“And I still can defy you, young lord, and do, by whatever effort.”

“Why? Why do you not go down that stairs and stand in the hall tonight and advise Cefwyn, if not me?

What do you hear up here in the wind and the weather that you will not tell anyone?“

“It is not cowardice that keeps me at this post,” Emuin said, and gestured toward the window. “What might come by that route, I will face. Not your thwarted will, sir, that I will not. And yet I willsay no to you when you harry me for answers.”

I would not touch what Mauryl wrought, Emuin had said to him once and again tonight. And that was in its way a damning stroke of terrible, lasting loneliness. If not Emuin… if not Emuin, to touch him and comfort him and advise him… then who? Who would there ever be?

There was Cefwyn, that friendship, that faith. But even that grew thin.

“Do you fear me, sir?”

“Not you,” Emuin said somberly. “Not your heart. Not your intentions toward Cefwyn or Uwen or myself. And what didyou see in the Quinaltine? And what was your sense of the place, you of the far sharper sight?”

“Nothing I felt I should fear, sir, in so many words. I had thought I would fear it. I looked for gods.”

“For gods.” It was almost a laugh. Or a sob for breath. “And did you find them?”

“No, sir. —Not Efanor’s gods. I saw no sign of them. But you say there are wizards’ gods. There are the Nineteen. —Are there not? Do you notspeak to them?”

Emuin shrugged and evaded his eyes.

“ Arethere, sir?”

“You are a most uncomfortable young man.”

“And everywhere I go I am uncomfortable and uncomforting. Everyone says so. So do you.”

“You have your lessons in discourse from Idrys, none other, gods save us.”

“You say, gods, sir. Do you say it for no reason?”

“Oh, always for reason. In my frequent amazements. If Iwere not a Man, I would be amazed less often, perhaps, and perhaps I would know your answers as surely and smugly as the Patriarch. But I am a Man, and therefore say I, gods! this and gods! that and good merciful gods! at least several times daily. The sad truth is that I don’tknow your answer, young sir. If I were all a Man, I would have faith in the gods. But a wizard’s soul is outside the pale. That is the price one pays.” Emuin drew a heavy breath. “I have hope. I still have hope of the gods, that is the true answer.”

“But not hope of the Quinalt?”

“Have youhope of the Patriarch? I have not. Tell me what you did see, what you did feel when you were there?”

“Discord.”

“Like hearing trumpets all out of tune. That kind of feeling.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have given your penny tithe and you wear that.” Emuin indicated the medallion, with the dark substance at the center.

“I have the other one, too, that Cefwyn gave me ₅the one bound to my sword. The Teranthine one, that he said was yours. I would not part with it. Efanor says two is surer than one. But ought I to wear his at all? Is there harm in it?”

“Now you ask.”

“You would not answer me before!”

“Blood of the martyrs, indeed,” Emuin scoffed. “There’s no harm in it, except to the sheep that bled for it, I’ll warrant that with no difficulty.”

The slaughter of sheep disturbed him. The thought of blood inside something he was wearing even more disquieted his stomach. “I shall take it off if you—”

“No, no,” Emuin said with a wave of his hand. “His Highness gave it. Therein is its virtue, young lord, no other. A gift in love is impervious to ill wishes. Even if it harmed the sheep. Children doubtless enjoyed the mutton for their suppers. And Efanor does love you, in his way. Such is the way of the world.”

“He gave me a book of devotions. I left it downstairs. I might bring it—”

“Harmless, too. I can judge from here. The Quinalt has no power.”

“The Quinalt say the gods made the world.”

“Perhaps. Lacking witnesses, I would not say whether it was made or found. The Quinalt credit the gods for all good, their enemies for all harm. It keeps things tidy.”

“So was the world always here?” He felt himself still on precarious ground, but he warmed to the exchange, cautiously. The tower chamber felt warmer since he had shut the window, at least by comparison to the earlier, wind-blasted chill, and the rain, after its initial violence, made a pleasant spatter against the shutters. He found his limbs relaxing out of their hunched and shivering knot.

“And where is here, pray?” Emuin cheerfully answered question with questions. “Is it where you and I are? Or might it be where two other men sit, and if it is, where is the center of it and when did it begin?”

“I have no idea, sir. Iwas found. Or made. Or Called.” He could use such levity. He had learned it in Cefwyn’s company, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Emuin look askance at it.

“Yet have eyes, and ears, and senses all. Is Efanor so certain and can the king always be so dubious?”

“Cefwyn himself never seems to regard the gods.”

“Nor did his grandfather.”

“But Efanor said one could hearthe gods. The Quinaltines think so. Is it true?”

“So say the Quinalt priests. I’ve never quite heard them. Nor expect you to.”

“Because of what we are?”

“Because I doubt the Quinalt priests ever do.”

“Then should I read what Efanor gave me, this little book? Should I go to the shrine on special days as Cefwyn wishes? Or not?”

“I dare not,” Emuin said then, and losing all good humor, sketched some figure in the spillage of water on the table.

“What do you not say to me?” Tristen asked him, and received the quick, bright, and utterly intent look of Emuin’s eyes.

“You looked west, did you not?”

How had Emuin known?

“Why?” he asked Emuin. “Why? Ought I not?”

“You looked west, I say. What did you see?”

“I saw… nothing that alarmed me.”

“Is that so?”

He was uneasy now—he recalled with shame his rapid retreat from that place. His subsequent preoccupation with a fallen log, a curious fungus. He had stopped thinking about the west. He had simply stopped thinking about it, unwillingly preoccupied with a curious log… as he had learned to use a preoccupation to wall off untidy thoughts. Was it wrong to remember Ynefel? Was it wrong, sometimes, to think of being there, where he had been happy, —even when he knew it was dangerous?

“I thought,” he confessed, “I thought of Mauryl. Of last spring.”

“And was there a shadow in this thought?”

He tried to remember, troubled by Emuin’s delving into what he had woven into a day of distractions. He was unwilling to remember. His wits refused him. And he knew that was dangerous. He drew a deep breath and tried to seize the threads of it. “I saw the shadow of a shadow. I remembered days and nights at Ynefel. The window of my room. Later—I remembered seeing weather on the horizon. Or thinking it might rain.”

“It never rained that day.”

“You didn’t ask me when we met at supper.”

“I forgot it,” Emuin said, and that was itself a disturbing statement… natural though that was in the confusion of guests and a festive evening.

“So did I forget to tell you. And you were asleep. And I had forgotten it.”

“It never rained that day,” Emuin’s voice was flat as if it was no surprise “Yet you saw weather. So you say. And did it see you?”

“I think not, sir. I took care not.” Now he could not remember the sky that day. The chill seemed deep for a moment, and it was very difficult to confess. “Yet I confess I took care that you failed to see me, too.”

“Was it the first time?”

“No. The first time in a while, sir, but not the first time. You never—” He began to say you never advise me, but that was no excuse. There were no excuses in wizardry or, though only he knew the laws of it, in magic. He strongly suspected“ that magic was even less forgiving and he knew his folly, that he had thought back, and back, and it had felt so safe… at first.