But their enemy’s servant raged on in his own search. It was still the child Hasufin sought, and as Tristen reached to prevent him, he realized the child was not with Tarien: Ninévrisë had Elfwyn, had seized him in her arms at the first alarm from the mews and held him fast.
The Shadow in the burned cell clawed at the stones, flowed between them into every crevice of her prison, frantic in her search for a way out of the wards, trying to find the least small crack that might open. In the shriek of iron and the echoes of the deep vaults she called to Tarien Aswydd as the smell of fire tainted the gray space… Sister, sister, my twin, my other self… call me out! Call me out of this prison… aetheling, aetheling as we are, queens of this land, sister… is that not the dream? Can you forget?
It was a bond more magical than wizardous that extended through the stones, cords of a sister’s anger and a mother’s yearning that plunged Tarien’s head into her hands, knotted her fingers into her hair, and sent a silent cry of anguish through the stones, for in the moment of choice, it was Ninévrisë she upheld, not her sister. It was Ninévrisë who had taken her child and Orien who had governed all her life… and the moment she denied Orien’s voice the shock went through the gray space, a wail resounding through the stones.
—Stand fast! Tristen urged Ninévrisë.
Allies embraced, rooms apart. Two women held close, Tarien’s eyes shut tight, heart clenched tight about the child she ached to have in her arms again, the infant that Ninévrisë promised, protected, warded for her with all her strength.
Above, in the tower, the crack in the chimney jolted wider and Emuin’s shutters flew open: a draft howled from the lower hall to the tower height, and Paisi, his arms full of parchments, dived beneath a table at Emuin’s feet, striving to keep the wind from tearing the charts all away.
All of this happened in a heartbeat… all the fortress leapt in one instant into clarity, as blindingly swift as the Shadow seeking that reciprocal crack within the wards.
With another jolt the crack in the wall raced downward, opened across the ceilings of the lower floor and let a winter-cold gale blow into the old mews.
Beneath a horn-paned window, beneath a rough sill in Ynefel’s upper tier, ruin had begun from a single crack. The stones had fallen, beginning from there, until Ynefel stood in ruins, overthrown.
So Althalen had gone down in blackened timbers, stones fallen, the Lines sleeping and broken.
Until, until, Tristen thought fiercely, Lord Uleman had held it for his court. Next Auld Syes’ sparrows had spread their tents there, reclaiming it for the living. Aeself’s battered folk, lasting through the bitter snows, had raised a wooden tower that creaked and swayed in the winds. The scattered sparrows had built themselves a shelter that, though it leaked in the rains and admitted every draft—yet was home.
So Althalen had risen from the ashes. Wind there scoured the stones, flattening the grass that grew where the palace once had stood; above it all the wooden tower stood, Aeself’s work, where lightning threatened and wind tore at the sheltering canvas… the women who held that post cried out in terror of the storm, and the tower quaked and swayed, but Tristen willed Aeself’s tower to stand against the wind. With a sweep of his arm he willed the lightning away: it was his land, his lordship, and if he gave it to Crissand, still, he warded it against the enemy. He willed all who were in the place safe, and bade that tower stand.
Owl flew past, a brown streak, and wheeled away on a gust, a skirl of dust that, out of the grass of the ruins of Althalen, became the shape of a man… bits of grass and dust formed all the substance that Hasufin Heltain could command now. He had failed his master, failed his bid for the child. The man of dust had reached after Owl, but fell asunder, no more at last than dust and chaff.
Tristen lifted his hand to recover Owl, who lighted on his arm as lightning chained across the heavens.
He stood in Ynefel, amid shattered timbers, the ruin of all the wonderful stairways that had run like spiderwebs up and up to the loft.
He stood in the courtyard, where Hasufin had been the haunt.
But not the only one.
Dust and leaves blew across the pavings, encountered the cracked wall… and fell, a mere scattering of pieces. Hasufin could not return, not now. His strength was spent.
But the Wind came stealing softly through the open gate. Or had done. Time was always uncertain here, and the Wind came and went unpredictably, like Ynefel’s other visitors.
—Well, well, well, said the Wind, here, too, brave prince of Shadows.
—Still here, Tristen said in the foreboding hush.
—But not there, are you? Not in that land where your allies need you… are you, Lord of Ghosts?
Fear touched his heart, fear for Crissand, and for the army he had left to others’ leading—but he was not, as Emuin called him, a fool, to glance aside and distract himself with his enemy’s chatter. He kept one thing in mind, and the threats and the gusts could not shake him.
—Can I not? Can you not fear me? Others do.
He suddenly had that feeling he had had of nights when Orien’s dragons loomed above his bed: and at once he was flung into the gray space in a swirl of cloud. The Wind wrapped about him like a cloak and spun about and about and down.
It left him facing the Edge, where cloud poured like rain down a roof.
—Look in, it said. Do you dare?
And without his bending at all the Edge seemed to open before him. He stared into a dark that reflected shadows and light, and was the image in a rain barrel, no more than that.
It was his own image it cast back, all dark hair and shadow, with the sun at his back, as he had seen himself when first he tried to know his own face.
He drew back in the instant the Wind sought to push him over the Edge. He turned, sword in hand, and faced it with the question he himself had wished to answer:
—Who are you? Do you know? Do you dare look at your own reflection?
I dare. A Shape formed itself out of cloud, a young man, mist for a cloak, storm for raiment, and shifting haze for armor. It was a mirror of himself, of Crissand, but neither shadow nor sun: a nameless Shaping of grays and magic, out of its seething clouds of the gray space.
And the challenge it posed was magic, a power breaking free of all law that had ever constrained it, all the wizard-work, all the Lines on the earth, all the bindings ever bound. It breathed in, and on its next breath it might carry all the world away.
And the weapon to counter it was not alone the sword and its spells: it was even more than the Lines of Ynefel’s wards, or the Zeide’s, or Althalen’s, or any barrier of stone laid down in the world: it was all the work of all the wizards and all the Men that had lived their lives in constraint of power and the habit of order.
The Wind gathered force, and gathered force, all for one great effort… it Summoned all who had ever fallen to its lure, all who
had ever gone deep within its embrace and lost themselves, not alone Hasufin Heltain, not alone Orien, or Heryn Aswydd or the hundreds of others without name. It lacked Shape, so it cloaked itself in his likeness, all grays, living magic, the third force, balanced between Shadow and Sun.
—Barrakketh, it whispered, but he would not own that name.