—You are the one. You are what Mauryl promised. I doubted. Forgive my doubt.

—Sir, he said, I am not as wise as Mauryl wished, nor as strong as Mauryl wished. But I do learn. I am learning, sir.

The old man laughed through his tears, and pressed his band, and laughed again. I warrant you are, that. And Hasufin trembles. I warrant be does. Learning! I bad not expected a brave young man. I expected someone furtive, and bidden and wary. Even cruel. But, oh, there you are, there you are, my dear boy! Bright and brave as you are, whatever you will be, you are my King, you are what we’ve waited for—you are all of Mauryl’s promise.

—But what shall I do, sir? Mauryl never told me what I was to do for him. Can you teach me?

—Teach you, my King? Oh, gods, what first? —First, first and always, beware Hasufin’s tricks. He will use your hopes as well as your fears. He will trade you dreams for dreams. Let me tell you—he came to me in my dreams, oh, years and years ago. He promised me visions, and before I could break away I saw Ynefel, and Mauryl.  —You knew Mauryl, sir?

—Never in the flesh. And not before this. But I knew him, the way one knows things in dreams. I saw Mauryl old and alone, tired and powerless. It troubled me for days. I feared to go back, and I could not, in the end, forbear listening to Hasufin disparage my hopes, and warn me of my own lords, and tell me true things—mark you, true things about their plots—which I think now be engendered. I began to doubt

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 the goodness of the men I ruled, and my doubts changed them. I asked myself whether there was any hope of a King and whether I should not take the crown for myself and forestall the plotters against the Regency.

My doubts, my precautions, estranged the very people who should have stood by me. That was bow Hasufin found purchase on my life. That was how he pried apart the allegiances that supported me. I became unjust in my own heart. Don’t disbelieve your friends, young King.

Never go dream-wandering with him. You dare not. And I know that he will invite you.

—I hear you, sir. I do hear. But you withstood Hasufin. You fought  him.

—Oh, yes. But came the time I would not follow down his trail of questions and doubts. I said to myself—no, I need no more visions: my foresters would go to Ynefel and see what was the truth. But my foresters lost themselves in Marna and never came back. So after all I had only my doubts to keep me company; and I bartered with Hasufin. I said—take a year of my life, I’d see Ynefel again—if he would let me ask Mauryl two questions. He showed me the tower. I thought I was so clever. I asked Mauryl in this dream: Lord Wizard, when will you keep your promise? And Mauryl was angry, because he knew at once how and with what help I had come there. He told me the price was far too dear. But I asked my question, all the same: I asked him when he’d keep his promise, and I asked him how I should recover my faith; and he said only, I shall keep it when I will, and when I must, no sooner. As for your faith, it matters not to me. After that the dream stopped. All the dreams stopped. But after all that, I was never sure even of that answer, you see, because it was Hasufin’s magic that had taken me there, and Hasufin’s voice that whispered ever afterward in my dreams. I lost all certainty, that was what it did to me. Mauryl was right, that my faith was my affair. My faith was that you would not come in my lifetime, no more than in my father’s. My faith was that I should die sonless—and I shall; Hasufin foretold to me that Elwynor should be thrown into civil war when I die—and I had faith in that. So two of my lords have raised armies, and now a third bids to do so—all demanding my daughter so that they dare claim my place. In desperation I sent even to the Marhanen, as my last hope to secure my daughter’s safety and to preserve the realm against a Marhanen conquest by arms. I hoped—I hoped—he would come here.

The Regent’s voice faded.

—Sir? Tristen called to him, and took a firmer grip on his hand, which became like gossamer in his, and impossible to feel. —Lord Regent, what will you? What shall I do for you?

—I must not become a bridge for Hasufin to any other place. I listened to him too long, you understand, and I fear—I fear he will lay hold on me. For that reason I came here. I must be buried here in Althalen, where Hasufin is buried. I came here to fight him—on ground sacred to him. Make them understand. Make my daughter understand—

—Sir! The old man slipped from his hold. He reached out, and the old man caught his hand again, but oh, so weakly.

Then it seemed to him he saw Althalen standing as it had once stood, and that years reeled past them, or that they spun together through the years.

—Listen now, the old man said, compelling his attention. Listen. In my father’s time, in the reign of the Last King’s father, an infant died; and came alive again when they came to bury him. Do you know that story?

—No, lord Regent. Shadow had wrapped close about them both and the old man seemed dimmed by it, sent into grays—but his own hands blazed bright.

—Hasufin could not do for himself what Mauryl did for you. Hasufin could only steal the helpless, infant dead, and grow as a child grows-but you—you are a marvelous piece of work, a theft from Death itself, flesh and bone long since gone to dust—Oh, gods! Oh, gods! —Oh, gods protect us! I know you! You are not that lost, dead prince—you are not. I do guess what Mauryl has called!

—What is my name, sir? Who was I? Tell me! Don’t leave!

But the old man broke free of his hold and the Shadows drew back in turmoil. The old man blazed bright, held his hand uplifted and said a Name he could not hear, a Name that went echoing out into echoes the sounds of which he could not untangle, and for an instant he feared the old man had deceived him about his strength: the old man was fearsome, and blinding bright.

—Most of all— the old man said, do not fail in justice, lord King!

Love as you can, forgive as you can, but justice and vision are a king’s great duties! Never forget it!

The Shadows began to circle in like birds, alighting about them, thicker and thicker—bad behavior, he would chide his pigeons in the loft.

He would chase them like pigeons—he would call on Owl and rescue the old man-    “You!” someone said, and seized his arm and shook him. “You! -This is wizardry! Stop him! Someone for the gods’ sake stop him!”

He looked up, startled, exchanging the rush of Shadows for surrounding night and a murmur of angry voices about him. “Guard the old man!” he called out to anyone who would hear. “He’s in danger! Help him!”

He could not tell if they understood at all. He heard voices declaring he had worked some harm on their lord, and some spoke for killing him.

Lines on the earth, Mauryl had said. Spirits had to respect them.

Windows, Mauryl had said to him, windows and doors were special places. Mauryl had spoken of secrets that masons knew. And masons had built these ruins. When he looked for other lines, those lines showed them selves, still bright in the gray space, clear as clear could be, glowing brighter and brighter to his searching for them. He saw one crossing beneath him as he began to follow the tracery they offered, lines far more potent than the hasty circle unskilled Men had made, lines of masons offering him a path along them, to doors and windows that masons had laid.

But search as he would through this maze, he could not find the old man. There were abundant Shadows, flitting about in confusion, and he could see nothing but the lines, nothing of company in his vicinity. He had never asked the old man what the Shadows were, and it seemed now a grievous omission. He called out again, Lord Regent! Do you hear me?

He heard a murmur then like the sound of voices. He looked back in the direction from which he had come and did not see the place he had left until he looked for it to be there. And in the blink of an eye—he was overwhelmed and buffeted with voices, and tried to know where the old man was, here, as well as in the gray place.