fortress of dragons.html (3 page)

So Tristen brought Lady Ninévrisë to Cefwyn, and the new king of
Ylesuin fell headlong in love with the new Regent of Elwynor.

Tristen, for his services to the Crown, became a lord of Ylesuin, no
longer mocked for his simplicity, but rather feared by the Guelenfolk, for no one who had seen him fight could discount him. The
townsfolk and countryfolk of Amefel, on the other hand, adored him,
and saw in him the fulfillment of the prophecy of the King To
Come
—
a fulfillment Cefwyn himself foresaw, and did not attempt to
fight. "Win his friendship," was Emuin's sage advice regarding his
dealings with Tristen, and so he had; and now Cefwyn saw before
fortress of dragons.html

him the chance for that friendship to settle the whole world at peace,
for he did not see Tristen as a reigning king, but as a king in symbol,
a reconciliation with the Sihhë. As he declared to Ninévrisë, nothing
would be more cruel than to settle on Tristen's glad spirit all the
daily obligations of a reigning king
.

Meanwhile Heryn's sister Orien became duchess of Amefel, since
Cefwyn was not ready to set aside the entire dynasty, and had seen
hone but the ordinary Aswydd flaws in Orien. He hoped to content
the people of Amefel with that appointment and thought that a woman
with no martial skills and no command of an army would be a more
biddable ruler in the troublesome district.

Orien, however, was bent on revenge, and lied in her oaths. Lacking
armies, lacking skill in war, she sought another means to power…

and with her earliest attempts at the wizardous legacy of her house,
found her answer in sorcerous whispers from the enemy, Hasufin
Heltain.

She was not a great wizard, not even a moderately great one, but she
deceived herself that she was. Hasufin's immediate goal was an entry
into the fortress of Henas'amef, but because of Tristen and Emuin, he
could not breach the wards. It was no difficulty at all to move his
pawn Orien to make an attempt on Cefwyn's life and another pawn to
make an attempt on Emuin's life. Meanwhile he drew the rebel army
across the river to all-out war: Aséyneddin invaded Amefel in force.

The first two attempts fell useless: Cefwyn and Emuin both survived.

The third, Aséyneddin's, was the real one, aimed not at
kingship
—
Aséyneddin's purpose
—
but specifically at Tristen, whom
Hasufin recognized as Mauryl's last and most effective weapon, and
who must go down if Hasufin was to prevent Tristen's rise as a Sihhë-

lord
.

Sorcery, a wizardous art reliant on chaos, was strongest in a moment
of chance and upheaval, and there was no moment of upheaval
among Men greater than the shifting tides of a battlefield. So Hasufin
made his strongest bid to destroy Tristen, who stood between him and
the life and substance he could gain through Aséyneddin.

In the world of Men, at a place called Lewenbrook, near Ynefel, the
Elwynim rebels, under Lord Aséyneddin, met Cefwyn Marha-nen's
opposing army. That was the conflict Men fought.

fortress of dragons.html

But when Aséyneddin faltered, Hasufin sent out tides of sorcery in
reckless disregard. A wall of Shadow rolled down on the field, and
those it touched it took and did not give up. It was Hasufin's
manifestation, and all aimed at Tristen's destruction.

Tristen, however, took up magic as he took up his weapons, when the
challenge came. When Hasufin Heltain loosed his sorcery, Tristen
rode into the Shadow, penetrated into Ynefel itself, and drove
Hasufin from his Place in the world.

Cefwyn meanwhile had prevailed in the unnatural darkness, and
when the sun broke free of the Shadow, he had managed to hold his
army together and continue the assault. Aséyneddin's forces, such as
survived, shattered and ran in panic.

It was a long way back to the world, however, from where Tristen
had gone to fight. Exhausted, hurt, at the end of his purpose, Tristen
all but resigned his wizard-made life, finished with Mauryl's purpose,
too weary to wake to the world of Men.

But he had once given his shieldman Uwen, an ordinary Man with
not a shred of magic in him, the power to call his name. This Uwen
did, the devotion of a simple man seeking his lost lord on the
battlefield, and Tristen came.

There was a moment, then, when Cefwyn stood victorious over the
rebels, that he might have launched forward into Elwynor: the
southern lords had rallied to the new king, and would have followed
him. But Cefwyn saw his army badly battered and in need of
regrouping. He knew the enemy was on the run, meaning they would
sink invisibly into Elwynor's forested depths
—
and he knew, as a new
king, that he had left matters uncertain behind him. The majority of
his kingdom did not even know they had changed one king for
another, and the treaty he had made with Ninévrisë had never
reached his people. He stood in the situation his grandfather had
faced, at the end of summer, with a winter before him
.

Good campaigning weather still remained, but harsh northern
winters and the Elwynim woods could make fighting impossible. So
for good or for ill, Cefwyn opted not to plunge his exhausted army,
lacking maps or any sort of preparation, into the unknown situation
inside Elwynor, which had been several years in anarchy and still
had rival claimants to the Regency. Instead he chose to regroup,
fortress of dragons.html

settle his domestic affairs, marry the Lady Regent, ratify the
marriage treaty, and rally the rest of his kingdom behind him in a
campaign to begin in the spring. It seemed unlikely that any great
power could rise in Elwynor during autumn and a winter, given that
the rebels were now fighting among themselves and that his army and
Tristen had already defeated the two strongest forces Elwynor could
field.

So Cefwyn went home, trusting his father's trusted men, gathering up
his brother Efanor, to take up the power of the monarchy as it had
been.

So he thought. But when he reached his capital, he discovered his
father's closest friends among the barons meant to wrest the real
power into their own hands, for his father had let them do much as
they pleased for years
—
had taken their decisions and put his royal
seal on them. The clerics had preferred Efanor: that was a known
difficulty. But the barons had for the last decade had a king they
could rule. They meant to have another one, and in their minds and
by all prior reports, Cefwyn was a wastrel prince who would be a
weak king if they simply provided him diversions and women. He
could be managed, they had said among themselves
.

That was not, however, the nature of the king who came home to
them: Cefwyn arrived surrounded by their southern rivals, who were
clearly in favor, and allied to Mauryl's heir, betrothed to the Elwynim
Regent, advised by a wizard, and proposing war on the Elwynim
rebels. The barons quickly realized they were not facing Ináreddrin's
dissolute son: it was Selwyn's hard-handed grandson, and the
barons, accustomed to dictating to the father, were set down hard.

So the most powerful barons of the north took a new tactic… they
were older, cannier, more experienced in court politics: they already
had the good will of the most conservative priests. They would use
the Quinaltine and the people's faith, prevent the marriage, treat the
lady Regent as a captive
—
and seize land in Elwynor
.

Cefwyn determined just as resolutely to bring them into line and
shake the kingdom into order. He sent the southern barons home to
attend their harvests and to prepare for war, all but Lord Cevulirn of
Ivanor, whose horsemen had less reliance on such seasons, and who
stayed as a shadowy observer for southern interests.

fortress of dragons.html

In Elwynor, meanwhile, the wars had come to a swifter conclusion
than anyone expected. One rebel lord brought a largely hired army
out of the hills, supplied it off the resources of the peasants, besieged
his own capital of llefinian, and declared the Lady Regent a helpless
captive in the hands of the Marhanen king. This brought the situation
Cefwyn had left in Elwynor to a state of crisis, and Cefwyn took
immediate steps to set elite cavalry at the bridges that faced Elwynor.

This both stabilized the border and removed some of the force on
which the Crown maintained its authority.

Cefwyn took immediate measures to assure that the Quinalt would
approve both the marriage and the treaty that recognized Ni-névrisë
as Lady Regent of Elwynor, independent of the Crown of Ylesuin, and
renounced all claims to each other's kingdoms.

The barons retaliated with an attempt to limit the monarchy over
them, and to reject both the marriage treaty and their king's
associates.

Tristen and Emuin both had kept to themselves since their arrival…

for Cefwyn, fighting for his right to wed the woman he loved and
trying to wrest back greater sovereignty in his own capital, wished to
obscure the presence of wizardry in his court.

Obscurity, however, only increased the mystery surrounding Tristen.

The barons saw him and Emuin as an influence on Cefwyn that must
be eliminated, and on a night when lightning, whether by chance or
wizardry, struck the Quinalt roof, a penny in the offering in the
Quinaltine was found to be Sihhë coinage, with forbidden symbols on
it.

The charge against Tristen was to be sacrilege, wizardry attacking
the Quinalt and the gods.

Cefwyn suspected that His Holiness the Patriarch himself was
devious enough to have substituted the damning coin, and Cefwyn
moved quickly to compel the Patriarch into his camp. But the rumors
were so rife that Cefwyn felt compelled to remove Tristen further
from controversy and from the site of rumors. In what he thought a
clever and protective stroke, he sent Tristen back to Amefel not as a
refugee in disgrace, but as duke of Amefel… a replacement for the
viceroy he had left to replace the disgraced Orien Aswydd.

Now this viceroy was Parsynan, a minor noble appointed on the
fortress of dragons.html

advice of some of these same troublesome barons, notably Murandys
and Ryssand
… or
Cefwyn had exiled Orien Aswydd and her sister to
a Teranthine nunnery for their betrayal, and had never appointed
another duke, until now
.

Hearing that Tristen was going to Amefel, and that Parsynan was
recalled, Corswyndam Lord Ryssand panicked, for he feared certain
records might fall into Tristen's hands and thus into Cef-wyn's. He
sent a rider to advise Parsynan of his imminent replacement.

Corswyndam's courier rode hard enough to reach the Amefin capital
ahead of Cefwyn's messenger. Receiving the message, Parsynan quite
naively brought his local ally Lord Cuthan, an Aswydd by remote
kinship, into his confidence, since this man had supported him
against his brother earls before.

Cuthan, however, was in on a plot to create war in Amefel, a
distraction for Cefwyn. If Amefin earls rebelled and seized the
citadel, Elwynim troops would then invade and engage with the
king's forces: this was what was promised, and Cuthan not only
failed to warn Parsynan it was coming… but he also said nothing to
warn his brother lords that a detachment of king's forces was about
to arrive along with a new duke, one they might approve. One or the
other would happen first, and Cuthan meant to stay safe.

So, ignorant of such vital information, certain Amefin, led by Earl
Edwyll of Meiden, seized the South Court of the fortress of Amefel
and settled in to wait for Elwynim support.

In the same hour, losing courage, Cuthan told the other earls that the
king's forces were coming.

And there were as yet no forces from Elwynor: Tasmôrden's forces
had not arrived.

The other earls consequently sat still… which suited Cuthan well: he
and Edwyll were old rivals, and now Edwyll was patently guilty of
treason, sitting alone in the fortress with the Marhanen king's forces
approaching. And none of the rest of them were yet guilty of
anything, as long as they kept their secret. The one most apt to betray
it
—
was Edwyll himself
.

Then in a thunderstroke, before anyone had thought, Tristen arrived
and moved swiftly uphill to the fortress to take possession. The
commons turned out to cheer. The earls of Amefel rapidly set
fortress of dragons.html

themselves on the winning side.

Edwyll meanwhile died, having enjoyed a cup of wine
—
out of Orien
Aswydd's cups, untouched since the place was sealed at her exile.

Whether Edwyll's death was latent wizardry attached to Or-ien's
property, or simple bad luck, the command of the rebels now
devolved to Edwyll's son, thane Crissand, who was forced to
surrender. Tristen now had the fortress in his hands
.