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There was the reason, Cefwyn said to himself the farther they went without sight of the enemy. There was all the reason: Tasmôrden did not put himself to great trouble because he counted on the army of Ylesuin tearing its own throat and opening its veins quite obligingly on his doorstep. If things went completely his way, Tasmôrden might fortress of dragons.html

watch from the walls and enjoy the spectacle.

Ask whether Tasmôrden had the mildest suspicion that a man who would lie to his king would lie to him in his absolute assurances: if Tasmôrden were at all wise, Tasmôrden would ask himself such questions and doubt Ryssand's character.

That was the difficulty of being a scoundrel, he supposed: that to a lord of bandits and mercenaries, Ryssand and Murandys seemed so ordinary.

All day he waited for some sign of the enemy.

At evening they made their third camp, canvas going up like white flowers in the sunset, and after the bawling of oxen and the clatter and squeal of the oxcarts laying down the few essential tents, and after the quick dispersal of the evening's cold, fireless provender, quiet settled over the camp, the quiet of men ready, after a day's march, to settle close around the small fires. They had not the luxury of bonfires and a camp under canvas, but canvas strung up for windbreaks and spread as cover for essential gear, and as warm as the days had become and as warmly as the sun beat down on a helm, there was still a winter nip in the air at night and enough damp to soak in.

And with the men settled to their evening's occupation, the lords of Ylesuin set to their own pursuits, a sparse and plain supper in one of the few tents they had brought, with small ale and a session of politeness between enemies who eyed one another what time they were not putting on placid faces: but tonight Cefwyn brought out his second-best map in plain view and laid out the plans for encounter.

"Here," Cefwyn said, laying a pen across the map at the ford of that brook, a broad trail of ink, and annotations as to depth and direction.

"The long hill, first, and this brook between us and Ilefínian's outbuildings. Our battle line will be heavy horse to the center, excepting Sulriggan, you, sir, to the right wing. The brook is not above hip deep to a man at flood, save only there may be holes, needless to say; good bottom, so there's no fear of fording it if we find no bridge there. But I don't wish to cross it, nor shall we, unless you hear the signal from me. I'd rather let Tasmôrden have his back to the water."

There was doubt they could draw Tasmôrden across the bridge to fortress of dragons.html

encounter them on their chosen ground. So did he doubt it, and he little liked to practice the acts that might tempt a lord out of his citadel: burning fields and forests would not serve the peasant farmers they hoped to save, nor would it leave anything at all worth stealing after the bandits had had their way in the countryside. He did not say that he hoped for help when he crossed beyond the ridge. He never mentioned so curious a thing as a flight of pigeons in the wood.

But he went to his cot when the conference was done having had at last a satisfactory session with his entire command—and having had even Sulriggan, not the swiftest wit in the company, comprehend what he was to do, and what the signal was that would prompt him to advance. He had Sulriggan to the farthest right wing, Osanan to the left with Panys, and himself in the center… with Ryssand.

He had not anticipated to be so well pleased in dealing with Ryssand.

He had been grudging with Ryssand, then enthusiastic; he thought it a masterful use of persuasion. In the end, he hoped Ryssand had believed desperation had made them allies, and that if Ryssand was the traitor he thought, Ryssand would lie abed tonight smug in the belief he had gotten what he wanted and that revenge for his ox of a son was not so distant.

Cefwyn had not expected to find it so, but with the council disposed of, under the weight of thick blankets, under canvas in comfort, while many of the men slept triple and quadruple in their tents, and with the day's difficulties past, he heaved a deep sigh and found himself freed of his concerns of time and place and treachery. He let his imaginings drift southward and west to more pleasant thoughts and safer places.

He wondered what Ninévrisë thought tonight and whether she was asleep… whether the gift she had could make her aware of his thinking of her. Some claimed to know when a loved one was in difficulty, or when some great thing had happened completely over the horizon—so the peasants thought, at least, and them good Quinalt men.

Could not a true wizard-gift manage as much?

I love you, he said to the dark.

She was with Emuin, and master grayrobe would have his ear to the earth for very certain: his ear to the earth and his eyes to the sky for portents or whatever wizards looked for. If there was a magical fortress of dragons.html

breath stirring in the world, Emuin might know it, and pass it to Ninévrisë. He himself might be as deaf as his horse to such whispers out of the winds. But in the Zeide wizards and wizardry were constantly aware what went on. The old man likely knew exactly where Tristen was tonight, and where he was: that he was deaf to wizard-work might not
help
a wizard find him, but it had never seemed to hinder the ones he knew, either.

Had Ninévrisë met Tarien Aswydd? Almost certainly. He ached to think how she would have to face his cast-off lover and an unacknowledged child.

And when Ninévrisë and Tarien had met, had there been warfare? He imagined it, at least, but told himself Emuin would mute the quarrel and keep knives from the midst of it.

Might Ninévrisë forgive her? There was a question, too. He thought she might, for Ninévrisë could be astonishingly generous, but he feared that generosity.

And
was
Ninévrisë with child? He was sure of it as he was sure nothing else would have persuaded her to leave him. She was with child… gods help them both… for nothing wizards had a hand in could proceed without convolutions and calamities.

Her child… Tarien's son… both his. He deserved the consequences of his own folly, but he had never thought a bastard or two mattered; he had never counted on loving the woman he married, or loving the offspring he had—how could he have planned on it? The mother of his son was supposed to have been Luriel, and that
Luriel
might take exception to his sleeping elsewhere had simply been a quarrel to save for the right moment in the perpetual warfare of a state marriage.

He thanked all the gods he had escaped Luriel of Murandys.

And he wished to the good gods he had not taken to the Aswydd twins to spite Luriel, to set her in her place as one woman among his many.

Folly, folly, utter folly, and the result of it reached Ninévrisë, at Tristen's sending, of all unlikely sources. When he had gotten Tarien Aswydd a son he had not even known Tristen's name, nor met the woman he would truly marry.

And on that thought he heaved himself onto his other side.

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An object slid atop the bedclothes.

He blinked, eased the covers off his arm, and reached for it.

His hand met a well-worn hilt, a scabbard, and a small roll of some sort attached to it.

His heart skipped a beat. Whatever it meant, it was not his, and it likely was not his guards'.

Who had come so close while he drowsed? How had a sheathed dagger gotten atop his covers while he lay protected by four trusted guards, one at each corner of his tent?

It was stealth bordering on wizard-work, but he could not account for it. If Ryssand or one of Ryssand's men had gotten in, why should they forbear killing him? In the battle there was far less certainty.

Whatever it was, there was not a light to be had in the tent; and he rolled out of bed and went out to his guard. "Bring a torch," he said, and waited with his hands on that leather-bound hilt and the small tight roll of paper. The hilt was cross-laced. It came to him even as he held it in his hands that he knew this dagger, having seen it day after day.

At Idrys' belt.

And was Idrys back? And was this some ill-timed jest at his expense?

Where are you? he asked the unresponsive air. Damn you, what game is this?

Surely, surely Idrys had left him this grim gift, and no enemy had done it: no one could have taken it from Idrys, surely not.

But if Idrys was back in camp—why not stay for questions? What in very hell was this nonsense of daggers and messages?

The guard brought a torch to the door, not inside, beneath the canvas.

But even at that range the light confirmed what his fingers knew, that it was Idrys' dagger.

He had to step outside into the full torchlight to read the crabbed small note tied to the hilt.

My lord king
, it began, and that was indeed Idrys.
She is safe. The
south has crossed the Lenúalim. Keep your own counsel. Ryssand is
not the only danger. Someone within the inmost circles, yours or
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mine, intends to betray us. Be sure I am near, but say nothing
regarding me. I fear lest we make this person desperate.

Is that all? he asked his Lord Commander in silence. He was indignant, wildly angry with the man.

Standing at the door of his tent, blinded by the torchlight, he looked outward into a circle of bleached canvas, all of which informed him nothing, none of which revealed a traitor in his councils.

Was it one he had already excluded? Or was it one he still trusted?

Is that all you can say, crow?

Gods, give me more than this!

—Oh, gods, what have I said in council—and to which of my trusted officers?

CHAPTER 5

They marched, an army now, and gathered scattered bands from woods and hills as they came. "The King!" the newcomers shouted, undeniable in Auld Syes' declaration and the witness of the Shadows that moved with them, a waft of wind, a chill and a movement in thickets.

Two boys, Elwynim peasant lads in ragged clothes, armed with makeshift spears, joined them from across a meadow, knelt briefly in the grass to profess their allegiance, and ran to join the beckoning troop that marched beside the lords' guards: Aeself marshaled them, an unruly mob in some part, but Aeself's men rode in order, and instructed the newcomers, nothing more than how to stand in a line if they brought shields or pikes or instructions to shoot from the woods if they brought bows: most of all Aeself instructed them to respect the red bands and make no mistake in it.

Tristen had refused the honor they gave: to Crissand and Cevulirn and Umanon, riding beside him, he said, "I don't wish it. But I fear wishing against it… I daren't. Can you understand?"

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Umanon blessed himself with a gesture, a Quinalt man, and solid in that faith, like Efanor, clearly wishing not to think about it.

Cevulirn said, "Auld Syes has always told us some form of the truth.

But that, you'd know better than I, Lord of Althalen. And I'd not go against her."

No longer did Cevulirn call him Amefel: he had made that Crissand's honor, and given that banner and the Amefin Guard into Crissand's command, while he took command of all the army—not because he wanted it, but because if magic favorable to him was flowing that direction, he dared not refuse it. "I wish Cefwyn well," Tristen said under his breath, with as much force as he could put into the wish: for he felt an abiding fear now, the sense that something weighty resisted him. He wished Cefwyn well hourly, when circumstances allowed him; he did it mindfully and fiercely, but all the while feared making Cefwyn so evidently the center of his thoughts… and that… that was a dangerous fear in itself. Magic worked to advance Tasmôrden's cause, but magic resisted his own will as nature never had: it was wild and unpredictable, shifting its center moment by moment, as if he contested right of way with someone in a narrow hall. Every move found a counter. It was like swordwork.

It was not like Hasufin at all.

This other thing reached into the world… not everywhere, but at Ilefínian; and, if he sent his senses abroad, from several other discrete points in the map, south and west, and over toward Ynefel, and south toward Henas'amef, and east again, toward Guelemara, and the altar he had set Efanor to ward… he felt not a scattered assault, but a simultaneous one, as if something vast struggled to escape. Force skipped and thrust against those scattered portals, a force changing direction by the moment, able to do this, do that, change footing, no consulting its charts and awaiting its proper moment.

In the haste and confusion of Unfolding world he had not early on noticed a difference in the effort it took him to do things, or known why some things worked easily and some eluded him with unpredictable result. It was like Paisi, whose young legs darted up stairs without thinking: it was easy for Paisi, so he did it: but Emuin, aching in every bone, planned his trips on the stairs carefully and begrudged every one.

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Magic was easy for him.
Everything
had been easy for him in Ynefel.

Think! Mauryl had had to tell him. Flesh as well as spirit! Don't let one fly without the other!

Mauryl had pinned him to earth, and made him do things the slow, the thoughtful way. Emuin had taught him to reckon his way through difficulties, how to govern Men without wishing them capriciously one way or the other… how to deal with friends, and how to have Men of free will about him: that was the greatest gift, greater than life itself.

What must it have been for a wizard like Mauryl, bound to times and seasons, to try to teach such a creature as he was?
I never know what
you'll take in your head to do
, Mauryl had complained to him, and now he understood that saying, that it was not just running naked in the storm on the parapet, but willing and wishing and having his own way.

What must it have been to try to teach one ready to wish this and wish that, a dozen spells in a day, and power Unfolding to him by the day and the moment, events tumbling one over the other? A passing moth had been as fascinating to him as a lightning stroke, and when he wanted something, tides flowed through the gray space that he had not yet perceived existed: to him in those days, the world had drowned all his senses in color and taste and noise.