They might well make more sense to Emuin. Tristen only guessed it regarded wizard-work, and the Zeide.

But it could not be Ynefel, where the mews had led him.

"You didn't recognize the room."

"No, my lord."

"Did they see you?" he asked in all seriousness.

"See me? I don't think so.—Do you know where it was? Was it where you found Owl?"

Around them were only his guard, Uwen having waved all the curious servants away, and that Crissand could venture through that rift—or at least see what lay beyond—that he had not anticipated.

"I very much doubt it was Ynefel you saw. But this—" He set his hand to the stone next to Crissand's, deceptively solid stone for the moment, as the gray was deceptively quiet. "This place must lead there, and something drew another place close for a moment. It reaches different places. I don't know yet how many or to where. Ynefel is one. Althalen is." He could not but recall the dream he had dreamed within the old Regent's wards. "The Quinaltine in Guelessar is another."

It was that which he most feared, the plots of priests near Cef-wyn, no friendlier to him than they had ever been. And in the flickering light from the sconce, Uwen frowned. Crissand's troubled face, however, took on a different, puzzled look.

"It wasn't ruins, and it wasn't holy men," Crissand said, and his eyes widened as if something only then came clear to him. "There was a banner, my lord." And took on a look of outrage. " Yourbanner, my lord, the Tower, with a Crown!" And having said it, Crissand's fist clenched as if he would rip that offending sight from his own memory. "The High King's banner."

"Tasmôrden," he said, in quiet conviction now where Crissand had been, and where the old mews led besides. "There's clearly another place it goes. Wherever in Ilefínian Tasmôrden sits tonight, this place leads."

He wished—almost—to open the rift again, to venture into the room and the council Crissand had seen… and seen, but not been. The fact that Crissand had the gift had let him see into the place, but Crissand had not gone further, perhaps had no power to go, alone, for which Tristen was very grateful. The thought of Crissand caught and trapped on that other side, in Tasmôrden's hands, turned his blood cold.

Yet on the thought, the stone beneath his fingers warmed, and he saw the room then, exactly as Crissand had described:

The table, seven men, the banner Tasmôrden had usurped. And one man was on his feet facing him, shouting at the others: Don't tell me what I saw, damn you! He was there! Eyes widened. Oh, gods!

So at least one of them had seen Crissand in return, and one presence in the gray space leapt to awareness— one, who had sat with his back to him, leapt up and turned in astonishment.

Two, now had seen. And that crowned man who had leapt up was Tasmôrden.

A hound bayed, somewhere in the distance, echoing in unseen halls.

And, sword in hand, Tasmôrden approached the wall, willing to face him, intent on discovering the nature of the rift, and would have no hesitation in breaching it from his own side, to the peril of all the places it led.

Unless someone gave him pause, unless someone gave him reason to fear that which he might find on the far side.

"My lord!" Crissand's voice, and Uwen's: "If you can go wi' him lad, go! Protect his back for us all!"

And Crissand was beside him, in that rift between rooms, with a sword to thrust into his hand, and Owl was before him, so he knew he was meant to go.

"You should have seen their faces," Crissand's lively rendition of the scene far exceeded anything Tristen would have thought to say. "One fell to the floor, praying forgiveness of the gods, another fainted dead away, I swear to you. Another—it must have been Tasmôrden—" Crissand glanced at Tristen and Tristen nodded, fascinated by the account as well as the rest. "Tasmôrden dared raise a hand to my lord, his guard all about him—until my lord raised the sword and wishedhim back!"

Crissand's account, together with the banner that lay folded and somber on the table before them—Crissand's gift to him on their return from that room in Ilefínian—lent substance to the tale—and Uwen and Emuin and all those gathered about him in the ducal apartments had it for evidence.

Emuin, however, was less pleased.

"Well done, on the whole," Emuin said. "To have called mewas better." And to Paisi, who had been standing next to Emuin when he and Crissand returned and so was of necessity included in this meeting: "You see here the way notto satisfy curiosity, boy. Consider the consequences of the lord of Amefel in the midst of Tasmôr-den's guards, unarmed and alone."

It was true, at least as he had gone.

"Yet now we can overhear his councils," Crissand said.

"I doubt it. He'll set guards there and take counsel elsewhere."

The excitement faded from Crissand's face. "So if he hadn't seen me, we might have learned much more."

"Possibly," Emuin said, and added, on another thought: "Or they might have discovered it on the other side, and come through, to ourperil. There is that."

"Something breached the mews," Tristen pointed out. "It wasTasmôrden in that room." He had seen Tasmôrden in his dreams and knew by that means, not the most solid of evidence to bring forward, and he hesitated to say so. "But he didn't know they were overheard, so someonedid it by accident, on his side, on ours… someone made a mistake."

Emuin turned a glance toward Crissand, and Crissand shook his head. "I've no such gift," Crissand said.

"On the other hand, perhaps you do," Emuin said, "and should have a care, young lord! On that evidence, have a care what you wish! Were you even thinkingof Ilefínian?"

"I was wishing I might serve my lord," Crissand confessed. "But I was outside the great hall when I heard the whispers to my right."

"Not enough," Emuin judged. "I doubt it was enough. Someone is stronger. If he let fly that casual a wish, it was an unlatched gate, was all. A means by which."

"Tasmôrden himself isn't that strong," Tristen judged.

"I take your word," Emuin said with sobering directness, "and judge you do know, young lord."

"Meaning what, sir?" Crissand asked.

"Meaning wizards were involved," Emuin said sharply, "and a damned strong one, somewhere about, and thanks to you, the barn door was open, young sir, with people going in and out it.—Wish elsewhere, henceforth, but not in the lower hall, which is as haunted a place as one can find this side of Althalen!"

"I shall, sir," Crissand said meekly enough, and meant it with all his heart, Tristen was sure, as much as a young man untaught in wizardry could keep from wishing.

"Still, there's there substance of what we heard," Tristen said. "They know about Tarien."

"Cuthan clearly brought more than stolen parchments across the river," Emuin said.

"If Cuthan hasn't used the mews himself," Tristen said. "And if Lady Orienhasn't."

Emuin cast him a glance. "Past my wards, she didn't. Of that I'm certain."

"So would I be," Tristen said, for he had had no sense of Lady Orien's involvement: across in the other wing of the fortress, she knewsomething had disturbed the wards, yes. That fact had gone through the very air, like the reverberations of a beaten bronze, since they had come out of the mews, and it still disturbed the gray space. But the rift opening on Tasmôrden's schemes was not Lady Orien's doing, nor Tarien's.