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Not satisfied with the death of earl Edwyll, however, or possibly at
the instigation of some party to the guilty secret, Parsynan, in
command of the garrison troops, seized the prisoners from Tristen's
officers and began executing them.

Tristen found out in time to save Crissand… and summarily
dismissed Lord Parsynan from the town in the middle of the night
and without his possessions.

It was scandalous treatment of a noble king's officer, but if there was
anything wanting to make Tristen the hero of Henas'amef, this settled
matters. The commons were delighted, wildly cheering their new
lord. Crissand, Edwyll's son, himself of remote Aswydd lineage,
swore fealty to Tristen in such absolute terms it scandalized the
Guelen clerks who had come with Tristen
—
for Crissand owned
Tristen as his overlord
after the Aswydd kind,
aetheling, a
royal
lord
.

The oath reopened all the old controversy about the status of Amefel
as a sovereign kingdom. Crissand had become Tristen's friend and
most fervent ally among the earls of Amefel… who, given a lord they
respected, came rapidly into line, united for the first time in decades,
under terms forever influenced by Crissand's oath.

In the succeeding hours Tristen gained both the burned remnant of
Mauryl's letters, and Lord Ryssand's letter to Parsynan. The first told
him that certain correspondence Mauryl had had with the lords of
Amefel might have some modern relevancy… one archivist had
murdered the other and run with the letters. The second letter
revealed Corswyndam's connivance with Parsynan.

Tristen sent Lord Ryssand's letter posthaste to Guelessar, while
Cuthan, revealed for a traitor to both sides, and possibly guilty of
more than anyone knew, took advantage of Tristen's leniency to flee
to Elwynor.

In the capital, Corswyndam Lord Ryssand knew he had to move
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quickly to lessen the king's power or lose his own. It happened that
one of his clerks had reported that the office of Regent of Elwynor,
which Ninévrisë claimed, included priestly functions. So at Ryssand's
instigation, certain conservatives in the Holy Quinalt rose up in
protest of a woman in priestly rites. This objection would break the
marriage treaty.

Cefwyn countered with another compromise and a trade of favors
with the Holy Father: Ninévrisë agreed to state that she was and had
always been of the Bryaltine sect
—
that recognized, though scantly
respectable, Amefin religion. She agreed to accept a priest of that
faith as her priest, leaving aside other difficult questions, and on that
understanding, the Quinalt would perform the wedding
.

The barons now came with the last and worst attack on Ninévrisë:
charges of infidelity, Ninévrisë's with Tristen, laughable if one knew
them. But Ryssand's daughter Artisane was prepared to perjure
herself to bring Ninévrisë down. So Cefwyn learned when Ryssand's
son Brugan brought the charges to him secretly
—
along with a
document giving much of his power to the barons, which was clearly
the alternative this young lordling presented his king
.

Therein Ryssand overstepped himself: it gave an excuse for a loyal
baron, Cevulirn of Ivanor, to challenge Brugan. By killing
Brugan, by popular belief, Cevulirn proved Ninévrisë''s innocence. If
Ryssand should make public the attack on Ninévrisë, that fact would
come out to counter it: Brugan had died a liar.

But if it should come to public knowledge, someone would surely
challenge Cevulirn, and if he won again, another and another would
challenge him until they could cast the result in doubt. Cefwyn still
hoped to deal with the other barons, and would trade silence for
silence, casting the killing as a private quarrel to prevent the
destructive chain of challenges and feuds that would tear the court
apart.

But that meant Cevulirn had to leave court, avoiding Ryssand's
presence, and Cefwyn girded himself for a confrontation in court
with a powerful baron who had just lost his son to a man who had not
stayed to face challenges.

Into this situation Ryssand's incriminating letter arrived secretly into
Cefwyn's hands… and Cefwyn thus had the means to suggest Ryssand
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also retire to his estates immediately, or have all his actions made
public to the other barons.

So the treaty stood firm, Cefwyn and Ninévrisë married, and Tristen
settled in to rule in the south as lord of Amefel, lord of the province
containing old Althalen and bordering Ynefel and Elwynor across the
river.

But on a day that Tristen, with Earl Crissand and Uwen, set out to
visit the villages, they came across an old shrine, where the
apparition of the Witch of Emwy, Auld Syes, appeared as the
precursor to a terrible storm
. Lord of Amefel and the aetheling,
she
hailed them, as if those titles were not one and the same thing. She
bade them ride south to find friends, and then to feed her sparrows
.

Further, she asked permission to visit Tristen at some time in the
future
—
in effect, asked passage through the magical wards of the
Zeide of Henas'amef. Tristen granted it, to his guards' great distress
.

South they rode, then, in the rising storm, and encountered Cevulirn,
who had turned banishment to good use, riding north to inform
Tristen of those matters too delicate to be entrusted to couriers.

The two of them took counsel how to use their resources to help
Cefwyn in the spring, and agreed to call in all the other lords of the
south
—
which Cefwyn could not dare. Their plan was to set a camp
across the river and divert Tasmôr den's attention southward. Cefwyn
had forbidden them to win the war, because the Quinaltine northern
barons were already distressed about his reliance on the Teranthine
south… but together Tristen and Cevulirn saw what they could do to
bolster Cefwyn's cause without violating the letter of their king's
orders
.

Tristen and Cevulirn set out then toward the river to view the
situation firsthand. On the way they made a stop in the village of
Modeyneth, where Tristen raised the local thane, Drusenan, to the
rank of earl in Cuthan's place, and commanded the raising of an old
Sihhë wall to hold the road. In so doing, they found that Drusenan
had concealed a number of Elwynim who had fled the war. For want
of any other safe place to settle them in his lands, Tristen authorized
them to build a refuge within the vacant ruins of Althalen… where no
settlement was permitted, under Crown law, but where they were out
of the way of traffic coming up and down the vital road to Elwynor.

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Having done those things, Tristen and Cevulirn rode on, and were at
the river when Tristen realized, through that gray world only wizards
could touch, that the Elwynim capital, llefinian, had fallen.

So there would not be a winter's grace to prepare: the situation was
immediately more grave.

Meanwhile in Guelemara, and to the discomfiture of Murandys and
Ryssand alike, Cefwyn invited his former lover, Luriel, Murandys'

niece, back to court. With considerable inducements of land and
favor, he arranged her marriage to the son of Duke Maudyn, lord of
Panys, his commander on the riverside.

In this manner and at one stroke he shone a light on his consort's
generosity and his own reformed habits… and undermined the
confidence of his opponents in each other. This marriage allied
Murandys' interests with those of the lord of Panys, who firmly
supported the Crown.

In Amefel, meanwhile, in a reunion of a far different sort, Tristen
rescued from prison a young thief, Paisi. This was a street boy who
had once guided him to Cefwyn's justice: Paisi's fate, he was
convinced, was linked to his own, simply because the whole web of
incidents leading him to his present allies was a series of linkages,
and those linkages were a likely target of hostile wizardry—simply
put, those once connected to him at points of critical decision could
connect to him again, at points of critical decision, for good or for ill.

This one looked already to have a taint of ill about it
—
for in saving
Paisi, Tristen had a falling out with the Guelen Guard, the garrison
in Henas'amef, for it was from them that Paisi had stolen, and Tristen
would not see him hanged. Instead, Paisi went to Emu-in'
s
tower to
become his assistant… and certain guardsmen and even the patriarch
of the local Quinalt left Tristen's court in anger. Tristen had been
right: the boy once involved at a crisis of decision was involved
again, and whatever would have happened had Paisi hanged, would
not now happen. Some other event was now in progress in which
Paisi had some part to play, and he trusted Emuin to keep as much
order in that event as anyone could keep.

The disgruntled soldiers and the patriarch went to Guelemara, and
their reports when they reached Guelemara created a storm in the
Quinalt. They accused Tristen of serious breaches of Crown law,
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usurpation of royal authority, and the promotion of wizardry in
Amefel. Strict northern priests, supported by Ryssand, had already
preached doom in the streets, and as this further attack gained
momentum, Cefwyn moved secretly to silence the most outspoken of
these priests, one Udryn, as one of Ryssand's men.

Meanwhile, regarding the charges now made public, he could do
nothing but declare the laws themselves outdated, since his only
other choice was to agree that Tristen was a lawbreaker. This in no
wise comforted the orthodoxy, but the open expression of opposition
to the king was a little quieter since the disappearance of the priest.

Tristen and Cevulirn parted company, swearing to meet next with all
the lords of their former alliance, on Midwinter Eve, in Henas'-amef.

And for his part Tristen settled in earnest to the preparation of a
winter camp for an army.

That same Midwinter was to mark the marriage of Luriel to Lord
Panys' younger son
—
in a capital seething with dissenting priests and
fears of wizardry
.

And in the middle of the ceremony the Quinalt Patriarch was found
murdered, with Eryaltine symbols about his person.

The wedding fell apart in riot and religious frenzy, in which Ni-névrisë's unfortunate priest fell afoul of a mob and lost his life.

Cefwyn countered quickly to gain the favor of the mob by diverting
suspicion toward Tasmôrden's agents… though he himself suspected
the zealot priests and an act of very local revenge. He took clear
command of the capital and of the situation, at least for the day, and
moved to counter Ryssand, whom he blamed above all others.

Back in Ynefel, Tristen's guests had come, every one of them, and
they settled to feast on a night Emuin had warned Tristen was the
hinge not only of the year, but of a magical age of ages.

At the stroke of midnight Auld Syes entered the hall in queenly guise
and danced one dance with Tristen… after which the lights went out
and the old haunt in the lower hall broke wide open.

Tristen entered into it, in defense of all the rest, and found himself not
in battle against shadows and dead wizards, but walking in Ynefel of
old, himself a shadow in the life of the Tristen who had been.

There he met Owl, companion of his early days with Mauryl, his
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guide through Marna Wood on the road that led him to Cefwyn, and
his harbinger of war at the battle of Lewen field.

And Owl came with him when he crossed that bridge again, back to
the haunted mews at heart of the Zeide. Owl was on his arm when he
returned, to the distress of all around him… who knew now that they
dealt with magic and that the war Tristen proposed was not only of
iron and edges.

But rather than reject that war and their magic-wielding ally, they
gave thanks to have Tristen on their side and pledged their support
anew.

Owl was not the only venturer out into the world that night.

Orien and Tarien Aswydd fled their exile as armed men descended on
the defenseless nuns who sheltered them… Quinalt men, attacking a
Teranthine order. Reflection of the riots in the capital, religious
conflict had come to the countryside of Guelessar.

And the outlawed Aswydds turned to the only home they knew, to
Henas'amef, hoping for shelter.

Elements once part of wizardry were participant again, rewoven into
the design.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER 1

A slow procession passed by night, little disturbing the sleep of Henas'amef. Tristen on bay Petelly, two ladies on horses the lords of Ivanor had lent them, with Captain Uwen Lewen's-son and Tristen's bodyguard attending, all climbed the hill in a lazy fall of fat lumps of snow.