—Banished him, and I shall banish you. Make your wards. Seal your gates. I know the way to your heart, Barrakketh. I know your name and you know mine. Say it. Say it, and summon me. Do you dare face me?
—Nothing at your word, Tristen said, and caught after a thickness in the air of the gray space. It was Owl, who settled to his hand, and fought, rowing with his wings, for purchase there against the gale. Nothing ever at your order.
—Ah! Can you name me? So short a step! Declare my name, and let us deal together—let us bargain, you and I.
—I have nothing to do with you.
—Nothing? Not even hate? There is a darkness in you, there is an anger and I know the key to unlock it. I know what lies beneath the wards in that place as I know what lies behind the gates of your anger, Sihhë-lord!
—Leave me! Leave this place!
—Ah, but do you rule here? Threaten as you will, Shadow of Barrakketh, the hour will come… your hour, and mine.
—Not this day.
—I know a secret. Do you wish to know? Does curiosity move you? Ask. Ask the question.
Curiosity was his besetting weakness, and his prevailing strength. Curiosity had led him to good and to had and guided him through the dark.
But this question was no question. It led him to harm: he was sure of it.
Yet curiosity drew his gaze, even knowing better, and in the heart of the Wind he saw plains made desolate and homes laid waste… he saw battlefields and armies striving on them in the sunset, and above all the banner, the Tower and the Star.
So he stood bespelled for the space of a heartbeat, and felt the desolation of that sight creeping into his soul. This, this was his work, and the Wind beat his back like the buffet of vast wings. Owl fought to stay with him, but began to lose his footing: a presence clawed at Owl from the other side, a Shadow hating and hateful, resentful for her lost life.
But subtle as a sunrise, a presence crept up on him, a presence stealthy and persistent and suddenly headlong, an attack against the Wind.
It had opposed the Wind before, that presence. Something of Mauryl was in the heart of it, and something of Cefwyn, and something of Efanor and even of himself—old teacher, old master of unwilling students, old man curbing young mischief and directing eyes always to the sunrise, not the sunset.
—Tristen! he heard Emuin call. Young fool! Come back here!
He trusted and he went, while the Wind roared and rushed and buffeted his back.
He went, and sometimes Owl winged before him and sometimes behind, but he persevered… homeward. He was sure now of that word. Home.
And the gray grew lighter before him as he saw two, no, three and four and five and six faint shadows within a pearl gray dawn.
He walked onto solid stone, his hair stirred by the beat of spectral wings. About him was a corridor of gray brightening to a clear blue light, and in those beckoning hands knew Emuin’s touch, and Ninévrisë’s… even Tarien’s, frightened and protective as a mother hawk above Elfwyn’s sleepy awareness: she was there. There, too, was Paisi, the mouse in the woodwork, skittish and yet purposeful, and brazenly brave for his size.
It was Paisi who all but shouted for his attention now, and ran forward, to his own peril.
—Fool! Emuin cried.
But in that same instant another dared more than that, and forged ahead into the burning blue. Crissand came, never mind his orders and a wizard’s wilclass="underline" Crissand had come, with a devotion like Uwen’s, as determined, and as brave. Owl flew as far as Crissand’s hand, that far, and hovered, and then flew past, out into the world of Men.
Crissand reached him just as Owl vanished from his sight… reaching out to take his hand and pull him home.
—My lord, Crissand called him, king though Crissand would yet be. They locked hands and then embraced, and all the Lines of Hen Amas rose up bright and strong around them. Emuin and Ninévrisë and Paisi hovered mothlike above the fire of the mews, and Tarien, too, with Cefwyn’s wizard child—they all were around him; and in their collective will, and a wall went up against the Wind, making firm the wards.
Tristen let go his defense then, and trusted Crissand to pull him safely into the world of Men, and there to hold him in his arms, steadying him on feet that had lost all feeling.
He was cold: it had been very cold where he had walked last, a cold almost to chill the soul, but Crissand warmed his fingers to life, and Emuin reached his heart with a steady, sure light, driving the last vestiges of the dark from him, lighting all the recesses where his deepest fears had taken hold.
“Frost,” Crissand said, and indeed a rime of frost stood on his black armor. Tristen found his fingers were white and chill as ice. So he felt a stiffness about his hair, and brushed the rime from his left arm, finding cause then to laugh, a sheer joy in life.
“A cold, empty Wind,” he said to Crissand, and then cried: “Did I not say wait with Emuin?”
“I was with Emuin,” Crissand said. “Didn’t you say in that place there’s no being parted? I never left him… or you, my lord! Paisi and Her Grace of Elwynor never left us. Even Tarien. Even she.”
And the babe, Cefwyn’s son, her son, her fledgling she would not see harmed: Hasufin had bid for a life and now Tarien herself was his implacable enemy, the surest warder against her twin’s malice. He knew that as surely as he still carried an awareness within him of the gray place: Orien Aswydd might have tried to drive him aside and make him lose his way, but Orien no longer had the advantage of the living.
Above all else Orien would not lay covetous hands on her sister’s child, not while he was in his mother’s arms. Tarien rested now, weary from her venture, still seething with the fight she had fought along the wards. She had become like Owl, very much like Owl, merciless in her cause, possessed of a claimant and a Place and let at liberty.
“Never trust Tarien too much,” Tristen said on a breath, for he saw danger in that direction; but the danger where he had been was sufficient. “Did Owl come past?”
“Like a thunderbolt,” Crissand said, aiding him to walk: Tristen found his feet had grown numb, as if he had walked for hours in deep snow. “He went somewhere in the hall. I don’t know where.”
“He’ll come back,” Tristen said, with no doubt at all, and no doubt what he had now to do. “Is it dawn?”
“Close on it,” Crissand said. “All’s ready. But rest a while, my lord. Warm yourself.”
“We’ll ride north,” Tristen said. “North now.”
“My lord, never till master Emuin says you’re fit.” Lusin had come to lend a hand with him, and supported him on the other side in what was now the downstairs hall, alight with candles and teeming with fearful servants. Paisi was there, and stood on one foot and the other, bearing a message from Emuin, Tristen was sure.
Paisi pressed something like a coin into his gloved hand. “Master Emuin says carry this and ride tonight.”
“He’s not fit!” Crissand protested, but Emuin’s charge was all Tristen needed to reinforce his own sense of urgency.
“I’ll be well when the sun touches me,” he said, and took his weight to himself, unsteady as he was. “And Uwen expects me. I know him. He’ll ride back, never mind my orders to wait at the river. He’ll ride all the way back to town if I don’t meet him.” He found his stride and gathered his wind, seeing the stable-court stairs. “Is Dys saddled?”