Free Fortress in the Eye of Time by C. J. Cherryh

over their gaping mouths and staring eyes—and then, the light passing to the other side, some seemed to shut those eyes, or grimace in anger.
    â€œGo on,” Mauryl said grimly when they reached the balcony of Mauryl’s room, and Tristen took the next stairs. Beyond the outward rail, Mauryl’s light drowned in the dark and failed, and Tristen kept descending as Mauryl’s step-tap, step-tap , pursued him down and around and onto his own balcony.
    It pursued him likewise toward his own open and abandoned door, as the light in Mauryl’s hand chased the dark ahead of him, and in sudden dread of the dark in his own room, he let Mauryl’s light overtake him.
    â€œThe candle blew out,” he said.
    â€œTo bed,” Mauryl said with the same unforgiving grimness, and Tristen got in under the cold bedclothes, shivering, glad when Mauryl, leaning his staff against the door, used his candle to light the remaining candle at his bedside, the watch-candle having burned down to a guttered stub.
    â€œI didn’t mean to make you angry,” Tristen said. “I heard the noise. I’m sorry.”
    Mauryl picked up the cup from beside the candle and wiped the inside with his finger, frowning, not seeming so angry, now. Tristen waited, wondering if Mauryl would go away, or scold him, or what. The bedclothes were cold against his skin. He hoped for a more kindly judgment, at least a fairer one, by the look on Mauryl’s face.
    â€œMy fault,” Mauryl said. “My fault, not yours.” Mauryl tugged the quilts up over his bare shoulder. So, Tristen thought, Mauryl had forgiven him for whatever he had done by leaving his room. He wished he understood. Words that came to him with such strange clarity—but the danger tonight, and why Mauryl was angry—it seemed never the important things that came easily and quickly, only the trivial ones.
    Then Mauryl sat down on the side of his bed, leaned a hand on the quilts the other side of his knee, the way Mauryl had sometimes talked to him at bedtime, a recollection of comfortable times, of his first days with Mauryl. “You put us both in danger,” Mauryl said, and patted his knee so that the sting of the words was diminished. “It was foolish of you to run. You startled me. Next time…next time, stay where you are. I know the dangers. I’ve set defenses around us. You attracted attention, most surely, dangerous attention—as dangerous as opening a door.”
    â€œCan’t it get in the holes?” he asked. “The pigeons do.”
    â€œIt’s not a pigeon. It can’t, no. It has to be a door or a window.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Mauryl shrugged. The candlelight seemed friendlier now. It glowed on Mauryl’s silver hair and gave a warmer flush to his skin. “It must. There’s a magic to doors and windows. When the foundations of a place are laid down, they become a Line on the earth. And doors and windows are appointed for comings and goings, but no place else. Masons know such things. So do Spirits.”
    They were Words, tasting, the one, of stone and secrets, but the other—
    He gave a shiver, knowing then, that it was a spirit they feared. Other Words poured in—Dead, and Ghost, and Haunt.
    He thought, Mauryl fears this spirit. That’s why we latch the doors and windows. It wants in.
    â€œWhy?” he asked. “Why does it want to come in?”
    â€œTo do us harm.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIt’s a wicked thing. A cruel thing. One day it will have you to fear, boy, but for now it fears me. Go to sleep. Go to sleep now. There will be no more noises.”
    â€œWhat were they? Was it the Shadows?”
    â€œNothing to concern you. Nothing you need know. Go to sleep, I say. I’ll leave the candle.” Mauryl stood up, reached toward his face and brushed his eyelids shut with his fingertips. “Sleep.”
    He couldn’t open them. They were too