He drew a deep breath. He smiled at Uwen, who alone of them could wake him to the ordinary world.
“You still have that power,” he said to Uwen.
“What power, m’lord?”
“To call my name.” He glanced solemnly aside at Crissand and Cevulirn on the other side. “I obey Uwen’s voice as no other,” he said, “and I gave him the calling of me. It’s a magic he can do. Wherever I wander, Uwen can always find me.”
“As I’d follow ye to hell, m’lord,” Uwen said. “Ye know that.”
“I’d rather you called me out of it,” he said. He had no true knowledge what the Quinalt meant by it, but he knew where he had fared when he faced Hasufin Heltain.
He knew where he would go now when he faced the enemy.
“Guard Uwen,” he said to Crissand and Cevulirn. “Make sure he’s safe.”
“That’s the wrong way about, m’lord, them guardin’ me.”
“Yet that’s His Grace’s word,” Crissand said.
“A Man,” Tristen said. “And my friend, and wise as wizards.”
“Oh, that I ain’t!” Uwen cried.
“Trust Uwen,” Tristen said to his friends, and in his mind’s eye he saw Barrakkëth’s Book, its pages curling as it burned.
When he had cast the Book into the fire he had been armed as now, ready to ride against Hasufin: so he was now, astride Dys and armed and with Uwen beside him.
He used great care when he let anything in that Book well up out of the dark: its answers informed him there was much of illusion in what he loved.
Past and present and time to come mingled in the old mews, and in Ynefel, and in those other places: had been and might yet be were interchangeable in those places: they were the easiest path for magic, and his enemy had found a toehold in each and every one.
He found the meadows and woods gone dim around him, and the light gone to brass.
He saw a child dancing across the dry gold grass before them. A wind blew the grass and followed that child, and that wind suddenly smelled of storm.
“That’s odd,” Uwen said. “Smells like rain an’ the sun’s shinin’ and the sky is blue. An’ I swear that’s a cloud just come above the ridge.”
“I wish it mayn’t rain,” Tristen said, but spent little strength to wish it. He still saw the child, but no one else did, not even Crissand or Cevulirn.
Troops of Shadows seemed now to follow the child, Auld Syes’ daughter, who had lived once, he was sure, and danced in the meadows, a long, long time ago: as there had been nothing ordinary about Emwy village, where Auld Syes had seemed to be in authority. Men had died, and thereafter Emwy village had perished, lost, perhaps not for the first time.
In magic, time itself came unhinged, and Emuin’s Great Year governed the progress of the world only so far as to say that strange appearances were easier than at other times.
Mauryl had brought the Sihhë from the north. But who had Summoned them? And out of what?
He looked at the sky, looked at the bare trees and at the sun on Dys’ black mane. The world was so beautiful, and there was so much of it: he could gaze forever at the wonder of leaves and not see them alclass="underline" could inhale the wind and not smell all its scents, hear the sounds of men and horses and not hear all the sounds of the woods, and taste the thousand flavors in stale water and still find it wonderful… because it was not darkness.
The darkest night in the darkest room in the world was not that darkness which was behind his first memory of Mauryl’s fireside. And that was not the worst that might befall.
He would fight to live. He knew that now. He would fight to keep these things, aside from all reasons Mauryl had Summoned him. He had gathered his own reasons, and was not, now, Mauryl’s creature.
Barrakkëth, some said, even his dearest friends.
But he said Tristen, and he said it with every breath he drew.
The dagger rested concealed in Cefwyn’s boot, for if Idrys had come by stealth, Cefwyn thought it wise to keep the secret, and hid that weapon which some eyes might recognize. He rode Danvy at the head of the Dragon Guard. Anwyll’s contingent being newly joined to the main body, Anwyll was close by him; and he ordered the Guelens to bring up the rear and the Prince’s Guard to hold a place at the middle of their line of march, lest any surprise attack should try to split the column of less experienced provincials.
The land was roughest here, so the maps had indicated and so it was. Rocks encroached from the left and the trees spilled down off the heights and across the road. Weeds had grown here during more than one summer, legacy of Elwynor’s civil conflicts.
It was the third day, and from Ryssand and his allies as yet he had had no dissent, possibly the longest period of peace with Ryssand he had known since he had come to his capital. Knowing that Ryssand was about to be a traitor was a distinct relief from wondering what Ryssand was about.
But now there was more worry, which had arrived with the dagger and the message.
A traitor near him. A traitor to whom he might have confided all his plans, when plans were hard come by, and hard to change.
Unfair, he said to Idrys, scanning the trees and the rocks and wondering whether Idrys watched the column from that rough outcrop or from the depths of the woods. He was vexed with Idrys, not an uncommon thing in dealing with the Lord Commander, but no signal he could give would order Idrys in.
He needed advice on a matter far more important than Ryssand’s treason and Ryssand’s conspiring with someone he trusted.
We have a war to fight, have you noticed, perchance, master crow?
Should I care that one more of my barons would put a dagger in my back? I am not destined to be a well-loved king, but thus far and somewhat by my own wits I am a live one. Come in! Stop this skulking in the bushes… it ill behooves a commander of the king’s armies.
Damn, he said to himself as birds flew up, startled from a thicket.
He found he was anticipating attack, not attack from one of his barons, but attack out of the woods that were no more than a thin screen between them and the ridge… not enough to prevent archery lofted over and down, if Tasmôrden were so enterprising. He had sent his scouts ahead to investigate the heights he had sent a squad to occupy, indeed, but the essential trouble with scouts was that they had to come back to report what they saw. A man with critical information might not be able to come back, might be lying dead with a dozen arrows in him.
So might Idrys, if he went poking and prying into the woods ahead, if he had his attention all for the barons and none spared for the enemy.
And which of the barons, or which of the officers, was a traitor to him?
He refused to suspect Maudyn or Maudyn’s sons: Sulriggan’s turning on him would be no news and no loss. He had never been sure of Osanan.
He led the rest, not reckoning any one of them a potent threat, not reckoning Murandys would dare cross him: that alliance of Mur-andys with Ryssand was lately frayed; and Murandys was not a man to take rash and independent action.
Anwyll was never suspect, either. Complicity could not possibly lie in that face, in those forthright blue eyes. There was never a man less given to conspiracy: Anwyll always expected honesty of the world, was indignant when he found otherwise; and for the rest of the officers, they had served Ylesuin in his father’s reign and served with honor, no marks against any of them.
An owl called by daylight, and drew alarm from the men nearest. Maudyn laid a hand on his sword. But then a true owl took to the air and flew off across their path, so Maudyn laughed, and no few of the men did.
Then a horseman came from around the bend of the road and toward them at breakneck speed.