Two boys, Elwynim peasant lads in ragged clothes, armed with makeshift spears, joined them from across a meadow, knelt briefly in the grass to profess their allegiance, and ran to join the beckoning troop that marched beside the lords’ guards: Aeself marshaled them, an unruly mob in some part, but Aeself’s men rode in order, and instructed the newcomers, nothing more than how to stand in a line if they brought shields or pikes or instructions to shoot from the woods if they brought bows: most of all Aeself instructed them to respect the red bands and make no mistake in it.
Tristen had refused the honor they gave: to Crissand and Cevulirn and Umanon, riding beside him, he said, “I don’t wish it. But I fear wishing against it… I daren’t. Can you understand?”
Umanon blessed himself with a gesture, a Quinalt man, and solid in that faith, like Efanor, clearly wishing not to think about it.
Cevulirn said, “Auld Syes has always told us some form of the truth. But that, you’d know better than I, Lord of Althalen. And I’d not go against her.”
No longer did Cevulirn call him Amefeclass="underline" he had made that Crissand’s honor, and given that banner and the Amefin Guard into Crissand’s command, while he took command of all the army—not because he wanted it, but because if magic favorable to him was flowing that direction, he dared not refuse it. “I wish Cefwyn well,” Tristen said under his breath, with as much force as he could put into the wish: for he felt an abiding fear now, the sense that something weighty resisted him. He wished Cefwyn well hourly, when circumstances allowed him; he did it mindfully and fiercely, but all the while feared making Cefwyn so evidently the center of his thoughts… and that… that was a dangerous fear in itself. Magic worked to advance Tasmôrden’s cause, but magic resisted his own will as nature never had: it was wild and unpredictable, shifting its center moment by moment, as if he contested right of way with someone in a narrow hall. Every move found a counter. It was like swordwork.
It was not like Hasufin at all.
This other thing reached into the world… not everywhere, but at Ilefínian; and, if he sent his senses abroad, from several other discrete points in the map, south and west, and over toward Ynefel, and south toward Henas’amef, and east again, toward Guelemara, and the altar he had set Efanor to ward… he felt not a scattered assault, but a simultaneous one, as if something vast struggled to escape. Force skipped and thrust against those scattered portals, a force changing direction by the moment, able to do this, do that, change footing, no consulting its charts and awaiting its proper moment.
In the haste and confusion of Unfolding world he had not early on noticed a difference in the effort it took him to do things, or known why some things worked easily and some eluded him with unpredictable result. It was like Paisi, whose young legs darted up stairs without thinking: it was easy for Paisi, so he did it: but Emuin, aching in every bone, planned his trips on the stairs carefully and begrudged every one.
Magic was easy for him. Everything had been easy for him in Ynefel. Think! Mauryl had had to tell him. Flesh as well as spirit! Don’t let one fly without the other!
Mauryl had pinned him to earth, and made him do things the slow, the thoughtful way. Emuin had taught him to reckon his way through difficulties, how to govern Men without wishing them capriciously one way or the other… how to deal with friends, and how to have Men of free will about him: that was the greatest gift, greater than life itself.
What must it have been for a wizard like Mauryl, bound to times and seasons, to try to teach such a creature as he was? I never know what you’ll take in your head to do, Mauryl had complained to him, and now he understood that saying, that it was not just running naked in the storm on the parapet, but willing and wishing and having his own way.
What must it have been to try to teach one ready to wish this and wish that, a dozen spells in a day, and power Unfolding to him by the day and the moment, events tumbling one over the other? A passing moth had been as fascinating to him as a lightning stroke, and when he wanted something, tides flowed through the gray space that he had not yet perceived existed: to him in those days, the world had drowned all his senses in color and taste and noise.
Flesh as well as spirit, Mauryl had taught him… and that spirit in him was a perilous spirit, and able to do things Mauryl could not possibly prevent, breaking into utter, reckless, joyous, ignorant freedom.
But could magic work harm?
Oh, easily.
He wanted advice. He wanted someone to tell him the right way.
—Auld Syes, he called, for he dared not reach to Emuin. He reached out in an instant of fear and uncertainty, and a blast of wind came up in their faces and out of nowhere. Dys came up on his hind legs. Horses shied off from it.
And when Dys came down on all fours and danced forward, a gray old woman walked between him and Crissand.
“Grandmother,” Crissand whispered to her.
“Auld Syes,” Tristen said. “What is this thing in Ilefínian?”
Auld Syes was gone before he had quite finished saying it, but streaks ran through the meadow ahead, and in the gray space a storm broke, sweeping the pearl gray cloud into slate-colored strands.
There Auld Syes stood, assailed by the winds, and attempting to bold her place.
There Owl flew, scarcely maintaining against the gale.
—So, said a voice that sent shivers of ice through the air. Mauryl’s Shaping. So, so, so, come ahead.
He had never met the like, and yet it seemed he might have dreamed it, long, long ago, a Wind that rattled the shutters and set the faces in Ynefel’s walls to moaning.
—Mauryl’s enemy, he surmised. Not Hasufin this time.
—Hasufin, the Wind scoffed. Hasufin the bodiless. Hasufin who has no shape, nor life, nor wit. I’ve missed Mauryl, and lo! He sent me a surrogate.
A presence flew near him. Owl settled on his shoulder. Auld Syes, her substance streaming gray threads, arrived on his other side, his guides, the defenders of wizardry and magic.
—You were at Ynefel, Tristen said. And you are not Hasufin.
—Oh, names, names, names. Names have no power. Places have none. I have many Places.
Mauryl had despaired of his Summoning’s actions, and warded the windows, and warded his dreams and nights as well, with especial care.
—Feared you? the Wind mocked his thoughts. Oh, with great reason Mauryl feared you. Afraid, are you? Afraid to draw breath? Afraid you’ll break these fragile things?
In his unfettered anger was the terror of any soul who could rend its protectors and its home apart. He posed a fearful danger to those he loved. And Mauryl had held him, restrained him, taught him, and kept him out of the world long enough, as long as Mauryl’s strength lasted.
—And what have you done since? the Wind asked him. Wished this, wished that, turned a king of men to your bidding, all to bring you here, to me? Do you value him? I think you do.
—Leave him be!
—Can you bid me? I think not. Hasufin thought he could bid me. Mauryl brought the Sihhë out of their retreat, and last of all brought you… only one, this time. The old man was at the end of his strength, and Hasufin’s become a shell of a creature… both mortal, in the end. I wish another such, I think…