Fortress of Eagles

by C. J. Cherryh

  “But if they made it perfect,” he began, venturing just a step further, Efanor seeming so sure on that point; and Efanor interrupted him:

  “Perfect in its changes.”

  That was indeed like Mauryl when he asked too much, not to hear the question.

  Why should there be seasons? he still asked himself. What good were they? But nothing leapt into his imagination.

  Nothing even came to him with the unsettling surety that Mauryl’s enemy had had for him, Nothing at all Unfolded to him except the sole, troubling idea that the world had had a beginning.

  Of course it might reasonably have had a beginning. He had had a beginning, at some time. He had had two beginnings, if he counted a birth he believed lay somewhere between Mauryl’s own origin and a second wakening at Mauryl’s fireside.

  He wished he dared ask Efanor whether shadows had been part of the world when the gods made it, or whether they had come later; or whether the gods themselves were a form of shadow. Sometimes the dead were.

  But Efanor urged him to go on to the second devotion in the book. He trusted Efanor, and with none of his questions answered he began to read.

  “The works of Men are evil in their inception. The 108 / C. J. CHERRYH

  works of the gods are blessed. Lean not to the counsel of Men but to the word of the gods…”

  Some men maintained he was not a Man, so leaning elsewhere might be to his good. He had never truly considered Men to be Evil, however. He had generally avoided considering Evil at all, even the shadows. They were not evil. Some were even kind. One was a little girl who played skip in the grass near Althalen. Could that be evil?

  Then all at once the word Evil tried to Unfold, spread itself in such darkness he flung away, stood on his feet and faced the slanting pale sunlight of the window some distance removed from them, trembling. The fireside flung warmth at his back in a chill otherwise all-encompassing.

  “Your Grace?” Efanor’s voice came faintly from behind him.

  “Lord Warden? Gods bless, evil avert. The good gods bless and preserve us from evil and all its works…are you having a taking, Your Grace? Should I call your servants? —Should I send for Emuin?”

  He had frightened Efanor. He was sorry. As for him, he was able to see the floor now, and mark a place beneath the chairs, in the stark sunlight, where the servants had not been attentive in their dusting. He was able to see the minute imperfections that clouded the window glass, and made ridges on the surface that caught the light differently; he could see the bubbles within that the glass, that, if one looked at them very, very closely, seemed to reflect everything around them…but he had never been sure that there was not something living inside, as harm or hope could lurk in imperfections of a wizard’s construction.

  All these things. The carved back of a chair, with each imprecision of a carver’s art, the small ripples FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 109

  against the grain where the intent had clearly been a smooth line, but the natural wood had thwarted it: he had watched carvers at work, how the sweet, pungent curls of wood flew so thick and fast it was a wonder, and the smell was heady as wine. An oak grew in the forest, keeping its inner heart secret, for very many years; and a man thought of a horse as he carved and that horse in a man’s mind added itself to the secrets of the oak’s heart and made something that was neither horse nor oak. In such a way the world of Men grew. His fingers traced the carver’s work, and his own skin was a miracle of subtle color, the working of bone and sinew was a miracle as his hand found the imperfections in the representation…itself a sort of spell.

  “Lord Warden?”

  Dared a man force an oak into such a pattern?

  Dared a wizard force a soul into a new shape? Or, direr question, could one do it?

  And was it a horse in essence, shaped by man, or was it an oak? Was it a Man’s thought of a horse, potent with freedom, rendered substantial, or was it in its true, its wizardous essence, still a tree, responsive to all that a tree was, aged and steady and deep? When one enchanted such a thing, to which did the wizard appeal?

  He trembled, in that thought. What had Mauryl wrought, in him…what had Mauryl changed, and not changed? Yes, men said he was Barrakkêth, first of the Sihhë-lords, who had warred against Men and had no mercy. So Hasufin had said, too, and even Mauryl had called him flawed. But, following Mauryl’s example, he said that he was Tristen, and that the sum of him was changed, whatever the grain of the wood from which Mauryl had wrought.

  110 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “Lord Warden.” Efanor had risen and stood beside him, and pressed some small object into his hand.

  He lifted it, saw his own flesh and the Quinaltine emblem alike pale with the morning sunlight or with the burning intensity of his seeing. The medallion was a disk about the size of a large coin and wrought into it was a lump of glass with something curious and dark inside.

  “It doesn’t burn you, thank the gods. Keep that with you.”

  Efanor made his fingers close on it. “Put it about your neck, in the gods’ good name, and let all men see it. Gods forfend you fall in such a fit in the Quinaltine. You have had none of your falling fits for months. Gods save us from the hour.”

  “I had a Teranthine medal,” he said faintly, for it was true.

  “I still have it, forged to my sword, now, when master Peygan remade it. Cefwyn gave it to me. I value it extremely.”

  “Keep it. Add this to its blessing and wear it day and night.

  Gods save us, put it over your head, so—if one protection serves, two may be stronger, in the gods’ name…”

  Efanor’s speech had grown distracted, fervid, and frightening to him as he slipped the chain over his head, settled it beneath his hair and outside the small folded ruff of his shirt which rose above the doublet. The medallion rested on his chest, doing him no harm, but no good either, as far as he could tell.

  He realized then that it was made of silver, and doubtless precious in some eyes; but silver had magical meaning as well.

  In Efanor’s goodwill, he was given two gifts now, a book and a piece of silver, and it struck him that such gifts were exactly such as Mauryl had once given him. Was it like the horse, and the oak, and did

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  the semblance of Mauryl’s gifts to him create a bond of another kind, himself magically allied with Efanor? Yet he already had the silver near his heart before that thought had come to him.

  “You must wear this in full view,” Efanor said, “when you go into the Quinaltine. Show everyone you can wear it. But dare you go into the Quinaltine when the candles are lit and the gods are invoked? You were at the oath-taking. Were you there throughout?”

  “Yes, sir. I was.” He had found the place oppressive and had slipped back to the door, behind the columns, that day. But in the intent of Efanor’s question he had been there.

  Efanor looked at him closely as if he were estimating his strength, or his character, or both, and with fear in his eyes. “I value that medal greatly,” Efanor said in the hush of their small area near the window. “And you would not mistreat it, nor use it in any magic, would you? I pray you not, whatever you wrought with the sword.”

  “No, sir. I would never, if you ask it. Or I will give it back if you had rather.” He made to take it off and almost succeeded in returning the gift; but Efanor’s hand closed on his urgently.

  “You have far more need of it. Wear it. Read the book daily.

  Think on the gods morning and evening. Pray for their help.

  There may be hope for you. I know there is good in you.”

  Efanor found it necessary then to amend it: “I believe there is good in you, lord of Ynefel; I wish with all my heart to believe it.”

  “That is a kindness I shall remember.” Efanor, fearful, anxious, muttering entreaties to the gods he revered, had pressed on with a courage far surpassing the people of Wys, with great goodwill, even concern

  112 / C. J. CHERRYH

>   for his welfare and Cefwyn’s. And for that he wished the greatest good to Efanor, and counted him at least among those he loved, or wished to love, if so much fear did not stand between them. For Cefwyn’s sake he would put up the appearance. Cefwyn asked for, he would do what Men did and attend the Quinalt, as resolutely and with as little joy as he would brave a battle line. But for Efanor’s sake he would venture the little book that claimed Men were evil, and he would see if there were answers in it, or if there was a hope of his making peace with the Quinalt once and for all.

  “Please, sit down. Take a cup of tea, sir. If you would. Explain the manners I have to use.”

  With evident relief Efanor began to expound the gods’ authority. They were deep into the question of the moon and the stars when Uwen came out of his room, distressed.

  “So what are the stars?” he had just asked, and Efanor had seemed not to know the answer. But Efanor leapt up, seeming to take the interruption for a rescue from what he feared was too difficult a question.

  “Uwen Lewen’s-son,” Efanor said. “You’ll be near His Grace in services, —at least nearby.”

  “Aye, Your Highness.”

  “Good,” Efanor said. “Very good. Pray Your Grace keep the amulet close, and think on it, and read and study, and if Your Grace does have more questions I very earnestly urge, no, I command Your Grace come to me, and not ask others.” This, with a look toward Uwen. “Of the gods’ mercy ask no one else.

  I cannot guess the damage.”

  “I thank you,” Tristen said. “I thank Your Highness, very much.”

  “Accept the gods’ guidance,” Efanor said, half FORTRESS OF EAGLES / 113

  under his breath, seeking to leave. “The gods’ will. The gods’

  will, in all things. Gods attend.”

  Perhaps it was his asking about the stars. Perhaps Efanor had business he had to attend. But in that state of glum anxiousness Efanor left, Tassand and the servants standing by in respect of their royal visitor. Tassand still looked worried as he fussed the empty tea service away.

  Uwen, too, was distressed. “I wisht I’d known His Highness had come in. I wouldn’t have slept for the world.”

  “Emuin approved it.”

  “Did he, m’lord?”

  “He knew, at least. I don’t think he entirely approved. But he saw no harm in it.”

  “All the same, m’lord, ye should take a great care what ye say wi’ His Highness, who trusts priests an’ talks to his, every night. Ye might scare a man wi’ your questions. Ye truly might, not intending it. And I think ye may ha’ done it.”

  “I know,” Tristen said in a low voice, and showed him the little book, scarcely the size of his hand, and the medallion.

  “He said this would keep me safe and I must read the book.

  Do you think so? Dare I?”

  “M’lord, I don’t know what ye dare.”

  “Is it wrong for me to have?”

  “I don’t know any harm to Your Grace’s having it,” Uwen said slowly. “But that’s relic he give ye. That’s a holy thing.

  The Quinalt fathers is a flighty lot.”

  “They fear me.”

  “That they do.”

  “You pray to the gods. Do they hear you?”

  “I pray to the gods, on holidays. On a battlefield. Truth be known, that’s the way of most men.”

  114 / C. J. CHERRYH

  He knew that answer. He wanted more. “And do the gods talk to you, Uwen?”

  Uwen laughed, of gentle startlement, Tristen thought. And shrugged. “No, m’lord, nor does I look to hear ’em.”

  “Do you think priests hear?”

  “I leave priests entirely to their business. And rightly you should, m’lord. The gods speakin’, m’lord, it’s just a way of sayin’ folk get notions in their heads and it seems like they come from somewheres beyond ’em.”

  “Wizards cause that. The notion to leave a latch undone, a moment of forgetfulness…that is wizardry.”

  “So ye warned me, m’lord. And so I take great care, and keep strongly to my habits. But that’s what folk say is the gods speakin’, too. And for the gods’ sake don’t ask a priest, m’lord.

  Never ask a priest.”

  “I thought all along praying might be like going to the gray place.”

  “Gods save us, lad, ye didn’t tell about that.”

  “No. I didn’t. Not to anyone but you, who can’t go there. I thought priests might have a place, too. I’ve never met a priest there, except Emuin, who’s not to count—yet they seem to try very hard to go there. Efanor tries. I felt it once or twice, and yet I never saw him there, not truly, so I thought there might be some other place. But I dared not ask him. And Emuin never will answer me. He simply will not say.”

  Uwen made that sign again. He knew he baffled Uwen, and worried him, and sometimes made him go off and think for a while without saying a word.

  “Well, you was right to keep quiet about it wi’ His Highness,”

  Uwen said. “And I’d go on keeping quiet

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  about it wi’ His Majesty, though I don’t think ye’d daunt him at all. I just think His Majesty’s happier sayin’ he don’t rightly know what ye do when ye just stand here starin’. If His Holiness asks, so to say.”

  “Or what do they think?”

  Uwen thought about that. “They ain’t never mentioned it that I ever heard, nor could I ask a priest, so I wouldn’t know.

  Master Emuin might know, but I don’t. Is there harm in the gray place?”

  “Yes. But I would never let harm come out of that place, Uwen. I would never let it near you, or Cefwyn, nor even Lord Prichwarrin, who has never done me good at all. The harm isn’t always there. It isn’t there now, but it might come, and it might come seeking me, my friends and all that help me. But believe I will not allow it. I shall never allow it, Uwen. And there is no harm that I do by any magic there, except against the harm that comes at me, and that I fight with all my strength.

  There is all the truth about the gray place.”

  “M’lord, I have no doubt. An’ if I could go to that wizard-place there and stand by ye, I would.”

  “You do. You do, Uwen, simply by being by me, and with me. You lend me strength. As Cefwyn does. As Emuin does—Most of all you make me wise.”

  “Oh, I hope wiser ’n that, m’lord! But what I think, it’s a good thing there’s you and master Emuin to see what they’re up to in that magic place, since it don’t seem a lot of the things there is ever up to good to us common folk. —But for gods’

  sake don’t ever be hinting about that place to His Highness.

  Not ever. Ye was very wise not to say so. And I’d think twice and three times afore I said a careless word to him on deep matters no matter he’s good man. There’s that priest o’ his giving His Highness advice.”

  116 / C. J. CHERRYH

  “I shall be very careful,” he promised Uwen, hoping that he had been as careful as he thought. “On penny day I shall be particularly careful. Though it doesn’t seem difficult, what they wish me to do.”

  “Babes do it,” Uwen said. “Ye get blessed, ye walks by the altar, ye drops the penny, ye bows to His Holiness, ye get blessed again…ye walks down the middle aisle to the doors and out again. The king goes first, and ye stands near him and then the whole lot walks back to the Guelesfort, that’s all ye do. Ye’re supposed to be prayin’ the day long, but the most don’t. Mostly folk drinks too much and eats too much and they dance at the harvest fire till it’s down to ashes and the drums and the pipers is too tired to go on.”

  “The children in Wys fear me less now. Though after all this long they still run.”

  “Youngsters always run. They’re a silly, giddy lot, like sheep.

  Same wi’ townsfolk. They ain’t no wiser ’n Wys. But best ye stay indoors. There’s too much ale flowing at the feast. There’s some as might be fools, and then ye’d have to turn ’em to toad
s and that’d do fair for it all.”

  Uwen was joking with him. He was glad Uwen would. He treasured it above any silver or gold. “I think you’re right,” he said.

  C H A P T E R 6

  The doors of houses and shops had been hung with wreaths of barley-straw for days. Now straw wreaths bedecked the ironbound oak of the Guelesfort gates, and straw covered the cobbles ahead of the court procession. The whole court walked this pathway, the king and the Regent foremost, and then Prince Efanor, Duke of Guelessar. After him came Lord Brysaulin, the Lord Chancellor, all the lords in their precedence, and attending each, their ladies and their families and their sworn men. The King’s Guard formed an aisle on either hand along the short distance from the gate to the Quinaltine precinct, and beyond them common people stood to watch.

  But other common folk beyond the barrier of guardsmen bore unlikely burdens toward the square. A man had a basket of sticks on his shoulder, another a broken wheel—for the bonfire, Tristen guessed, townsfolk bringing wood, straw, all manner of fuel for the great fire that was laid and ready for the public celebration across the open square from the Quinaltine steps. The pile of wood must be very high by now—and indeed, when the line wended within sight of the square, in their view past the line of the Guard, the pile had doubled its size from yesterday. It towered in front of the Quinalt, a bonfire to burn up all the year’s

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  scrap and chaff and prepare for Wintertide, besides taking away sins and bad memories.

  So Uwen had said last night at supper…that the common folk wished for luck by building it. They wished to burn up all the bad memories and keep only the good. He meditated on that as they walked in the procession, himself in his black-and-silver holiday finery and Uwen in his finest black velvet, a lord’s man, and entitled to walk and stand among the highest in the land.

  But within the courtly precedences, the fortresshold of Ynefel and the ruins of the old capital ranked—so they argued—last in the procession of the lords, behind the position that Amefel, least of the provinces of Ylesuin, would have held, had it had a lord to walk in the ceremony at all. But the order of their proceedings did not admit him as a king’s officer, though he suspected that best described the office of Lord Warden of Ynefel, a defender of the marches, a power without a province.