Кэролайн Черри - Fortress in the Eye of Time

— Come ahead, then. Do your fingers still sting? — But there are no fingers, are there? No fingers, no heart,…no manhood. Mere food for carnal worms, a repast for maggots. A beetle has his home in your skull. He has your eyes for windows…A fat, well-fed beetle, a fine, upstanding fellow. I like him much better .

— The end of your strength, Gestaurien. Words, words, words, all vacuous breath. Shall I be wounded? Shall I flee in terror? I think not. — I see a loose latch. I do …

Bang! went the shutter, and kept rattling .

— Tristen, is it? Tristen. A boy. And careless, in the way of boys. He might forget a latch, the way you forgot his cup — and the shutter — tonight. Was that accident? Do you suppose it was accident?

The air seemed close, full of menace. The shutter rattled perilously. Mauryl rose up, seized his staff, and it stopped .

Thump, went the next shutter, making his heart jump .

— Worried? asked the Wind .

— Come ahead, I say. Why donʼt you? How many years did it take you to recover the last time you misjudged me? Twenty? More than twenty? Intrude into my keep again. Come, try again, thou nest for worms. You might be lucky. Or not .

It made no reply. It rolled in on itself with none of its accustomed mockery. It nursed secrets, tonight. It restrained something it by no means wanted to say .

Mauryl bowed his head against his staff and put forth all his guard, wary of a sudden reversal. But nothing came. He reached not a breath, not a whisper of presence .

He sent his thoughts further still, around the rock of the fortress, and through its cracks and crevices .

But no further than that. He found limits to his will that had never been there, perhaps the limits of his own defenses — or perhaps not his construction at all, but a prisoning so subtly constructed he had had no suspicion of it until now .

Sweat stood on his brow with the effort to catch the wind in his nets. But there was, no matter how fine he made them, not a breath within his reach .

He might believe, then, that the prison was illusory, that, as in the long, long past, he still found no limit but himself. But he feared not. He feared, that was the difficulty. Fear slipped so easily toward doubt — and doubt to the suspicion that his old enemy had no wish for encounter, not on his terms .

He would not be so fortunate, this time, in choosing the moment .

He had known as much, in his heart of hearts. His old student knew it, and sought as yet no direct contest .

He could see Mauryl in the silver reflection, standing behind his shoulder. Mauryl waited, expecting him to cut himself, Tristen was well certain— believing he would cut himself. Mauryl had warned him the blade was sharp and showed him how to hold it.

He might grow a beard, Mauryl said, except Mauryl said that beards were for priests and wizards, that he was neither, and that, besides, it would not suit him. So Mauryl had given him the very sharp blade, a whetstone and, the wonder of the occasion, a polished silver Mirror.

Of course, he thought. Of course, and knew that men could, after all, see their own faces. Mauryl had said magic was what wizards did, and the mirror was clearly a magical thing. Tristen made small grimaces at himself, sampled his expressions to see if they were what he thought, and most of all noticed his imperfections: for one, that his mouth sulked if he frowned, and for another that his eyes had no clear color — unlike Maurylʼs, which were murky blue.

But the beard Mauryl had set him to remove was only a few patchy spots, and a shadow of a mustache — that was the itching, and he agreed with Mauryl about having it off, seeing it looked in no wise like Maurylʼs, no more than his dark, unruly mop of hair looked like Maurylʼs silver mane.

There were virtues to his face, all the same, he thought, in such silver-glazed essence as the mirror showed him. It was a regular face, and he could make it pleasant. His skin was smooth where Maurylʼs was not. His mouth — the mustaches shaded Maurylʼs — seemed more full, his nose was indeed straight where Maurylʼs bent, his brows were dark as his hair, with which he was well acquainted, since it swung this side and that when he worked, and fell in his eyes when he read.

There were certainly worse faces among the images in the walls. Far worse. He supposed he should be glad. He supposed it was a good face.

He guided a last flick of the bronze knife.

“Mauryl, it stings.” There was a dark spot. He wiped it with his fingers and found blood.

“Now does it?”

He rubbed his chin a second time, feeling not the sting of the knife but the tingle of Maurylʼs cures.

“No,” he said, and washed his fingers and the knife in the pan, and looked again. His face seemed too…unexpressive. His hair was always in his way: Maurylʼs behaved; but if he had as much beard as Mauryl, with such dark hair, he would be all shadows.

And Mauryl was shining silver.

He was vaguely disappointed, not knowing why he should care…but he had made up a face for himself out of the shadow in the water barrel, and he found his real one both more vivid and less like Maurylʼs.

Maybe he should cut the hair, too, at least the part that fell in his eyes. But he doubted where, or with what effect.

“A clean face,” Mauryl said. And as he offered the knife back, with the whetstone: “A proper face. — No, keep them. I have no need. And you will have, hereafter.”

Mauryl had stopped talking lately about going away. But since the day Mauryl had threatened that, and given him the Book, every time he heard a hint of change, every time Mauryl talked about not needing this and not caring about that, no matter how small or foolish a matter, he felt a coldness settle on his heart.

He tried. He did try to read the writing Mauryl had said was his answer and their mutual deliverance from danger. But he made no gains. He had no swift answers, the way Maurylʼs writing came to him. It had been days and days with no understanding at all, beyond what few words he thought he read, and he began to doubt those.

Most of all, Mauryl seemed weary with no reason, simply weary and wearier as the days slipped by. Maurylʼs eyes showed it most, and often Mauryl turned away from an encounter as if he carried some besetting thought with him. There was no spirit, no liveliness. Mauryl seemed to lose his thoughts, and to wander away from him in indirection.

“I have no need,” Mauryl said, as if he had forgotten whether he had said that.

“Mauryl,” he said, stopping him in his course to the study table, “Mauryl, what have I done? Have I done something wrong?”

Mauryl regarded him for a moment as if he had thoughts far elsewhere, saying nothing. Then he seemed to reach some resolution, frowned, and said, “No, lad. No fault of yours.”

“Then what fault, master Mauryl?”

“A question,” Mauryl said. “A deep question. — Someday, perhaps sooner than I would wish, Tristen lad, you must make choices for yourself. You must go where you see to go. Do you hear? You should go where you see to go.”

It was by no means the answer he had looked for, none of this ‘sooner than I would wish,ʼ and ‘go where you see to go.ʼ It was not the way Mauryl had promised him.

“You said if I should read the Book, master Mauryl, you said you would stay.”

“Have you read the Book?” A sharp, fierce look of Maurylʼs eyes transfixed him. “Have you?”