—Most of all— the old man said, do not fail in justice, lord King!
Love as you can, forgive as you can, but justice and vision are a king’s great duties! Never forget it!
The Shadows began to circle in like birds, alighting about them, thicker and thicker—bad behavior, he would chide his pigeons in the loft.
He would chase them like pigeons—he would call on Owl and rescue the old man- “You!” someone said, and seized his arm and shook him. “You! -This is wizardry! Stop him! Someone for the gods’ sake stop him!”
He looked up, startled, exchanging the rush of Shadows for surrounding night and a murmur of angry voices about him. “Guard the old man!” he called out to anyone who would hear. “He’s in danger! Help him!”
He could not tell if they understood at all. He heard voices declaring he had worked some harm on their lord, and some spoke for killing him.
Lines on the earth, Mauryl had said. Spirits had to respect them.
Windows, Mauryl had said to him, windows and doors were special places. Mauryl had spoken of secrets that masons knew. And masons had built these ruins. When he looked for other lines, those lines showed them selves, still bright in the gray space, clear as clear could be, glowing brighter and brighter to his searching for them. He saw one crossing beneath him as he began to follow the tracery they offered, lines far more potent than the hasty circle unskilled Men had made, lines of masons offering him a path along them, to doors and windows that masons had laid.
But search as he would through this maze, he could not find the old man. There were abundant Shadows, flitting about in confusion, and he could see nothing but the lines, nothing of company in his vicinity. He had never asked the old man what the Shadows were, and it seemed now a grievous omission. He called out again, Lord Regent! Do you hear me?
He heard a murmur then like the sound of voices. He looked back in the direction from which he had come and did not see the place he had left until he looked for it to be there. And in the blink of an eye—he was overwhelmed and buffeted with voices, and tried to know where the old man was, here, as well as in the gray place.
—Where is the lord Regent? he asked, and there came to him, echoing like the axe blows off the walls, the answer: Dead, dead, dead.
“Wizard!” Voices came through the dark. “He killed him! He bewitched him!”
Then one shouted,
“Send Cefwyn’s man with the lord Regent!”
“Hold!” someone cried then, and silence fell.
It was the man called Tasien, with two other lords.
“He killed the Regent!” a man said. “Ye didn’t see ’is eyes, m’lord. He was sittin’ and sittin’ and starin’ like to turn a man to stone. He’s cursed him. Kill ’im before he kills us all!”
“The lord Regent is scant moments dead,” Tasien said. “For the gods’ good grace, do your lady the courtesy of awaiting her orders.”
“Wrapped in Marhanen arms,” one of the lords said. “A wizard, besides, and have we not suffered enough from wizards? Strike off his head! This is no king of ours. It’s a Marhanen trick!”
It was clearly his head in question, and he knew he must do something desperate if it came to that, but Tasien—Tasien, who did not like him—said, “Wait for the lady’s word. Keep this man safe, I say, or answer to me.”
Tasien and two other men went away toward the tent, and left him in the care of the others in the starlight. He only knew individuals by the edges of their clothing and their gear. They had no faces to him. They spoke to him in quieter, more respectful terms: “Lord,” they called him, and said, “You sit there, lord wizard,” directing him to sit again on a section of the old wall, under their watch.
He saw no gain in arguing with them. He had had experience of guards who had orders, and he avoided looking at them—nor did he venture into the gray place: he only remained subtly aware of it.
But the Shadows had gotten their comeuppance, that was one of Uwen’s words: he felt that the old man was safe in some unassailable way, and had crossed a threshold of some Line invisible to him and unreachable. The old man had not lost. And perhaps, he thought, this time with a tingle of his skin and an inrush of breath, perhaps Mauryl had not.
Perhaps he had come where he had to be, and perhaps he had not failed, either. He no more knew where to go from here, and how to persuade the Regent’s men—nor dared he think that the Shadows of Althalen were powerless to do harm to him or to Mauryl’s intentions.
Hasufin marshaled and commanded the Shadows in this place—but it seemed to be the Regent’s purpose to contest him. The old man had been fighting Mauryl’s fight for years. And waiting for him. His King, the old man had called him. What was he to do with that? Clearly these men had no such notion.
More, there were dangers attached to this place, both in the gray place, and in the world of substance. Uwen he was certain was looking for him, and in the dark, and with their distress over the loss of the lord Regent, the archers might not restrain themselves for an ordinary-looking soldier and a band of Cefwyn’s guard. The lady might prevent disaster, if she would listen, but she was refusing to see what the old man had seen—she had been refusing steadfastly, trying to hold him in life and to keep him with her, and, wrong though that had been, it was not as wrong as other things she might decide to do. Removing the lord Regent from this Place, if he understood what the lord Regent had tried to tell him, would free Hasufin to act as he pleased and work whatever harm he pleased without whatever hindrance the lord Regent might have been to him. These men must not listen to Hasufin. She must not.
Cefwyn’s Ninévrisé. That was the other matter. Somehow and suddenly there were too many Kings.
He had ridden out to listen to the world and not the clamor of voices. He had ridden out hoping to understand answers—but another world opened under his feet, and purposes he had never guessed turned out to involve him.
I shall not harm Cefwyn, he had sworn to himself. I shall not harm
Uwen.
And even that simple, desperate promise came back to him tangled and changed.
Bridges, for certain: with decking in one case hidden near them on the Elwynim side of the river, and with new timbers stained dark and with smith-work cleverly concealed along the stone oak the old bridges, making a bed ready to receive decking. That meant the bridges which looked stripped of surface and unusable could become a highroad into Amefel within hours of the engineers setting to work, and which of several bridgeheads the Elwynim might use could be settled in strategy at the very last hour it was possible for them to move troops into position.
It settled the question of Elwynim preparation for war in Cefwyn’s mind. It did not say where they might strike—perhaps, which the Olmernmen had not had time to investigate, not into Amefel at all, but to the north. The Elwynim had the flexibility to do anything, to challenge Ylesuin at its weakest point, or to feint and strike in several attacks.
Grim news. Arys-Emwy’s bridge was definitely involved, and others, and very suspect was another bridgehead lying within the haunted bounds of Marna Wood, of which neither Olmernmen nor Elwynim were as cautious as other venturers—where, in fact, Olmernmen had lately had Mauryl’s leave to be: it had been no surprise to him, certainly, Sovrag’s admission of trade with Ynefel, and he would not be surprised at all to find Elwynim rangers and engineers venturing into Marna. If there were, it cast still a darker hint of Elwynor’s allies in their actions-and on Tristen’s flight. Cefwyn did not want to think ill in that regard-but the thought was there: he could not help it.