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—
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
.

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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
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likeness, all grays, living magic, the third force, balanced between
Shadow and Sun.

—
Barrakketh, it whispered, but he would not own that name
.

—
I know you, it said, as Hasufin had said, but he would not be
limited by what it knew
.

Instead he recalled an age of watching the suns above the ice, raising
the stones of a great, solid fortress to hold the Lines of the World
against the ceaseless change of magic.

He recalled the gathering of those who could answer a wizard's call
when it came, for a barrier was breached. The unthinkable had
happened. Time itself circled around and around that moment,
around those few who could keep the gray space in check.

—
Five who failed, the Wind taunted him: it was a willful creature,
and destroyed without a thought: it changed and made change: that
was what magic did. It slid, and shifted, like a step on ice
.

—
You can only reflect me, he answered it, the untaught truth, for it
had Shaped itself in the image of all it knew, all it saw outside the
gray void where it existed… it was the changing mirror of all it met:
the Book had said these things. That was the dark secret, the one that
would not Unfold to him. He saw the gray force, the middle one, the
force in the breach
.

—
Hasufin wanted that knowledge so, mused the Wind. He wanted
that Book to know what he had done. He thought there was a way to
bind me. He was mistaken. The Sihhë failed. He was doomed
.

—No,
Tristen said, for in a leap of fear he saw the danger it posed in
its accommodation to his Shape: it reasoned in his own voice and he
had begun to listen to it. In its gray reflection of himself he saw the
chance to learn more and more and more of what he was, and to find
what the Shape withheld from him
.

But it would gather him in if he listened to it. Yes, it would answer the
questions. It would mirror all the world, and bring all his desires
within his reach, all encompassed, all answered, all perfect, and
complete.

But the world he loved was less orderly, less perfect.

The world he loved defied him and caused him grief, and contained
the warmth of the Sun and the voices of friends. It held the smell of
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rain, the taste of honey, and the softness of feathers.

A throng of foolish birds, a scramble after bread crumbs.

Owl's nip at his finger.

Emuin's frown. Crissand's smile. Cefwyn's wry laughter.

—No,
he said a second time, shaking his head. And, No, a third time,
and with a sweep of the sword he drew a burning Line between Truth
and Illusion
.

He stood in the pouring rain on the parapets of Ynefel in the next beat of his heart. The Wind rushed over the walls at him, edged with bitter cold, and tried to hurl him down.

He Called the wards of Ynefel and they sprang up in light… the Lines not only of the fortress, but Lines alight all through Marna Wood, all along the old Road, all along the river shore:
Galasien's
Lines rose to life, and Lines spun out and out through the woods, the shape in light of the ancient city, recalling what had been, what could not now be.

"Crissand!" Tristen cried, realizing the danger of that slide backward.

He hurled himself into the gray space, to go back to all that he had left at risk… but his attempt careened off into the winds. He Called further: now Althalen's wards leapt up, and the blue of the Lines rose up and raced on and on across the land.

At Henas'amef, the Zeide flared bright as a winter moon, and all the Lines of the town and its walls leapt to life. The light of Lines raced along outward roads like dew on a spiderweb, touched villages, touched Modeyneth. Light ran along the foundations of the Wall that Drusenan had raised. Blue fire touched Anwyll's camp, and raced along the bridge, and across the river to the camp, and on to the trail of the army, through woods and meadows.

He had no Place, and had every Place. The lightning chained about him, and the light of the gray place ran along his hand and into the tracery of silver on his sword. He had no wish to do harm. He had no wish to end his existence.

—
Pride, pride, pride, the Wind mocked him. It was certainly
Mauryl's undoing. So do you inherit his mantle, Shaping? You think
you can keep me out
?

—
You invited me in, he reminded the Wind. I hold you to that
.

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It disliked that. It strengthened its wards against him. And for the
second time the Wind gathered Shape, reflecting him, as if a young
man wrapped himself in a cloak of shifting shadow, and glanced
mockingly over his shoulder.

—
Do you like what you see, Mauryl's creature? Question, question,
question everyone, but never the best question… what are you?

Mauryl's creature? Mauryl's maker? Come, be brave, ask yourself
that question. I'll give you this: we aren't that different, you and I.

He could never resist questions. Questions led him, distracted him, carried him through the world forgetful of his own substance and fearful of what he might find.

But among those questions he remembered the fabric of that cloak…

a roiling of shadow and smoke beyond a railing. Then he asked a different, unasked question: why now? Why not Lewenbrook? Why come through Hasufin, until now?

Then he knew what had changed since Lewenbrook. Then he was sure whence it had come… not out of Ilefínian, where it had now taken hold: but it was never lord there in the Lord Regent's domain.

The breach had come elsewhere, magic breaking forth from a tangled maze of shadows, repeated attempts to ward it in.

Lines built upon and rebuilt, until its ally sent the lightning down…

confounding the Lines that Men had built, breaking a small gap wider. Ilefínian was the second step.

And he had redrawn that Line…
there
! Tristen said to himself, and with a thought carried himself to the ward he had traced on the stones of the Quinaltine shrine.

Here
he engaged his enemy, and
here
he brought the new Line up in brilliant light, in a place of chanting and incense, and sudden consternation.

"Gods!" Efanor cried, armed and armored, amid guards and priests as he faced the intrusion on his long watch. "
Amefel
!"

"Stand fast!" Tristen said, for the gray space broke forward, rushed at the Line: and when it could not cross that barrier on the new stones, spilled upward like smoke, spiraling up to the rafters. The Wind tugged at the heraldic banners between the columns, rising up and up toward the gap that had once been there, a mended gap that suddenly fortress of dragons.html

and with a rending of timbers opened to the sky.

"Amefel!" Efanor cried as timbers crashed like thunder among the benches, splintering wood, resounding on stone. "What's happened?

Are we lost?"

"Not yet!" Tristen wheeled the sword about, struck a clanging blow to the Line on the stones, and called the Shadows up and up, until blue fire leapt from the blade to the rafters. Shadows rushed into that breach in the roof, a rift in the wards that had let the gray space rip wide, a Line straight to Ilefínian's unprotected heart.

Owl made a swift passage behind the columns about the shrine, routing a last few Shadows, and rose up, up on the draft.

"Stand fast!" Tristen asked of Efanor, and hurled himself through the gray space, seeking to breach the wards the enemy had made.

But the mews began to remake itself about him, glowing with blue light, row on row of perches, Shadows that raised ominous wings and battered the air, defying him, defying the Lines that now existed, ready to rend and destroy.

But Emuin, besieged in his tower, wind-battered, waved a bony arm and wished him on his way north, as Men measured the heavens.

"The Year of Years, young lord! This age is yours! You, young lord,
you
claim it! Do
as you must! Go
!"

A flock of birds started up at his passage, wings brushing the gray space: his frail, silly companions of lost hours… he was startled by their rise into the mews, and seeing them so frail and foolish against the Shadows, he spread his magic wide to protect them on the wing: he wished them up, and through all hazard—for a way out was what they sought.

The winged ghosts of the mews rushed up as well, but his flock turned in a wide sweep, wings flashing against the roiling dark, by his wish evading the killers. Owl rushed by like a mad thing, losing feathers, himself nearly prey.

—
Fly, he wished Owl. And Crissand. And Cefwyn, and all the
wizards of Men who had ever drawn a Line against this thing. He
followed Owl, tried to thread the needle through the wards of
Ilefínian… and found himself instead flung to the Edge with his back
to the brink
.

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The mirror-youth faced him, the gray space flashing with storm.

Tristen stood fast, going neither forward nor back, calling the light of
the gray space into his sword until the silver on the blade burned
blinding bright. Truth, one side said, and Illusion, the other, and the
line between the two he aimed at the heart of his enemy.

—
Shaping of Mauryl, it taunted his defense. Bind me, you upstart?

Banish me, do you think? Go back into the dark, foolish Shaping,
until you learn my name
!

—
For him I bind you, Lord of Magic! For Mauryl! And for Hasufin,
when he was Mauryl's friend
!

The Wind roared over him, an outraged wall of gray, and the force
that attempted to form about him, to Shape itself about his shape,
sundered itself on the sword's edge, and lost all form. He could not
see its fall, or if it fell, but behind him there was nothing but the
Edge.

… or
the reflection in the rain barrel
.

… or
the endless rush of wind and cloud into the void
.

The wards it had woven, threads stretched from the Quinaltine and
wound about Ilefínian… collapsed like a wall going down.

"M'lord," he heard from a great distance. "M'lord, we could truly use your help, if ye hear me."

Thunder cracked. He stood in that hall in Ilefínian with Crissand at his side, and the archers loosed arrows as Crissand gave a wild cry and charged them… battered them with shield and sword all the way to the door, where Crissand stood, sword in hand, glancing out into the hall.

Then back. "Which way?" Crissand asked.