A log crashed in the fireplace. The children flinched, and Branwyn cried out. The fire leapt up and shadows danced and died. The com pany shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
"War?" asked Beorc in a hoarse, harsh voice. "Is it war you mean? Is it An Beag?"
"War." She laid a hand on the stone at her heart and for a moment it was hard to remain where she was. The place seemed insubstantial, a web of gray against the truth. And then it took shape again. "I have asked you once. Do you have peace?"
"With An Beag and Caer Damn?" Ciaran replied. "An uneasy peace, but the King rules."
She stretched out her hand toward the west, a vague reaching. "There is no brightness there."
"The King rules," Ciaran said. "He is lord in Dun na h-Eoin."
"And Caer Donn?"
"Is free."
"There is no brightness, I say, toward the west. Look to your borders."
"In Caer Donn my brother rules."
"I say what I have said. War is too simple a word."
"The King," said Branwyn suddenly, "ignores Caer Wiell. We are not favored. We are true to him, and few are, even of those who fought for him at our walls. And as for Caer Donn—"
"He is my brother," said Ciaran.
For a moment the shadow intruded, and Arafel shivered, blinking in the firelight. Again she touched the stone, and waked a harping these halls had known years ago. There was vengeance in it even yet. The Harp was broken, but the song went on. She stood up, and the company rose in confusion as Ciaran stood—as he held out a hand to her, wishing her to stay. She fought the drawing, the feeling of cold. There was a darker and darker melancholy on her and she fought it as she fought all the weapons of the shadow.
"Walk with me," she said to Ciaran, "as far as the hall outside."
He offered her his hand—confused, perhaps, for places were noth ing to her, and had never been. But the shadow-ways were dangerous and she took the human way, passed the wooden door in Ciaran's company, alone.
"Close the door," she said when they had come into the hall be fore the stairs. "What I say now is only for you to hear. But what you say to them after, that is your choosing."
He did so, the lord of Caer Wiell, and faced her again. A solitary and dying torch burned and cast shadows everywhere about, made the lines of his face deeper than they were. He looked old and worn, so fearfully worn.
"What will you?" he asked.
"You have understood more than they. You know what is loosed. And I tell you that there is shadow on Airgiod's lower reaches; and over all the hills. Trees have come back out of it, but strange and dim and not comfortable. Not comfortable. Speak truth with me: speak your heart with me—have you felt no hint of trouble? Can you come and go in this land at your ease?"
"You know that I cannot."
"I know little enough of Men. Tell me truth—why can you not?"
"They remember me. They remember what I am. If I have luck they say it is faery-gift; if I have none they call it curse. Mostly they suspect—"
"—What?"
"Ambition. That, I think. Or power." He shivered and turned half away, and looked back again with the firelight moving on his bearded face. "How can they forget? How can the King sit at board with me and forget? And my brother—"
"Fears his neighbor?"
"Fears his own heritage. We pass no messages. There is only si lence. Fear—aye. And distrust. I have had too great good fortune in Caer Wiell." He drew a breath and composed his face, shook his head, but the gnawing dread remained. "No, he would never do us harm. Donnchadh is a good man."
"But not wise."
"Is that so ill?"
"For one who sits at Caer Donn? Whose hold is named in Eald? Yes, it is ill, it is very ill. And a great many ills are abroad. I watch; I do not say I shall be enough. So I have come here. To ask your help."
"No." He shook his head. "Now I know what you mean to ask, and no."
"Keep it for me. Only keep it. And should the worst happen, should you know that there is no more defense—then you will judge what you should do. You are the only brightness, do you understand —the only. The small trouble in the Caerbourne—that is nothing, nothing against the other. Take it. I do not ask that you use it. Only that you have the choice. For your defense, for the defense of this place."
He said nothing for a moment, and she drew it from its keeping-place against her heart, the stone he had borne before, like that stone she still wore about her neck. It shone with a strange pallor beneath the torches, casting no shadows with its brightness, reflecting noth ing of the fire. It rested so in her hand and at last he put out his and took it, clenched his fist about it, and the hall seemed dark after.
"Do not walk in Eald," she said. "You must not come there. Call me if you have need, but never command; as you value your peace, do not command. Be wise, be wary."
"Arafel!— Shall I see you again—in my life—shall I see you?"
She had started to fade, to drift back to Eald. She stayed, and touched his broad scarred hand. "I have no surety," she said, but it was in her heart that this was indeed the last time. "There are hazards. Who can say? Fare well, cousin, half-elf, friend. In all things—"
The touch faded. Eald closed about her. For a moment she strove with it, reached out over all the hold, so that she seemed to embrace it, so that the strength that greened the trees was shed wide.
Scrub that had struggled in the cracks of the walls burst into sudden flower under a clouding sky.
A sickly child mended and sighed into restful sleep, smiling as she did.
The drowsing sentry clutched his spear, confused in a premature and fading dawn, or the belief that he had seen one.
Folk waked, and some wept, convinced of some wonderful dream they could not remember, or of some luck which had come on them, or simply that they were glad, and some sank deeper in sleep, feeling the world at ease.
One twisted thing resisted, and hid on the stairs where he had crept to listen; and the name of this one was Coille.
I must warn him, she thought, but fate was on her, and the thought with the power faded, like the moment's dawn at Caer Wiell. Eald took her back, a mesh woven of branch and limb, of the dark before the dawn in which even stars had less power. A tear had fallen on her cheek, and traced there a thin cold line.
"You take risks," a shadow whispered.
She turned her head in startled anger, dashed the tear from her cheek and stood straight, facing the darkness in the mist. "Godling, you have no leave to be here. Keep from them. I have warned you."
"You take risks, I say." The shadow became utterly black, a hole in the mist. A horse stamped in the fog. "I have fared along the edges. You have set something stirring. You set me to hunt the marches—but you will summon me here: no! name me no threats. I know them all. You have raised them all. But threats will not send them back. And it grows."
She shrugged and turned away. "You tell me nothing new. Try again."
Steps trod beside her in the grayness, a soft and bodiless pacing. "There is a place called Caer Donn. You would know it."
She turned again, disturbed and caring not that he saw it, her Huntsman, her Warden of the marches. "What of Caer Donn?"
"That its lord is close to the King. I have heard their counsels at Dun na h-Eoin. You should regard me. I come and go with kings. And beware Caer Donn, I say. Its history blinds you. You delude yourself. You take risks, I say, risks in which your allies have no profit and no patience."
"My allies." She drew herself up and set her hand on the small hilt at her belt. "You and your brothers have no interest in my defeat, that is the only sure thing. Let us say the truth. What have you heard at Dun na h-Eoin?"