see Lord Tristen?”

  “I very much hope you will,” he said. The fl ow of questions had started again, unanswerable, but it was the surest sign of happiness in his son. He reached out, knocking back Aewyn’s hood, and tousled his hair, which 2 8 9

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  Aewyn hated. “Questions, questions, questions. Will the sun rise tomorrow?

  Generally, but I can’t promise it. I’m not in charge of the sun.”

  “You’re the king.”

  “I’m not in charge of the sun, however. And I’m certainly not in charge of Tristen. He’s not our subject, you know: he’s the High King, and it could be argued we’re his. He’s our friend, is all.”

  “He was duke of Amefel, once.”

  “He became free of that. I let go the oath. You can’t keep a creature like him bound, you know. You never should, or you have to take what comes of it.”

  “What would come of it?”

  “I’m not in charge of that, either, piglet. I don’t know what might happen, but getting in Tristen’s way isn’t a wise thing to do.”

  “Why? What would he do?”

  “He wouldn’t do a thing,” Cefwyn said, with his own memories of ice and fire, and far more inexplicable sights. “He wouldn’t do a thing. But when he needs something, all nature bends. Sometimes it even breaks its own rules, and, no, don’t ask me what those rules are. If I knew, I’d be a wizard, and I’m certainly not.”

  “You learned from one.”

  “I did. And I do wish I could provide the same for you, son of mine. But there’s not a one I can fi nd.”

  “Except Lord Tristen.”

  “Who’s—” Cefwyn began to say.

  “Not a wizard. I know. He’s Sihhë. Which is different. But I don’t understand how it’s different.”

  “You have a bit of it, through your mother, you know. And, son, if you ever do see odd things or find things glowing when you look at them— you can tell her about it. Or tell me very secretly. And quickly. I’d never say it was a bad thing, but His Holiness would have an apoplexy.”

  “What’s an—”

  “Never mind. But I wouldn’t be sorry if you did have a small touch of your mother’s Sight.”

  “And the Aswydds have it, too.”

  “They do.”

  “Lord Crissand is Aswydd like Otter, and the duke of Amefel.” A small recitation as Aewyn made sure of his facts, counting them on his gloved fi ngers. “Aswydd like Otter, and his father was Edwyll, who was murdered—”

  “Who said such a thing?”

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  “Uncle.”

  Efanor, was it? And what other sordid tales was his brother giving the lad. “He was.”

  “And the duke of Amefel has a peculiar grant of power, because they were kings before us, and opened their gates to my great - grandfather. Amefin dukes are earls, except Crissand, who is a duke the way Guelenfolk think of it, and he’s His Grace to us, and aetheling to his own people, who have earls and thanes and other sorts of nobles. But my brother is more directly Aswydd than Crissand is.” A plaintive question. “Is it because he’s illegitimate that he’s not duke?”

  “Yes, in plain words, yes.”

  “But he would be the rightful duke, would he not?”

  “Wishes don’t overcome his illegitimacy. He is not, nor ever can be. There are other Aswydds. But they rebelled against us and conspired to kill your grandfather; and I exiled the lot of them.” The rest of it wasn’t a pretty story.

  It was one, perhaps, that he should inform his son, considering they were going there; but the story still stuck in his throat, like the grief and anger of that night.

  “How did you meet Otter’s mother?”

  “She was the younger sister of the duke. And I lived a wild life before I met your mother. Well, truth to tell, I was a fool when I was younger. I know all the trouble a young man can get into, which is why I say you’re not to do that sort of thing. Sins come back to you.”

  “Otter isn’t a sin!”

  “No.” Cefwyn managed a little smile. “My sin, but not his. I find no fault in him. But so you should know— his mother hates me.”

  “She’s a prisoner there.”

  “She is.”

  “Because she’s a sorceress.”

  “Because she’s a sorceress, yes.”

  “But you made love with her!”

  Innocence looked back at him, a gulf of life and years..

  “Hear what I said,” Cefwyn said, in Emuin’s best manner. “Think about it at your leisure, and deeply. I made love. I didn’t love her. She didn’t love me.

  I’d not met your mother yet.”

  “You love Mother.”

  “Deeply.”

  “You didn’t love Otter’s mother, ever, did you?”

  “I didn’t. Never, never, my boy, link yourself to a woman who cares noth-2 9 1

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  ing for you, or that you care nothing for, either. It’s a bad mistake. Your brother was conceived the one night I spent with her. The very night I met Lord Tristen. Think of that, too. Sorcery was in it.”

  “Because of Lord Tristen?” Aewyn asked.

  “Tristen is—”

  “Not a sorcerer. I know. There is a difference.”

  “There was a sorceress in it, all the same, Tarien’s sister. She didn’t get herself with child, but Tarien did.”

  “Yo
u slept with her sister, too?”

  Both in the same bed, but he spared his son that particular news, and simply nodded. “Being a young fool, in one year, I got myself a son with a woman who was my mortal enemy, worse, the enemy of my own house, and my people— then became king. And that, my son, made life no easier for our young Otter— beginning with the fact that Tarien named him Elfwyn to spite us all.”

  “To spite the Marhanens. You said so.”

  “So I did. And time you know this, son of mine: your great - grandfather would have killed her and her unborn child because the mother and the aunt plotted against us, and because the babe to be born would— all other difficulties aside— mix two very troublesome bloodlines. If she had lived long enough to name him as she did, that defiance alone would have assured your great - grandfather would have killed them both. That was the sort of king he was. Your grandfather would just have beheaded her sister, married Tarien off to some hairy Chomaggari, and had Elfwyn living in a tent down in the south . . . until, of course, sorcery took a hand in it and brought the boy back to be our lifelong enemy. Perhaps I was wrong to try to make his life comfortable. Sometimes I have had that fear. But I did it on Tristen’s advice.

  And for my own inclinations, it seemed to me a good thing— not to have my other son for my enemy, or yours. So I took the risk. I’ve done all I could to make him turn out well. And when you asked, I brought him to live with us.

  I did hope it would work out.”

  “I like my brother.”

  “So do I,” he said, and the dark felt a little less cold, when he recalled that earnest, gray- eyed face. “I like him very well. Paisi’s gran did a good job, bringing him up and defending him from his mother.”

  “Elfwyn calls her his gran, too. But he knows she’s not really his.”

  “An excellent woman, let me tell you. And plain and wise, and capable of a fairly potent charm or two, by all Tristen told me. Thank the gods for her and for Paisi, too, who’s been a brother to him, or no knowing how 2 9 2

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  he might have turned out. So perhaps Tristen’s advice was right after all.”

  It cheered him to think how Gran had turned to good the evil Tarien had planned.

  “What was the name of that other woman?”

  “Which woman?”

  “The sorceress. The other one.”

  “One shouldn’t—”

  “— speak their names,” Aewyn said. “I know. But isn’t it good I know that?”

  “No need for you to know it. She’s dead. But her name was Orien. Orien Aswydd.”

  A moment of silence. Aewyn tucked his coat the more tightly about him, the bitter wind skirling up a skein of sparks. “She’d be Elfwyn’s aunt, wouldn’t she? Does Elfwyn know about her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Paisi’s gran certainly does. So does Paisi. So does everyone in Henas’amef and half of Ylesuin, for that matter, who were alive in those years. One just doesn’t speak of sorcerers. It’s bad luck. So, no, I don’t know if your brother does know at all. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time I did tell him, as I’m telling you.”

  “He doesn’t like his mother at all,” Aewyn said. “I thought it was odd he didn’t. But I understand, now.”

  “What did he say about her?”

  “He said she lived in a tower in Henas’amef, that she was a prisoner. That Gran was his real mother.”

  “Well, then, that is the truth of his heart,” Cefwyn said, “and the word that counts.”

  They might have been any father, any son, about a campfire, against the winter storm and wind, and in the way of such conversations, apart from court and hall, and at a time when his dear wife was, by now, likely similarly cold and snowbound in the north— necessary things finally could be said, tales told, things passed on between generations, links forged.

  He felt a bond that night that he had never had with his son, a meeting of man with man this night. For the first time in that firelit, sober countenance, he saw the fine outlines of the good man he would become.

  He was rich, in Aewyn. He longed to have such a conversation with his other son, wanted to have it soon, before any other misunderstanding could drive a wedge between them. It seemed the year for it.

  Something burned him, however, a pang like ice and fire at once. He stood up, facing into the bitter wind, and the pain centered just above his heart.

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  “Papa?” his son said, breaking the spell of maturity. It was the child asking, plaintively, worriedly: “Papa?”

  Tristen was there, and it was no gentle touch. Cefwyn clenched the amulet under the layers of cloth, and his heart beat high, like a commitment to battle.

  Tristen was suddenly on his way out of Ynefel— he had not made the motion, until now, but Tristen was coming, he was as certain of it as if Tristen had suddenly glanced at him within the same room. Tristen had looked toward him, and perhaps just now guided those last things he had told his son.

  He suddenly had the notion Tristen had delayed his departure— delayed, first to guide Elfwyn to Henas’amef and last, to bring him and Ninévrisë

  both safely out of Guelessar, with their respective children.

  Now Tristen sent him a warning, an acute warning, and moved eastward in haste.

  “Why?” he asked, gazing into the dark, the other side of the fi re.

  But he had no answer.

  “Papa?”

  “We shall ride before daylight,” Cefwyn said, clenching his hand on his son’s arm. “The horses have to rest. Get to your blankets and sleep while you can.”

  ii

  the bed was warm and soft, and the bedclothes, renewed today as every day, smelled of lavender, an herb Gran had grown in her garden. It should have been a pleasant smell. It touched painful memory, of herbs that had hung from the rafters above a soft feather bed, their own bed, beside which Gran had died. It was a short, dark tumble from that scent to horrid memory and the pain of burns far from healed.

  Sleet hit the windows, a winter that never seemed to give up. It had sounded like that in Guelessar, when he had never in his life heard the sound of ice striking glass. Happiness had been all in front of him then, spread out like a banquet. He’d had no idea that it would all go so wrong.

  Elfwyn buried his head deep in the crook of his arm and hauled the bedclothes over his ears, but that arrangement rapidly grew too warm.

  He kept seeing the shelves and shelves of books, and with them The Red Chronicle, and its dreadful story. He wondered if Aewyn knew it, if Aewyn 2 9 4

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  knew about this kinsman of his and kept it secret from him, fearing, perhaps, for their friendship—

  Silly, he said to himself. He was Aswydd, no kin at all to the dead Sihhë

  King. The first Elfwyn had been no relation whatsoever to the Aswydds.

  Had he?

  He outright didn’t know. He could ask Lord Crissand, he supposed. But if that information was here, it was surely in that book, for him to find if he kept at it. The tale of the Marhanen warlord might lead down to his own father’s generation and give him all the connections.

  He remembered the shadows in the library, and his decision to go home.

  He had been so tired, and he could no longer remember what had fi nally made him leave. He had set the candle down, then realized he had to pass the haunt, but he had gotten home safely, anyway.

  Had he locked the door?

  Had he locked the door? He remembered blowing the candle out and setting the stub on the ledge. But he had promised the old man, in return for the privilege of the library, that he would lock the door.

  Surely no one would get in there, only to steal a book, in just the few hours until morning. It was cold, and it was quiet in the halls, and he would have to get out of a warm bed and wake Paisi, all to go down there.

  But the old man would get back in the morning and find that door unlocked, an
d he would know who had done it.

  Surely he had locked it.

  But he could not remember even taking the key from his purse.

  He stuck a foot out, and another, and slipped from the bed. He hadn’t undressed, more than to take off his coat and belt and boots— the country habit, though lords did differently. He hadn’t waked Paisi, getting up. He quietly located his coat in the dim light of the banked fire in the other room, found his boots in the shadow of the bed, his belt, with the purse and the key, hanging from the chair at the table, and dressed.

  Then he as quietly left, taking the same route he had used coming home, and this time he did run, on tiptoe, and lightly. No one was about the upper hall— no guards or even servants visible at this hour. He ran upstairs at the end of his hall, the circuitous route, and along the servants’

  hall, where not even the servants were stirring. He ran down the dark little stairway to the library hall without ever passing the haunt or his mother’s guards.

  The servants had renewed the candles: only one burned, in this area, and a new one, white and unburned, stood on the ledge. He tried the door latch, 2 9 5

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  and it did open: he had not, indeed, locked it, and he began to reach for the key to lock it safely, then take himself back upstairs to his warm bed as quickly as he could.

  But he hadn’t proved that the library was still safe. He didn’t know if anyone had gotten inside, did he?

  He took the new candle and went to the midpoint of the short hall, lit it from the single burning candle in its sconce, and brought it back again. He opened one eagle door carefully, wide - awake now, and held the candle aloft to see if there might be any disturbance of things as he had left them.

  A sudden draft blew his candle out. His heart skipped a beat. Only a draft, he said to himself. It was only the door being so narrowly open.

  Something glowed red, in the deep dark near where he had sat— a glow like a windblown coal where it ought not to be, but not well - defi ned, either.

  The light was diffuse, like a ward, with a solid center. It was a color he had only seen in the tangled Lines in the Quinaltine, where horrid things had warred to get out.