Fortress of Owls Read online

  Mauryl called his Summoning…Tristen. And the day Mauryl lost his struggle with Hasufin, Tristen, a young man with the innocence of the newly born, set forth into 10 / C. J. CHERRYH

  the world, hoping to do the things Mauryl intended.

  The Road which began from Ynefel led Tristen not to a wizard, who would teach him, as Tristen had hoped, but straight to Prince Cefwyn, on a night when, despising his host, Heryn Aswydd, Cefwyn was sleeping with Heryn’s twin sisters, Orien and Tarien.

  Tristen was as innocent a soul as ever Cefwyn had met…in-capable of anger, feckless, and utterly outspoken, but wizardous at the very least. When Tristen confessed he was Mauryl’s, Cefwyn’s curiosity was immediately engaged; and when Cefwyn began to deal with Tristen, he found himself snared indeed—for after his grandfather’s anger and his father’s cold dislike of him, after the northern lords’ wish for Efanor and his own brother’s desertion, this was the only wholehearted offer of a stranger’s friendship he had ever met.

  Meanwhile Tristen continued to learn…for he was a blank slate on which Mauryl’s spell was still writing, Unfolding new things in wizardous fashion, at need, and providing him knowledge unpredictable in its scope and its deficiency. Tristen wondered at butterflies…and asked questions that shot straight to the prince’s heart.

  Cefwyn’s affection toward this wizardous stranger made Duke Heryn Aswydd hasten his plans… for Cefwyn was growing fey and difficult. Heryn used King Ináreddrin’s suspicion of his son to lure the king and Prince Efanor to Amefel…hoping then to do away with Cefwyn and the younger prince in the same stroke as the king, and thus overthrow the Marhanen dynasty.

  Prince Efanor, however, had not ridden with the king; he had ridden straight to Cefwyn to accuse and berate his brother, determined to find out the truth ahead of their father’s arrival, to spring any trap upon himself if one existed. It was a brave act.

  And when

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 11

  Cefwyn knew his father had listened to Lord Heryn, he was horrified, and rode at once to prevent the ambush, no matter the danger.

  He arrived too late, and was almost overwhelmed by the force that had killed the king; but the knowledge of warfare Unfolded to Tristen that day, on that battlefield, and the gentle stranger turned warrior. He rescued the princes, defeated Heryn’s allies—and when Cefwyn reached Henas’amef not only unexpectedly alive, but king of Ylesuin, Heryn paid with his life for his treason.

  Tristen, however, strayed into the hills, where he fell in with the Lord Regent of Elwynor, who was dying, in hiding from the same enemies as had killed his old enemy Ináreddrin. The old Regent’s last wish was to bring his daughter Ninévrisë to Cefwyn Marhanen—as his bride…for the only hope for the Regency now was peace with Ylesuin.

  So Tristen brought Lady Ninévrisë to Cefwyn, and Cefwyn Marhanen, new king of Ylesuin, fell headlong in love with the new Regent of Elwynor.

  Tristen, for his services, became a lord of Ylesuin, no longer mocked for his simplicity, but now feared, for no one who had seen him fight could discount him. And Heryn’s sister Orien became duchess of Amefel, since Cefwyn was not ready to set aside the entire dynasty, and had seen none but ordinary flaws in Orien. Orien, however, was bent on revenge and lied in her oaths. Lacking armies, lacking skill in war, she sought another means to power…and became prey to sorcerous whispers from the enemy, Hasufin Heltain.

  Hasufin’s immediate goal was an entry into the fortress of Henas’amef, but because of Tristen and Emuin, he could not breach the wards: so he moved his pawn Orien to make an attempt on Cefwyn’s life, moved another pawn to attempt Emuin’s life, and at the same time drew the rebel army across the river in all-out war.

  12 / C. J. CHERRYH

  The first two failed. The third was aimed at Tristen, whom Hasufin recognized as Mauryl’s last and most effective weapon.

  Sorcery would be at its strongest in a moment of chance and upheaval, and there was no moment of upheaval greater than the shifting tides of a battlefield: thus Hasufin made his strongest bid to break into the world and destroy Tristen, who stood between him and life and substance.

  In the world of Men, at a place called Lewenbrook, near Ynefel, the Elwynim rebels, under Lord Aséyneddin, met Cefwyn Marhanen’s opposing army. That was the conflict Men fought.

  But when Aséyneddin faltered, Hasufin sent out tides of sorcery in reckless disregard. A wall of Shadow rolled down on the field, and those it touched it took and did not give up. It was Hasufin’s manifestation, and all aimed at Tristen’s destruction.

  Tristen, however, took up magic as he took up his weapons, when the challenge came. When Hasufin Heltain loosed his sorcery, Tristen rode into the Shadow, penetrated into Ynefel itself, and drove Hasufin from his unsteady Place in the world.

  Cefwyn meanwhile had prevailed in the unnatural darkness, and when the sun broke free of the Shadow, he had held his army together. Aséyneddin’s forces, such as survived, shattered and ran in panic.

  It was a long way back to the world, however, from where Tristen had gone. Exhausted, hurt, at the end of his purpose, Tristen resigned his wizard-made life, finished with Mauryl’s purpose, too weary to wake to the world of Men.

  But he had once given his shieldman Uwen, an ordinary Man with not a shred of magic in him, the power to call his name.

  This Uwen did, the devotion of a simple man seeking his lost lord on the battlefield, and Tristen came.

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 13

  There was a moment, then, when Cefwyn stood victorious over the rebels, that he might have launched forward into Elwynor: the southern lords had rallied to the new king, and would have followed him. But Cefwyn saw his army badly battered and in need of regrouping, he knew the enemy was on the run, meaning they would sink invisibly into Elwynor, and he knew, as a new king, he had left matters uncertain behind him. The majority of his kingdom did not even know they had changed one king for another, and the treaty he had made with Ninévrisë had never reached his people.

  It was the end of summer. Good campaigning weather still remained, but harsh northern winters could make fighting impossible. So for good or for ill, Cefwyn opted not to plunge his exhausted army, lacking maps or any sort of preparation, into the unknown situation inside Elwynor, which had been several years in anarchy and still had rival claimants to the Regency.

  Instead he chose to regroup, settle his domestic affairs, marry the lady Regent, ratify the marriage treaty, and rally the rest of his kingdom behind him in a campaign to begin in the spring.

  He went home, trusting his father’s trusted men, gathering up his brother Efanor, and attempting simply to take up the power of the monarchy as it had been. But when he reached his capital, he discovered his father’s closest friends among the barons meant to wrest the power into their own hands…as his father had let them do much as they pleased for years. It was no longer a matter of the northernmost barons preferring Efanor. They had had a king they could rule, they meant to have another one, and in their minds Cefwyn was a wastrel prince who would be a weak king: he could be managed, they had said among themselves, if they kept him diverted.

  That was not, however, the king who came home to 14 / C. J. CHERRYH

  them: Cefwyn arrived surrounded by their southern rivals, who were clearly in favor, and allied to Mauryl’s heir, betrothed to the Elwynim Regent, and proposing war on the Elwynim rebels.

  This was not Ináreddrin’s dissolute son: it was Selwyn’s hard-handed grandson, and the barons were appalled.

  So they took a new tactic…they were older, cannier, more experienced in court politics. They would use the priests, prevent the marriage, treat the lady Regent as a captive—and seize land in Elwynor.

  Cefwyn was as determined to bring them into line and shake the kingdom into order. He sent the southern barons home to attend their harvests and prepare for war, all but Cevulirn, whose horsemen had less reliance on such seasons and who stayed as a shadowy observer for southern interests.
/>   In Elwynor, meanwhile, another of the rebel lords, the survivor of all the others, took advantage of the confusion to bring his army out of the hills, besiege his own capital of Ilefínian, and declare the lady Regent captive in the hands of the Marhanen king.

  Cefwyn took measures to ensure that the Quinalt would approve the marriage and the treaty by which he would agree to put Elwynor in the hands of Ninévrisë as lady Regent, independent of the Crown of Ylesuin.

  The barons retaliated with an attempt to limit the monarchy over them.

  And if Tristen had been feared in the south, he found he was abhorred in the north. He kept to the shadows…for Cefwyn, fighting for his right to wed the woman he loved and trying to wrest back sovereignty in his own capital, feared Tristen’s being caught up in the fight.

  Obscurity, however, only increased the mystery. The barons saw Tristen as an influence on Cefwyn that must be eliminated.

  On a night when lightning,

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 15

  whether by chance or wizardry, struck the Quinalt roof, a penny in the offering in the Quinaltine was found to be Sihhë coinage, with forbidden symbols on it; and the charge was forbidden wizardry, attacking the Quinalt and the gods.

  Cefwyn suspected that His Holiness the Patriarch was devious enough to substitute the damning coin, and Cefwyn moved quickly to force the Patriarch into his camp. But the coin together with the lightning threw the wider court into such alarm that Cefwyn felt compelled to remove Tristen from controversy. In what he thought a clever and protective stroke, he sent Tristen back to Amefel not as a refugee in disgrace, but as duke of Amefel…a replacement for the viceroy he had left in charge.

  Now this viceroy was Parsynan, appointed on the advice of some of these same troublesome barons, notably Murandys and Ryssand…for Cefwyn had exiled Orien Aswydd and her sister to a Teranthine nunnery for their betrayal, and had never appointed another duke, until now.

  Hearing that Tristen was going to Amefel, and that Parsynan was recalled, Corswyndam Lord Ryssand panicked, fearing that certain records might fall into the king’s hands. So he sent a rider to advise Parsynan of his imminent replacement.

  Corswyndam’s courier rode hard enough to reach the town of Henas’amef, the Amefin capital, ahead of the royal messenger bearing the official notice. Parsynan quite naively brought his local ally Lord Cuthan, an Aswydd by remote kinship, into his confidence, since this man had supported him against his brother earls before.

  Cuthan, however, was in on a plot by the Elwynim to create war in Amefel, a distraction for Cefwyn, and the plan was to seize the citadel, on the promise Elwynim troops would then invade and engage with the king’s 16 / C. J. CHERRYH

  forces. Cuthan not only failed to warn Parsynan it was coming…but he also said nothing to warn his brother lords that a detachment of the king’s forces was about to arrive. One or the other would happen first, and Cuthan meant to stay safe.

  So, ignorant of important pieces of information, certain Amefin lords, led by Earl Edwyll of Meiden, seized the South Court of the fortress of Amefel to wait for Elwynim support.

  In the same hour, losing courage, Cuthan told the other earls the king’s forces were coming, and there were as yet no Elwynim.

  The other earls failed to join Edwyll…which suited Cuthan: he and Edwyll were old rivals, and now Edwyll was guilty of treason, sitting in the fortress with the king’s forces approaching.

  And none of the rest of them were guilty of anything.

  In a thunderstroke, before anyone had thought, Tristen arrived and, to the cheers of the populace, moved swiftly uphill to the fortress to take possession. The earls of Amefel rapidly set themselves on the winning side.

  Edwyll, meanwhile, died, having enjoyed a cup of wine out of Orien Aswydd’s cups, untouched since the place was sealed at her exile…and whether Edwyll’s death was latent wizardry attached to Orien’s property, or simple bad luck, the command of the rebels now devolved to Edwyll’s son, thane Crissand, who was forced to surrender. Tristen now had the fortress in his hands.

  Not satisfied with the death of Earl Edwyll, however, 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 dismissed Lord Parsynan from the town in the middle of the night and without his possessions, scandalous treatment of a noble king’s officer, but if there was

  FORTRESS OF OWLS / 17

  anything wanting to make Tristen the hero of Henas’amef, this settled matters: the people 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 offended the Guelen clerks who had come with Tristen, for Crissand owned Tristen as his overlord after the Aswydd kind, aetheling, a royal lord, reopening 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.

  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 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 Ryssand’s letter posthaste to Guelessar, while Cuthan, revealed for a traitor to both sides, took advantage of Tristen’s leniency to flee to Elwynor.

  In the capital, Ryssand knew he had to move quickly to lessen the king’s power against any baron, and one of his clerks had reported that the office of Regent of Elwynor, which Ninévrisë

  claimed, included priestly functions. So at Ryssand’s instigation, the Holy Quinalt rose up in protest of a woman in priestly rites, which 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, and if she agreed to accept a priest of that faith as her priest, leaving aside other difficult

  18 / C. J. CHERRYH

  questions, the Quinalt would perform the wedding.

  The barons now came with the last and worst: 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, and Ryssand’s son Brugan brought the charges to Cefwyn, along with a document giving much of his power to the barons, which was clearly the alternative.

  Therein Ryssand overstepped himself: it gave an excuse for a loyal baron, Cevulirn of Ivanor, to challenge Brugan and, by killing him, change the character of the effort. The gods had let a man of the king’s kill the man who made the charge, and if Ryssand should make public the attack on Ninévrisë, that fact would come out.

  But if it should, someone would challenge Cevulirn, and another and another…or if it did not, Ryssand could not be expected to deal civilly with the man who had killed his son. Cefwyn still hoped to deal with the other barons, and would cast the killing as a private quarrel to prevent the issue becoming public.

  But that meant Cevulirn had to leave court, and Cefwyn girded himself for a confrontation in court with a powerful baron who had just lost his son…a confrontation that might yet tear the kingdom apart if the other barons stood with Ryssand.

  Into this situation Ryssand’s incriminating letter arrived secretly into Cefwyn’s hands…and Cefwyn thus had the means to suggest Ryssand 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.
/>   And rule he does, in the first glorious winter of his wizard-summoned life.

  BOOK

  ONE

  C H A P T E R 1

  Master Emuin had packed in a night, when His Majesty in Guelemara had decreed a new duke for Amefel. Baskets, barrels, and bundles had gone out of master Emuin’s tower room in the Guelesfort in the heart of Guelemara and into wagons that night of storm and departure, and after a slow transit between provinces, up they had come, a week and more later, into the appointed tower in the fortress of Henas’amef.

  But when master Emuin’s new tower room had reached its apparent limits, as it had on the day following his arrival, why, baskets and bundles coming up for the week afterward had necessarily accumulated on the stairs and on the very small landing, hardly more than a step, that gave a servant, a petitioner, or the new duke of Amefel himself scant place to stand and knock for admittance.

  “Master Emuin?”

  “Leave it on the stairs! Gods bless, fool, there’s no more room!”

  “Master Emuin, it’s Tristen, if you please.”

  Footsteps crossed the floor. The door opened. The old man peered out, hair disarrayed and gusting past his face in a cold wind and a white daylight that said the shutters were open despite the snow sifting down outside.

  “Master Emuin, you’ll freeze.” Tristen pushed through the door into the round tower room, where, indeed, shut 22 / C. J. CHERRYH

  ters were wide to the winds and windows were blazing white with winter sky. Emuin was wrapped in a heavy traveling cloak, and so was Tristen, but for different reasons, Tristen was sure.

  Master Emuin had kept his room in the Guelesfort in similar state, but in the milder days of autumn, and, however new to his authority over the old man, Tristen was certainly not disposed to tolerate that state of affairs here.

  Consequently, he began closing shutters.

  To Emuin’s clear indignation: “And how am I to see, pray?”