While he sat, he tried earnestly, fervently, to read his Book, telling himself that now, perhaps, once the moment called for it, Words might come to him and show him everything Mauryl had wanted of him in his command to read this Book, things which would prevent Mauryl going on the Road, and which would prevent his having to go, as well.
But hours passed in his efforts, and in his fear. The shadow of the walls joined the shadow of the tower and grew long across the courtyard stones.
At last the shadow touched the walls, complete across the courtyard, and he knew that on any ordinary day he should be inside and off the parapets and out of the courtyard by now. He was thinking that when the wind suddenly picked up, skirled up the dead leaves from a corner of the wall, and those leaves rose higher and higher, dancing down the paving stones toward the tower.
And back again. That was odd for a wind to do. It was a chill wind as it touched him. The pigeons, while he read, had deserted the courtyard stones, seeking their towers for the night. The shadows, while he read, had come into nooks where no shadows had been at noon. The faces in the stone walls seemed more ambiguous, more ghostly and more dubious than they appeared by day.
Be certain, Mauryl had always said, that the shutters and the doors are bolted every night.
Be afraid of the dark. When the sky shadows, be under stone and have the shutters closed and the doors well shut. Have I not said this before?
He shivered, with the Book folded in his hands, his hands between his knees as the wind danced back again. He looked up at the color stealing across the sky. The faces set in the walls changed their expressions with the passage of shadow. Now they seemed to look down in horror.
He looked up at the walls above his head and saw Maurylʼs face above him, stone like the others, wide-mouthed and angry.
He stumbled off the middle step, fell on the bottom one and picked himself up, staring at the face in horrid surmise backed farther and farther across the courtyard stones, with Maurylʼs face among the stone faces he had seen in the walls from the beginning of his existence here, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed as if Mauryl could at any moment scream in anger or in terror, either one.
Mauryl? he said faintly, and somewhere within the hall timbers fell with a horrific crash and splintering. Another balcony, he thought. Mauryl? he cried aloud, daring not admit he still could not read the Book. There must be an exception. There must be a way out. Mauryl, what shall I do, Mauryl? Please tell me what to do!
He heard slates fall inside, a lighter, sharper-edged ruin.
A cold skirl of wind went past him.
An immense mass of something crashed inside and knocked the door shut, as if someone had slammed it in his face. He stared in shock, terrified.
He had no recollection, then, of turning away, except he was walking toward the gate. Reaching it, he tried not the heavy bar but the lesser one, which closed a gate within the gate; that was enough to let him out. He shut it once he was through, and asked himself foolishly how he should bar it, and then against what should he bar it? and protecting what? Mauryl had set great importance on locking and latching doors, but it was far beyond his ability to seal this one against harm. He turned and faced the bridge and the river, and the forest beyond it, already shadowing toward dark and could only set out walking on the Road. Go where you see to go, Mauryl had said. Take the Road that offers itself. And he did, over the rotten boards and stonework of the Bridge that spanned the river Lenalim.
The water was dark beneath the gaps over which he walked, clinging fearfully to the stones along the edge of the high-arched bridge. The river looked murky green in the deep shadow and made patterns on its surface, swirls and ripples which on another day might tempt him to linger and wonder; but haste and dread overwhelmed all curiosity in him haste clinging to an ancient, crumbling stone railing, and with old mortar sifting from under his feet. If he should fall, he said to himself, he would slip beneath that surface, where it must be as cold and as dark as the rain barrel or the cistern, and where all that Mauryl had done with him and all that Mauryl had told him would come to nothing: he could not be so foolish.
A moaning sounded behind him, as if the gate had opened. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw it still shut. It might be the wind keening through some board up in the towers if there were a wind, which there was not. He looked about again just as a stone left the railing ahead of him and dropped from the Road, for no cause that he could tell. It splashed into the water, making a plume, and it was gone, as he himself might be, without a trace, should the road give way.
He hurried feverishly, then, holding to the stones, and heard another fall of stones behind him: one, two, three splashes. He dared not waste a moment to look. It was the solid ground ahead that beckoned him, a shadowed shore where the Road went over safe earth, under deep-rooted trees, and his feet were very glad to feel that solidity under them as he left the bridge behind.
The moaning came to the trees then, making them toss their heads and whisper around him in a rush of sound he had never heard the forest make even in storm. Chill came with that wind, as leaves and fine grit went flying around him, stinging his eyes. The wind shouted around him, until twigs and then small branches flew like leaves. The whole forest seemed to shiver, and then
Then it grew very quiet, no leaf stirring a dank and breathless air as frightening in its lifelessness as all the previous fury of the wind. He hesitated to move at all, and when he hesitated, it seemed more difficult than before simply to move, or breathe, as if some soundless Word bade him stand still, and wait, and wait.
But, heart in his throat, he obeyed Mauryl. It seemed more important than ever to honor Maurylʼs instruction, in the failing of all substantial refuges he knew. Dark was gathering in this dank hush, a convocation of Shadows that as yet had done him no harm, but he had no defense against them here, no stone to shelter him, no Mauryl to send them away, no light against the coming dark.
Tristen, the Shadows mocked him, calling his name in tones that Mauryl might use. But Mauryl had never trusted them and he refused. He walked not because he knew where he was going but because that was what Mauryl had said to do. No harm had yet come to him doing what Mauryl said.
A shape glided after him, dark and silent. He felt it pass near. But when he looked straight at it, he saw nothing.
Shadows were like that, treacherous and evasive of the eye. But there was no Mauryl tonight to set a seal on his sleep, and no door, and no bed, no supper, no cup, and no means of having one forever, so far as he knew.
The Road appeared and disappeared by turns in the dark. It seemed to meander aimlessly, but, Tristen thought, he had nowhere to go, except as his Road led him; it seemed to have no reason for itself, but then, he had none, so that seemed apt. If he had the wish of his heart all through the weary night it would be only to go back to Mauryl, and to have his room and his supper and to do forever what Mauryl told him but it was not his wishes things obeyed, it was Maurylʼs; and without Mauryl, he had to take what came to him and do as wisely as he could.
If, he thought, if he could have read the Book Mauryl had given him, he might have prevented the ruin that had taken Mauryl from him. But he had not been able. Mauryl had known his inability. He was certain now that Mauryl had always known that he would fail in that most important task, and he was certain that that had always been Maurylʼs unhappiness with him for Mauryl had been unhappy. He had sensed, quite strongly at times, Maurylʼs unhappiness and dissatisfaction in his mistakes, and, latest of all, Maurylʼs despair and Maurylʼs acceptance of his shortcomings. He should have been more able, he should have been quicker to understand, he should have understood Maurylʼs lessons and done better. But he had not been good enough.