The man was not convinced. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Sir,” he said, “I am Cefwyn’s friend, and I’m fully willing to carry messages to him.” He did not add that they were strangers in Cefwyn’s land, and that, absent the weapons, he should most properly be asking them the questions about their intentions and their right to be where they were. “But I came to speak to your lord.”

The man said nothing to his offer, nothing at all, as he turned and went away into the only tent, a tent improbably pitched, its guy-ropes running to the ruined walls, and its pegs driven into earth where they had pried up paving-stones to accommodate them. The Elwynim had been at some great pains to set their tent here, when there was far softer, deeper soil just across the ruined half wall. He found it curious and significant that they had been thus determined to have it inside rather than outside the walls. Lines on the earth, Tristen thought. Someone here knew.

And if the Regent of Elwynor was camped at Althalen, he might well he the one who had killed Cefwyn’s father—and he might be the very lord of the Elwynim with whom Heryn Aswydd had conspired, which cast an even more unpleasant light on the situation.

Of all troubles he had gotten into and of all mistakes he had made, he said to himself, falling into the hands of the Elwynim might be the worst and the most costly to Cefwyn, although so far he could not complain of his treatment. By the archers’ general behavior they were honest men, well-spoken, and not, at least, bandits who fired from hiding and without asking.

The men otherwise stared and talked among themselves and did not venture closer or threaten him. He was wearing Cefwyn’s cloak, with the Marhanen Dragon plain to see: that was one cause of the talk; and he was equally aware of the coat beneath it, which had the Sihhé arms, not plain to see at the moment, but there was no hope of pretending to be other than what he was, and he did not intend to try, thinking it could only make matters worse if he seemed to deceive them.

Finally the man came back out of the tent and beckoned him to come inside, or for someone to bring him, he was by no means certain. He went of his own volition and the archers walked behind him, into an interior warm, lit by oil lamps and partitioned by curtains, one of which was folded back.

He had expected a vigorous and powerful lord—but the two lords present were attending an elderly man who lay on a cot against the back wall of the tent: two other men stood by, guards, or servants; and a darkhaired woman was kneeling by the old man’s side, holding his hand.

“My lady,” said the lord who had summoned him.

The woman glanced around and up. He saw painted ivory, a cloud of dark hair, a crown of violet flowers—and in the selfsame moment he saw on the cot the round, kindly-looking man who had reached for his hand through the light and the advancing shadow.

This was not a wounded leader of soldiers. This was an old man who should be safe under a roof, not out in the elements, and on the wrong side of the river.

And he had not strayed amiss in his riding. He had found the object of his search after answers—he had by no means known what he was looking for, and least of all that he was looking for the Regent of Elwynor; but he had found him all the same, and on an impulse of the heart moved toward him in this world of substance and that of Shadows.

The men behind him pulled him roughly back. The clasp at his neck parted, and the hard-used cloak came off and fell.

“Marhanen,” the young woman said angrily, and then looked up at him. “Oh, dear gods!”

It was his black coat, ruined as it was, with the Sihhé arms embroidered in silver thread.

“Sihhé,” exclaimed the man on the cot. “I hoped, I did hope.”

The old man’s eyes had opened. The look on his face was the same he had had in the gray light, a man of such uncalculated kindness, such affable, cheerful goodness that Tristen wanted at once to take the old man’s hand and draw him back from the dark brink that threatened him. On that thought, gray was suddenly all about them, but the soldiers moved to prevent their touching, although the old man, in this world and that other, reached out his hand.

The woman intervened, caught the old man’s hand instead and pressed it to her. “Father. Father, do you hear me?”

“He—” the old man said, with the gray light of the other world streaming past his shoulders. Tristen could scarcely get his breath, the urgency of that request was so intense, and the shadows were forming patterns in the light, seeming like faces gathered about them, listening.

“Lord of Ynefel. Who are you? Who are you?”

It was the very question Hasufin had asked him in seeking power over him. It was the central question about himself that he could not answer and that Hasufin could not answer. But he had had no fear of this man, on what evidence he did not know, but that his presence in the gray place was most like Emuin, and not at all like the enemy.

“My name is Tristen, sir. I was Mauryl’s student. And lord of Ynefel, yes, sir, I am, so Cefwyn says.”

“Cefwyn,” the daughter said, and clenched her father’s hand tightly, tightly, trying to compel his hearing. “Papa, no more. Send him away. It’s too late for Marhanen tricks. This is no one. Look at him! He’s all draggled and muddy from last night’s rain. He’s just a man, Father, just a man.”

“Lord of Ynefel,” the old man echoed him, seeming to hear nothing of his daughter’s protest. “Are you? Are you in fact Mauryl’s successor in the tower?”

“I suppose I am, sir. But Hasufin holds the tower, so far as I know.”

“Hasufin.” The old man struggled up on an elbow. “Look at me, young sir. Look at met”

“Father,” The young woman interposed her hands. “Tasien, he mustn’t tire himself. Take this man away from him!”

“I am still Regent,” the old man said, in a voice that trembled. “Lord of Ynefel, I know you, do I not? Did I not meet you just now?”

“He dreams,” the daughter said, but Tristen said quietly, wary of the angers and the grief running wild in the close confines, “Yes, sir. You did.

You helped me. Dare I try now to help you?”

“You cannot draw me from this brink,” the man said faintly. “Far too dangerous to try. But I hoped for you. Oh, gods, I hoped—hoped you existed. I dared not believe it. I feared it gave the enemy purchase on us all.”

“My father is ill!” the daughter said bitterly. “He is in no state for this.

—Father, please, send him away. These are all dreams. They’re only dreams. Cefwyn’s scouts have found us, that is all this proves. We have to move from here as soon as we can.”

“No. Not dreams. Not dreams, daughter. No more than it was dreams that brought us here. Hasufin’s tomb. Hasufin’s burial-place. So that I do battle with him—I must not leave here. I must never leave here!”

“Hasufin is dead!” the daughter cried. “He is dead, Father, Mauryl saw to that here in this very hall. You dream, you only dream. And the Marhanen dares send us this mockery. I will not marry him, father! I shall never marry him!”

The Regent’s white hand lifted, trembling, and smoothed back the hair that fell about her face. “Daughter, but you see, you see, I’m not mad. Is it not the Star and Tower?”

“Wrapped in the Marhanen Dragon. This man is nothing but Amefin—even black Guelen, for all we know—”

“No, the rumors—the rumors—are all true. And this is their evidence.

Look at him, indeed.” The Regent lay back on the pillows. “Mauryl’s student. But not only Mauryl’s heir. You are—Mauryl’s. Are you not?”

“They say so, sir. Master Emuin said—”

“Emuin the traitor,” Tasien said.

“Let him speak!” the Regent said. “Go on, my lord Sihhé. Where have you lived? Where have you hidden from us?”

“With Mauryl. Then Hasufin came and took the balconies down. He put Mauryl into the stones, sir.”