On its last circuits of the Tower, the Stairway narrows once again, leaving barely room for two people to climb abreast. Here the slit-windows were cut close together, and rain spattered on the wide stone sill, droplets hanging in light and air. I slowed and paused, my eye and awareness still in my devices. I chanted the last measures of the Ruling Song, feeling the High Chambers and the pirunaen opening beyond the last flights of the Stairs.
The High Chambers of Ellebren are breathtaking in beauty, built by Kentha Nurysem at the height of her power and employing the resources of the Inniscaudra treasuries and the talents of the best Tervan and Anyn artisans of the day. Wondrous to see the rooms first in starlight and storm, rain sheeting through the high windows, miiren-light glimmering, the chambers themselves full of muted gem-light, clear pools of silver on the floor, curtains of woven moonlight and tapestries whose colors glowed like stars, heaven. Even in my haste I marveled.
The final chamber was the pirunaen, the work room, ceiling vaulted, support columns running in concentric circles throughout the broad space, a sweeping curved stairway rising from the stone floor to the open summit of the Tower. Rain and wind howled down the stairs.
I paused at the foot. Above I could see rolling dark clouds.
One’s awareness at such a time cannot be described in ordinary terms. Part of me read the runes along the rim of the fire pot, in the center of the room under the Eyestone, the lower part of the muuren sphere resting in its silver frame, and beyond the complex mechanism for raising or lowering the stone. I studied the drawing tables, the rune books and stencils, chests in which gems were stored, shelves and rolls of parchment, perfectly preserved, ready for use. Part of me listened to the harsh voice that swelled in the clouds, to the cries of wheeling birds and the shrieking of wind at the opening that led to the summit. I moved on many levels. I remember fear, and deep calm beneath the fear, and my own even, rhythmic breathing, the Cloak spread about me like a constellation. Amid all this, when my foot first touched the lower step to begin the climb into the open air, I was aware that the world into which I was ascending was not the safe world of a boy under the protection of the women of Illyn. My enemy had eyes in the sky. He had known the Tower was awakening from the moment I passed the entry arches, and he would know the moment I stepped onto the rain-swept pavement. I would be naked as a child before him, my thought plain to read, my enchantments laid bare. Until I wakened the Eyestone I would have no defense against him, because I could do no magic here myself until I controlled the stone, while he would have the Tower to use to focus his thought on me.
I climbed toward the fresh rain and wind. Light flickered on the High Place. Above, clouds rolled and massed, lashing rain in increasing density as if the hand that guided the storm were determined to dash out the watchfires and torches burning far below.
But a squadron of infantry could have drilled on the summit with plenty of room to spare. From the stairs to the Eyestone glimmering beneath sheets of rain was a long way. The light within the Stone was no longer steady, but flickered like a lamp wick in its last moments, by which I knew Drudaen was in the stone. He could use it to a degree because he controlled all the other Towers. He had been in the stone for a long time, to that extent.
I smoothed the Fimbrel Cloak in my hands, remembering. The torch would be no good to me any longer and so I extinguished it, laying the smoking brand on the step where the rain kissed it cool. The white stone shimmered on the High Place, shadows swimming beneath its milky surface.
When I called to the Stone in Hidden Words, my enemy heard me, too. “Rock of Ellebren,” I called, “I have come to take you. I am Yron who climbed your Winding Stair and gave your Song to you.”
The light increased. A new kind of darkness descended, a blast of ice engulfed me. My body, from which I had distanced myself, grew numb and heavy. I could feel the Wizard’s hand on my heart, his far-off strength increasing. I was dismayed and sank to the steps, fighting to breathe. My heart labored. The song had momentarily left my mind, and I felt myself, for an instant, perfectly within the Wizard’s power, while he laughed and stretched out his hand.
A dull pain filled my chest and I could no longer see.
But with fear came clarity.
Until I was the master of the High Place I could not hope to defend myself against him.
Unclasping my Cloak, I held it aloft like a banner and let the wind fill it, the fabric unfurling. Lightning shot through the threads, crackling and spitting, and veins of fire pulsed in the air around it, growing, arcing to the Horns. The hand on my heart closed tighter, pain, and I sank completely to the stairway. But the cloak still hung in the wind, weightless, throwing off light and shadow, filling more of the High Place each second, till it covered the Rock and the altars around it.
My enemy was dismayed, thinking I had defied his magic. He kept his hand in me, but the moment of hesitation was enough to give me room to work.
I set foot on the Rune Pavement, saying, “I have climbed the Winding Stair and said the Words of your Ruling Song. Protect me from my enemy and I will dance your dance for you.”
In the stormy darkness, the flickering of the Eyestone lessened, and the light increased. Above, as if in anger, the ripping wind renewed itself, and rain fell in torrents.
I clasped the Cloak and moved slowly forward, my strength returning, the weight of the hand lifting from my heart and my breath coming more easily. Drudaen’s laughter died away, though I could sense him, waiting.
With each step toward the Rock, I diminished his command of the Height, my control over the Tower increased.
One masters the shenesoeniis from the fourth circle of power. Taking a deep breath, I knelt before the Stone, letting the Fimbrel-Cloak fall across the smooth white surface. I had never seen an Eyestone before and studied this one, a sphere of purified muuren suspended in the pavement, supported from beneath by the metal framework I had seen in the Work Room, here encircled with a band of runes and another of Hidden Words that said, “Man, when you come here do not be deceived; Woman, you stand before Ellesotur, whose power is derived from deep places, whose crown is in the clouds; one who fails the Dance will be utterly cast down and lost to all the Circles and to the Wise.”
To be cast down is to die, consumed either by the shenesoeniis itself or by the power of one’s enemy. Such a one cannot pass through Tornimul, cannot be reborn in Hero’s Home. With this in mind, I began the Long Dance of Encirclement.
In the dance the celebrant follows the Rune Path that spirals from the Stone to the perimeter of the Tower. This was a pattern-dance into spin, like many I had practiced at Illyn, but with the added difficulty that the celebrant does not know what movements are required until she or he begins to trace the Path. One is being tested to make certain that one without skill does not become attuned to the shenesoeniis; one is also aligning the Eyestone and other tower-devices to oneself. Once begun, the dance cannot be ended prematurely except by dying in the middle of it.
I stood above the glowing stone, letting the name “Ellesotur” roll on my tongue. I said the Words that are used to open the spiral. Gathering the cloak in my fists, I regulated my breathing into the dual meditation and sent my consciousness far from the world of the High Place and the Wizard’s storm. Turning from the Stone that blazed like the sun, I saw the Rune Path lit before me, containing its beginning in its end. My body was no longer my body. If there was any rain falling, I did not feel it. I trod the Path that only I have trod; though I did not know this at the time. When it was finished, I looked beyond the edge of the Tower into the gulf that lies beyond Ellebren in that sphere. The power of the shenesoeniis awakened and was mine.
4
At once and for many hours my awareness went out from the Tower, through a false dawn into a wakeless day. I could see a long way. I could feel the movements of my companions in Inniscaudra far beneath me, wakening other, older powers within the sprawling stone mansion. In Arthen I could feel the movements of the living, the scouts of Drii afield in the east, the murmuring of trees in elder groves, the lapping of River as it swelled beyond its banks in the driving rain. In the south, in Vyddn country, the encampment of Drudaen and his armies was visible as a whirlpool of shimmering stuff, the center of a summoning of immense power, and all his southern strongholds were like torches burning. He was aware of me and of what I had accomplished. This was a day that had been foretold in the writings he had read of the Prophet Curaeth, and among other meanings it had, it meant his days of waiting were ended. His power need no longer be quiescent.
He stretched out his hand, and even though he was without High Place on which to stand, such was his strength that a shadow of his making fell across the southern land from Amre to Westernmost Karns, north to Genfynnel, boiling over Arthen and reaching in tendrils across the Fenax. The darkness fell as far east as Drii, Pelponitur and the Orloc mountains. Beneath the boiling clouds, forks of lightning fell in waves.
From this distance I could not fight him, not when he had prepared for this moment so long. But I could not sit still, either. I had taken the Tower, I wore the Cloak. To answer Drudaen, to counter his strength, there was only me. For now and for the years to come.
So I did answer him, simply, without artifice. I stood near Ellesotur and sang, a simple song, but one that reached clear south to where he stood in his pavilion raising his gloved hand with the rings that ruled all his Towers on them. I sang, “I am Yron who killed Julassa, whose coming has been foretold; this is Arthen, and no shadow will fall here. Let the Wizard come who can cast me down while I am Yron and this is Arthen, while I am standing in my Tower Ellebren and am Yron Named of She-Who-Names. Let the Wizard come.”
This was my declaration and I sang it. I had not planned the words but they were present, deeply felt, and the Tower was moving in me as if we were one thing, the runes of the kirilidur mine to use, any part of that magic mine, I could feel it through me like a liquid fire. When I was done with the song the whole landscape of storm and darkness shuddered. The light of Ellesotur flared out like a new star, the silver miiren horns bursting into lances of colored fire. Deep within the Tower awoke its hidden devices. My song was heard in Ivyssa beneath Karomast, in the Genfynnel market beneath Laeredon, on the heights of Cunevadrim, echoing on the slopes of Aerfax. Drudaen heard me in his pavilion. Presently, because he could not cast me down and would lose much by opposing me at such a distance, he withdrew his hand from the north. Much suffering was spared that land. But over the south his shadow remained.
1
That night the light of the Tower was seen as far south as Genfynnel and as far north as Cordyssa, where the town folk thought the eerie glow heralded the end of the world. King Evynar Ydhiil in Drii saw the light from the rain-drenched terrace adjoining his bedchamber as he was retiring for the evening; he rose from his couch, pulled on a robe and watched all night, as Imral told me. Unlike the Cordyssans, King Evynar had seen light like that before and knew what it was. He saw the shadow also, advancing first and then retreating. He was not surprised, having taken warning from the visit of the Sisters. What he did not know for certain he could guess.
When morning came, overcast with purple haze and tenebrous drizzle, he could see that the shadow had been contained and even pushed back by the light over Inniscaudra. He could also see, eastward over Cundruen, another place where the shadow could not hold, where another light shone upward into the darkness. He did not need to guess where this light came from. Eastward, at the end of Cundruen, lay Montajhena.
What power stirred in those ruins he did not know. But he guessed Kirith Kirin would need to be told of this as soon as possible. Kirith Kirin’s messengers had not yet reached him with news of the opening of Inniscaudra, but Evynar needed no telling after he saw the Ellebren lights. He sent fleet-footed scouts westward along the Arthen roads to Illaeryn, carrying word of his own support and news of the ghost-light in Montajhena. He summoned his ministers to war council, for he feared the shadow would not remain quiet for long.
2
Lord Ren Vael was waked by the shouts of his own householders when the strange light on the southern horizon began to burn like a fallen sun. He had barely pulled on his robe and stepped into his fore-chamber before he heard the first echoed cries from the city’s lower quarters.
He saw the light from the roof-walk of his house and knew what it was. Having heard tales of the final battle before Gnemorra — he had been with squadrons securing the Anrex Valley — he was not surprised. Shadow rose up and storms swept across the Fenax out of nowhere, and Ren Vael understood. A chill made him shiver. He folded his robe over his head to keep off the rain. He was a balding man with a sad face and that night he did not so much look like one of the long-lived. Calling in his steward, he summoned the city gentry and burghers and they kept vigil with one another through the long night. At morning, when it became clear that the light in Ellebren had prevailed against the shadow, Ren Vael and his companions set about convincing the rest of Cordyssa the end of time had not yet come. This story is included in a letter Lord Vael wrote to his lover at the time, whom he had sent to one of his estates for protection during the unrest in Cordyssa.