Fortress of Ice

by C. J. Cherryh

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  fortress of ice

  Tristen looked down the hall toward the haunt, or toward the library: it was uncertain which. “The book,” he said, out of that choice of calamities.

  “That’s what it is. The spell on it avoided my finding it years ago— it hid from one thief. It avoids me now. It was Mauryl’s, but not the last spell on it, I fear. And Emuin has been here. He tried to strengthen the wards in my absence. And he could not.”

  When had the gray- eyed innocence given way to this look that gazed through distances, and that childlike wonder become such confi dence? Cefwyn backed away a pace, chilled by more than the cold that attended them.

  But Uwen intruded between them and caught Tristen’s arm sharply.

  “M’lord! This is Cefwyn, an’ Uwen with ’im. Paisi, too, an’ Lord Crissand.

  Ye hear? Hear us!”

  A shudder went through Tristen’s frame, and that gaze swung to Uwen, then to Cefwyn.

  “Elfwyn,” Tristen said. “Elfwyn came to me. And Emuin came to you.”

  “Not a half an hour ago,” Cefwyn said. “He left, and I don’t know where.”

  Tristen shook his head. “The ways are cut off. They’ve become mazes.

  I’ve not seen Owl for days. And Elfwyn, and his brother . . . I can’t fi nd them, though I know they’re out there. Magic is undermined. Wizardry may have a better chance.”

  “Brandywine,” Crissand said to someone, and a servant raced off. “We should get the horses down to the stable.”

  Exactly how they were to get two great destriers and the loaded packhorses down the central stairs without calamity was another matter, but Tristen said quietly, “No. We’ll be going as we came. The Line that prevents it no longer holds. You should give this place its own way, Lord Crissand. Let it be a mews, since that’s what it wants to be. It might be safer.”

  “M’lord,” Uwen said in concern.

  “I cannot mend this place,” Tristen said distractedly. “I even cannot hold my own course over large distances, Uwen. Little I could repair, of things that may now be broken. I sent him aside once, and my wards stood until now, until that reached the light. His must be the spell on the book, that hid it from me from the beginning, that would not go into the hands of a thief, nor be destroyed. I took it for Mauryl’s spell. But sometimes there is very little difference.”

  Tristen’s enemy was the he Tristen did not name, the one who had been Mauryl’s student, and ultimately his murderer: Cefwyn suspected that much.

  Hasufin Heltain— servant of the Sihhë - lords, and the one who, even dead, 3 4 1

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  had insinuated himself in Elfwyn Sihhë’s stillborn son, to do murder within the house and bring the Sihhë down . . . so much he knew, too. His family, the Marhanens, had come into power in that upheaval. The reigning Marhanen knew certain details of that downfall, none of which gave him great pride or comfort. And he did not like to hear that Heltain’s black workings and Mauryl’s in any wise looked alike to Tristen’s eye.

  Tristen, in the same heartbeat, had reached for the warhorse’s bridle and looked at Uwen Lewen’s - son, who gathered his own reins from the hands of a frightened house servant.

  “Where are you going?” Cefwyn asked in dismay.

  “There were keys left in the world,” Tristen said, looking straight at him.

  “I suspect Tarien was to get to the book. Orien was to bring it to him.”

  “Orien was surely dead.” The image of the sorceress living this long in utter darkness, walled within her tomb, was horrid beyond any he could conjure. But there had only been the cloak left, not a bone nor a single leaving else.

  “Hasufin died ages ago,” Tristen said, argument enough.

  “Our wards are down,” Cefwyn said. “They’re utterly destroyed. Will he come here?”

  “No,” Tristen said, when he had in no wise been above stairs, or walked the perimeter as a wizard would. But he was not the young wanderer in the world that he had been, either, whatever he had become, or might be about to become. Cefwyn felt a pang of loss, not unmixed with a fear of what his sons faced if Tristen was to retreat from the world, and as if Tristen had heard his thoughts, Tristen seized his hand. “My friend,” he said, with that gray- eyed gaze. “My oldest friend in the world. I tried to get here, and every accident held me. Now I know the trouble, I shall not leave this place undefended. We shall go to the stables, Uwen and I, and put the horses up. We shall come back straightway, afoot.”

  Tristen let go, then.

  And was not there, neither he, nor Uwen, nor two destriers and two packhorses. They left only that sort of evidence iron - shod horses left in the hall, puddles of snowmelt, a scarred floor, and a lingering smell of horse.

  The stables, Tristen had said. Tristen had wanted to be there. And was.

  Why, then, damn it all, had he not wanted to be in Henas’amef in time to prevent Orien Aswydd’s rising from the grave, or Tarien’s breaking out of her tower?

  Every accident, Tristen had said.

  The simple answer was that Tristen had indeed wanted to be here, and 3 4 2

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  that a very, very potent sorcery had sent him aside— not destroyed him: it would have, if it were easy; it was not; but that was in fact its aim— even a Man deaf to magic could figure that they were under attack, and that it would not get better with daylight.

  A potent sorcery had raised the dead and broken Tristen’s wards. And how had it gotten past those wards, and what had made Tristen himself vulnerable . . . Cefwyn feared to guess its name, but he thought he had.

  One of his two sons was blood kin to the sorceress— one of his sons had gone visiting Ynefel and drawn Tristen into this fight. The other of his sons, tied to that line by loyalty and paternity, had gone chasing after his brother.

  All of that was a tangle of wizardry and magic that chilled his heart. Nor was his daughter safe, with Ninévrisë in Elwynor, where magic had an ancient foothold. His whole family was tangled in this scheme of a dead sorcerer, and Tristen was the one power another dead wizard had appointed, more than that, Summoned, Shaped, whatever Emuin insisted, to stand on the bridge and keep the dead from taking Ylesuin back from the Marhanen’s hands. Ordinary folk couldn’t challenge Tristen. Not these days. But the powers that he was appointed to prevent— those could.

  Those already had, in delaying him.

  Back in the wars, he and Emuin and Tristen had managed to isolate the several elements of Hasufin’s power and bring one down, confi ne another, and another, and hang one chief culprit, peeling Hasufin’s power apart bit by bit, breaking it in this place and that, until Tristen had a chance.

  Three pieces of that power, counting that book, had just broken loose again, thanks to Tarien Aswydd and his own eldest son, indicating that even apparent death might be a diversion.

  And what did he say?

  “Let us go back to the hall and wait,” he said to Crissand. “If he can, he’ll be back in a moment, and use the west door, this time. If I know anything about it, he’ll be searching that place he goes to, trying to fi nd any trace of the boys.”

  “That he will,” Crissand said, who had the Sight, himself. “I have no notion where he is. But the ring Elfwyn carries is his: nothing opposing him, he may well be able to see it.”

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  iii

  they both slept and waked amid the piled horse gear, and the cold grew more and more bitter, while exposed flesh grew numb despite the warmth of the horses sharing their shelter, and the thickness of the saddle, which gave up warmth slowly. The horses slept, it might be, but the wind howled and worked at the shingles, finding new places to get in, and made their own rest uneasy. “I think we should stay awake,” Elfwyn said fi nally, shaking at Aewyn. “We can sleep in the day. If we had food we shouldn’t be so cold, but we don’t, and we should move about a little. Rub your hands.

  Make them warm.�
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  “If there were light, we could see if there was a flint or anything in the place,” Aewyn said, his teeth chattering from cold. Aewyn was being very brave, he thought. Aewyn had grown up in a palace, and looked to want of food as their greatest danger, but he recalled the chimney blocking up with snow, and their fire going out, and Gran trying to conjure. They had survived because Paisi had gotten up on the roof with a stick and nearly frozen to death getting the chimney clear.

  Safe fire. That was what they needed. For his brother’s safety, he needed it.

  “I wish it would light!” Elfwyn cried in bitter frustration, and tried, as Gran had, to see the fire. That was how he imagined it would succeed if it did, that he had to see the fire behind his eyelids, then it would be there.

  But nothing happened. He huddled under the horse blanket and cloaks he shared with Aewyn and tried, once, twice, three times, to see, not destroying fi re, nor sorcery, but life - giving fi re, fi re safe in a hearth, imagining how astonished Aewyn would be, imagining how wonderful it would feel to have succeeded, and how he would have something to recommend him to their father, having saved Aewyn. Then he could go to Tristen, deliver the book, and say, “Teach me,” in the confidence he could learn at least a little wizardry. All these things he could foresee.

  But the fire would not come. The little spark of fire, the simplest, the most basic thing a real wizard could do, eluded him.

  He ever so regretted that Aewyn had not been practical enough to have stolen a loaf of bread when he had come out. Or that he had not had the sense to have divided loads with Paisi. He was more than hungry, now; he was dry and thirsty, and had no wish to battle the door open and shut, just to have cold snow in his mouth.

  The wind gave a particularly violent burst, battering at the planks of the door.

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  Then the door bumped, and rattled, and scraped laboriously outward, someone kicking the snow out of the way.

  “Someone’s out there,” Elfwyn whispered, holding Aewyn by the shoulder.

  “Maybe it’s the householder come back,” Aewyn whispered back.

  “Who’d come home at this hour, in this storm?” Elfwyn said. The horses were growing disturbed, and stirred and made sounds in the dark, treading on something they’d already broken. “If we have to, run out the door.”

  “But we’ll freeze out there!”

  “Never mind that! Just get out! Bandits live out in the borderlands. They may have gotten desperate for shelter.”

  The door came open, and a shadow entered.

  And stopped.

  “Well,” the shadow said, an old man’s voice. “Well! Who’s in here?”

  “More than one of us,” Elfwyn said aloud, as boldly as he could manage.

  He stood up, plotting his way to the door; but the old man’s voice gave him a little reassurance. “We needed shelter from the cold.”

  “Oh, well.” The old man pulled the door shut, making it utter dark, and Elfwyn squeezed Aewyn’s hand. It still wasn’t hopeless. The man had worked the snow away from the door. It would give, now, if they ran for it.

  The horses would bolt. They might catch them, if they were lucky.

  A spark showed in the dark, midway of the old man’s height. A wisp of tinder caught, and floated, held, doubtless, in a tinder pick, and fl ared into flame, showing the hint of a pale wax candle near it. It died. Once again, the old man tried the light, showing gray hair and the hint of an old man’s bearded face near that candle.

  “There’s wood in the fireplace, sir,” Elfwyn said. Candles, especially old ones, were exceptionally difficult to light from a tinderbox. “We laid a fi re.”

  “Oh, indeed, did you?” The old man stumped over in the direction of the fireplace, a noise in utter darkness.

  “We’re sorry about bringing the horses inside,” Aewyn said. “Whatever they broke, my father will gladly recompense. He’ll be very grateful for our return.”

  Again the little light, lower, this time. The man might be running out of tinder, and they all would be in the dark. Elfwyn wished he might succeed. A little wish, given the makings and the right conditions, might help, so Gran always said.

  The fire took, and blossomed, and the old man added more tinder, coming clear, with his white hair, his white beard, which came midway of his 3 4 5

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  chest, and a ragged brown cloak. He fed the fi re for a moment, and Elfwyn felt somewhat less afraid, seeing the man was quite elderly and frail. The voice had not entirely indicated that. But he still kept hold of Aewyn’s arm.

  The horses were well awake now, and restless. The light showed they had backed into a set of shelves last night, and ruined a copper pot, which suffered worse damage now. The whole place was thickly coated in dust, and wind - torn cobwebs veiled the rafters.

  “Horses and all, is it?” the old man said. “There’ll be grain in the bin, there.” He indicated the dusty bin by the door.

  “That’s nice, but they mustn’t eat what’s moldy,” Aewyn said under his breath, leaning next to Elfwyn and speaking so only he could hear, but when Elfwyn opened it, the grain was as fresh as if it had just come in at harvest, and there was a good wooden bucket in the grain for hauling it out. He brought it to the horses and strewed it in a thick line along the fl oor, gaining the animals’ instant attention.

  “Water in the barrel,” the old man said then. Aewyn lifted the lid, and Elfwyn looked, expecting ice. But it was water, for sure, and he filled the bucket and took a deep drink himself, and so did Aewyn, before they brought the bucket to the horses.

  “We’re ever so grateful, sir,” Aewyn said, while his horse was drinking.

  “Oh, well,” the old man said, and now there was a pot on the fi re. “Use the other pail there, boy, and bring me water.”

  “Yes, sir,” Elfwyn said, and indeed there was a second wooden bucket, in the corner. He brought water and poured it in the iron pot, which had already begun to heat on its pothook. The fireside gave off a fi erce warmth, and the old man added more wood.

  “Sack,” the old man said, and indeed, there was a sack by the door, where he might have dropped it coming in. Aewyn brought it, and the old man delved into it, drawing out a large loaf of bread, a half a sausage, and a round of cheese, which he laid out on the sacking on the fireside. And meanwhile, though Elfwyn had seen nothing but water go into the pot, a savory smell began to go up from it, and steam to rise.

  “Bowls on the shelf,” the old man said, and there were three rust - brown glazed bowls, as clean as if they had come from the royal kitchens.

  They had not been there a moment ago. Elfwyn would swear they had not. And despite his hunger, he conceived a reluctance to have any of that food in his belly.

  “Food can be a bargain,” he said so Aewyn would hear him. “And I’m not sure it’s a bargain we should be making with a stranger.”

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  “Ah,” the old man said. “Be free of it, be quite free. That makes it safe, does it not?”

  It ought to, unless there was something of more substantive harm in it.

  He had no enemy but the priests in Guelemara and his own mother, but he had something of value, something of wizardous value, next to his skin, and he began thinking that that might have drawn attention to them— attention far more dangerous than bandits.

  “Sit, sit,” the old man said. “Bring the bowls, don’t gawk about, and sit down. You’re a scruffy pair, you are. And two fine horses. Might you be horse thieves?”

  “I am no thief, sir,” Aewyn said in round, elegant, Guelen tones, and Elfwyn caught him by the arm and pulled him down by him at the fi reside. In the other hand he had the three bowls, and set them down on the hearthside.

  The old man dipped up savory stew, and served it— could they, he wondered, possibly just have lost track of time, and dreamed the beginning, and forgotten how the old man had come here? But the wind b
lew, if anything, more furiously outside, and thumped away at the shutters. And he was aware of no gaps in his memory.

  The old man had done them and their horses nothing but kindness. Elfwyn tasted the food very gingerly, and decided he took no harm of it. Aewyn supped it right down, with bits of bread, and Elfwyn found it so fi lling he had no need of cheese or sausage to go with it. Aewyn, beside him, had propped himself against the stonework of the fireplace, and nodded, but Elfwyn kept staring at the bowls, which he would swear had not been there before the old man wanted it, and the remnant of the broth, which could not have come from anything he had seen go into the pot.

  The old man had worn a tattered brown cloak; but when he looked up, it was gray, and the old man wore a silver medallion, a design he had never seen before, a twisting thing, like a snake, or a dragon, and what had been grizzled gray hair streaked with black had become snowy white.

  Worse and worse.

  He would have run out into the night if he’d had a choice, but Aewyn snored away, beside him, and one of the horses had been indiscreet, right in the corner— it lent a touch of rural strangeness to the night.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, and got up and went to clean up the problem with a ratty broom and some straw from a pile in the corner: he swept it out the door, not without traces, and a lingering barn smell. He could run, he thought. But he could not leave Aewyn helpless. It was impossible to run.

  He set the broom aside, and went to sit at the hearth, arms about his 3 4 7

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  knees, looking steadily at the old man, wishing desperately for the sun to come up.

  “You push at the world itself,” the old man said, “but cannot budge it.”

  “No, sir,” he said, more and more disturbed, distracted by dread. How had the old man known what he was thinking?

  “The sun will come in its own time,” the old man said, and wove a little pattern with his fingers. The gusts of cold air, the drafts . . . all stopped, and the room was breathless.