Кэролайн Черри - Fortress in the Eye of Time

“Silver,” he murmured, coming back from that Place, remembering the black threads and the silver mirror. He wondered where he should find silver other than that — then put a hand to his chest, where the chain and the amulet lay, which Emuin had worn, before he gave it to Cefwyn and Cefwyn had given it to him.

He took it off, silver and belonging to two people who had wished him well, one of them not unskilled in wishing. He eased the sword from its sheath.

“My lord,” Uwen said in a hushed and anxious voice, and stirred from his chair. “What in the godsʼ good name are ye doinʼ, there?”

He could not spare the thought to explain. He took the Teranthine circlet on its chain and held it in his hand while he passed the blade of the sword through it. He saw no way to anchor it but to bend it, and he bent the circlet until it met on either side of the hilt — with all the strength of his fingers he bent it, and shaped it, and bound the chain around it.

When he looked up at Uwen then, Uwen was watching in mingled curiosity and fear. “Silver. And what beast would be ye hunting wiʼ such a thing, mʼlord?”

He had no idea why silver should have effect — only that in that Place the dark threads evaded it.

And it shone. It soothed. It felt right. Mauryl had done such odd things. The pigeons had known. The old mice in the walls had known. He had known. Could living things not feel, smell, breathe, sense such things when they were right? He would ask Emuin how that was, but Emuin had faded away into distance, having, perhaps, prompted him: the touch had been that slight.

He fingered the worn leather hilt, the iron pommel. It was an old hilt, but a new and strong blade, so the armorer had declared; and so he felt with his hands and his sense of what should be: it was a blade forged in fire for honor, carried in stealth for murder and taken for defense of a dead king and a living one, by a man himself neither dead nor alive. There was enough improbable about it to satisfy whatever oddness he could think of, and whatever demand there was in attacking a Shadow without substance.

“Uwen. You have that little harness knife.”

“Aye, mʼlord,” Uwen said, and pulled it from his belt and gave it to him, a very small blade. And with that sharp point, as if it were a pen on parchment, he began to work on the surface of the blade while Uwen watched over his shoulder.

Designs: letters. On one side he scratched laboriously the flowing letters of Stellyrhas, that was Illusion; and on the other face he wrote, in severe characters, Merhas, that was Truth. What speech it was, he did not immediately know, but in one world or the other it had meaning. It was hard to make any scoring on the metal. The knife grew blunted. His fingers ached. But he persisted, while sweat started on his face.

Then he began to work, slowly, painstakingly, to widen those letters, though scarcely could the eye see them.

Uwen watched in silence, perhaps fearing to interrupt him, although he would not have objected to interruption now: it was only a task; his thoughts were at peace. Sweat ran on his face and he wiped at it with the back of his hand and worked on what had now become elaboration in the design, for beautyʼs sake, because he did nothing haphazardly, on what became determination, because he would not abandon the small idea he had of what he faced, in substance and in insubstance.

Perhaps Uwen expected some magic. After a long time Uwen gave up and sat down on his cot.

“You should go to sleep,” he said to Uwen. “You should rest.”

“Are you going to do something, mʼlord?”

“Not tonight,” he said. He rubbed the design with his hand. Marks on the metal wove in and out, and it at last seemed right to him.

— Finished? Emuin asked him, at cost, and from two days away. He had known Emuin was there — or at least knew Emuin had come close for the last several moments. The letters shone under his fingers, bridging here and there, as though he could thread one within the other .

— Am I right? he asked Emuin. Or am I foolish? — I was afraid today, master Emuin. I saw Ynefel. I was almost there. I fell into his trap, and I had no weapon — I could not take it there .

— The edge too has a name , Emuin whispered to him, ignoring his question. Emuinʼs presence in the grayness very quickly became drawn thin, scarcely palpable, and desperate. He will know. An old Galasieni conundrum. The edge is the answer. I cannot help you further. You are Galasienʼs last illusion, Man of the Edge, and, it may be, its noblest. I hope for what Mauryl did. I hope — Boy, — boy. Did he show you — did he show you—?

— What, sir? What should he have shown me?

Emuin began to say. He thought so, at least. But the presence had gone. Deeply, finally, the weak threads of communion with Henasʼamef were pulling apart, the fabric unweaving in little rips and gaps. He could not reach it now. He tried, and was back at that lattice-work of Lines and light that was Althalen. It answered to him. But Emuin did not .

Not dead, he thought. But at the end of what strength Emuin had mustered for himself. He feared for the old man, who, not brave, had found courage to fight not for his own health, but for Cefwynʼs. He feared for all of them — and he did not know what Emuin meant — or even how he had come here, except that Henasʼamef still stood untroubled, and that Althalen had become safe, sheltering all of them within its reach —

It was Althalen that gave him respite from the Shadow and rest from his struggle .

It was Althalen that would keep Ninévrisë safe tomorrow. It was Althalen that had taken the messenger to its rest .

But he himself could not hide in it. Resting here was not why Mauryl had Summoned him into the world .

He drew a deep breath. He plunged his face into his hands and wiped his eyes, then flung his head back, exhausted, not knowing, save from Althalen, where he was to get the strength — not the courage, for tomorrow, but simply the strength to get on a horse and go, knowing that Cefwyn relied on him, that Emuin relied on him, that the lady relied on him — and that, in a different and far more personal way, Uwen did.

Uwen was sleeping — Uwen dropped off so easily, and slept so innocently: he envied that ability, only to sleep, and not to find the night another journey, to worse and stranger places than the day, and another struggle, that did not give him rest.

But he had hours to spend before the dawn, and if he could do more than he had done, he had to try. He had Althalen, if he knew how to use it, if he dared another vision such as he had had on the brink of the ruin.

He knew of himself that he was not good — or had not been, once and long ago.

He knew of himself that such as Ynefel was, he was responsible for it being.

He knew of himself that he had more than killed his enemy, he had used the innocent.

Or — he thought that he knew these things. He had no map to lead him through the gray place. He had no Words written there to say, this is Truth, and this is Illusion.

Here he had made a sword to divide them. Here he had Maurylʼs Book, and Maurylʼs mirror — though only the sword seemed of use to him, he did not think it was Maurylʼs intention. It was not, it occurred to him, Maurylʼs gift.

He had a few hours yet. He had not failed until those hours were gone. So while Uwen slept, while the servants slept, and even his guards drowsed, he moved his chair closer to the tent-pole, where the lamp shed its light.