—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 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.
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 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.