But that wizards could not similarly predict his options had made his greater enemy lie quiet, waiting, perhaps, for him to reveal his limitations… or his intentions.

More unsettling to their wishing ways, they could not wish himto move in certain ways.

Mauryl had indeed despaired of him; Emuin had dealt with him only at safe distance; Hasufin had attempted to use Aséyneddin and his entire army, but then abandoned that hope, and still lost. Hasufin had hoped again in Tarien's child; but Tarien had come home to himto bear Cefwyn's son, come to return the Aswydds to their Place in the world. As good fling a stone into the sky: down it would come. Back the Aswyddim had come, even to perish and join the Shadows in the Zeide's stones, and the whole world sighed with the release of a condition that could not have persisted, the separation of the Aswydds from Hen Amas… were there not other needs that strained at the fabric of the world, and was not one Crissand, riding with him? And was not one Orien, within her tomb?

And was not one another wizard, born in Amefel?

He had advised Cefwyn to cast the Aswydds out; and so it had served, for the hour of Hasufin's assault at Lewen field, but only for that hour. After Lewenbrook, it was possible Hasufinhad wanted them apart from him, as much as he wanted them away from Henas'amef—until Hasufin had taken Cefwyn's son… but the Place itself had its conditions, stronger, it appeared, than those of Hasufin or himself, and by one means and another, the stone fell to earth, water ran downhill, birds came to their nest, and the Aswydds came back to their hall.

He, however, had no such Place, at least, that he had yet discovered: he only had persons. He had Crissand; he had Cefwyn; he had Ninévrisë of Elwynor and now Cefwyn's two sons.

But he himself felt no inclination to rush to earth. He found no downhill course. He had no direction, other than the needs of those he loved.

Was he himself a hill down which those who knew him, who trusted him, must flow?

And was that the danger inherent in him? That when stones did fall, when water did run downhill, they might wreak havoc in the world?

He was not likeCrissand, not likeCefwyn, nor Ninévrisë, nor like Mauryl nor yet like Emuin, and he was not like Uwen, or Idrys. Nothing likehim existed or had existed—not even his enemy.

The Lanfarnessemen had not remarked on the banner among the other banners: it was not their place to remark on it, but surely they knew what it signified, and perhaps even knew how they had come by it—Pelumer's men, though camping to themselves in scattered bands, had uncommonly thorough knowledge of what had happened in Henas'amef and elsewhere.

Without doubt, they knew whyit flew.

Tasmôrden would know.

How northern men would see it he could well guess.

Prudence would have bidden Crissand furl it, or better yet, not to bring it at all; but it would go. Like the Aswydds returning to Henas'amef, that banner wouldgo with him—it belonged to him. Cefwyn had known, had givenhim the arms, less the crown, even when he himself failed to know it was, should be, must be—his.

It was not a territory of land that banner claimed; but the rights ofthe land; it was not a town or a capital it represented, but a Place. A Place for him to exist… a Place that washimself.

He was as he was, in a year which had turned to a new Year, in a land wherein spring much resembled autumn, brown grass, bare trees, a welter of mud, hillside springs gushing full into gullies and turning any low spot to bog.

He had come full circle, but everything was changed. And he was changed. Owl, that mysterious haunt of last year, flitted sometimes in view and came and went in the patchy trees… guiding him, confirming him in his choices, no longer ambiguous, but no prophet, either, of the outcome.

And for very long they went, he and Crissand and Uwen, in the silence of men who had exhausted every thought but the purpose for which they went: sharing that, they had no need for words, only the solidity of each other's company, from the ranks forward. They discussed the condition of gear, the change about of horses, the disposition of a water flask, those things that regarded where things were and how they were, but not where they were going or what might happen there: the one they knew and the other no one could speculate.

It was toward late afternoon when they reached Modeyneth and when they saw the traces of many men in the muddy fields, and the safety of the houses as assured as before, they were glad of the sight, and men began to talk hopefully of a cup of something before they moved on.

Drusenan's wife came out to meet them before they had even reached the hall, treading carefully on a walkway of straw that crossed the hoof-churned mud. Her skirts were muddy about the hems: it was not her first such crossing of that yard; and she came with her sleeves girt up and an apron about her, and it well floured and spattered and stained.

"Lord," she said, "welcome! Will you stay the night?"

"We'll press on," Tristen said, "but an hour to rest the horses, that we can spare, and food for us if you have it."

"Stew and porridge, m'lord, as best as we have, but the pots is most always aboil and nobody knowing when the men's comin' in, we just throw more in, the more as comes to eat it. And there's bread, there's always bread."

That brought a cheer from the front rank to the rearmost, and they were as glad to be down from the saddle as they were of the thick, simple fare in the rush-floored hall, with the dogs vying for attention and the women hurrying about with bowls and bread.

Bows leaned against the wall, near the fire, near the cooking tables, near the door, with quivers of arrows, all the same, all ready, and no man's hand near them: it was the women's defense, if ever the war spilled across the river and beyond the wall.

He was determined it would not.

They sat with Drusenan's lady, for a moment paused in her work, and heard a brisk, fair account of every company that had passed, its numbers, its condition, and the time the women had wished them on their way.

"A tall, dark man, among the rest," Tristen said, for that aspect of the Lord Commander there was no hiding.

"That one, yes," the lady said, "and no lingering. Took a pack of bread and cheese and filled their water flasks, and on they went, being in some great hurry… we didn't mistake 'em, did we? Your Grace isn't after 'em."

"Honest men," Tristen said, "without any question, on honest business."

"It's comin', is it?"

"It won't come here," Tristen said. "Not if we can prevent it, and if the wall can."

"Gods save us," the good woman said, and was afraid, it was no difficulty to know it… afraid not so much for this place, but for Drusenan and the rest. "Gods save Amefel."

"Gods save us all," Uwen echoed her.

"And you and yours," Crissand said quietly.

"We should move," Tristen said, for by her account Idrys' band was early on its way and Cevulirn would have his request to cross and camp. "They won't linger and we shouldn't."

There was not a man of them but would have wished to linger the rest of the hour, but it was down with the remnant left in bowls, and here and there a piece of bread tucked into a jacket, a half cup of ale downed in a gulp, against a hard ride to come, and no sleep but a nap along the way.

Drusenan's lady brought them outside into the dark, she and all the women and the girls, some of them down from the guard post, with their bows. The women saw them onto their horses, with only the light from the open door.