Fortress in the Eye of Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

remembered the butterfly. It was how he’d skinned his elbow on the stairs outside. He remembered everything, even the sting, and the tingle of Mauryl’s fingers on his skin, and the way the sun lay on the stones when they were dry.
    â€œBoy.” Mauryl’s fingers popped against his cheek, lightly, startling him into seeing Mauryl again. Mauryl’s eyes were black-centered. Mauryl’s face was grim and bitterly unhappy. “I won’t be here forever, boy. You can’t look to me for all the answers, or to tell you what to do.”
    â€œWhy?” That was very unsettling to hear. It frightened him. “Where will you be?”
    â€œI won’t be here , boy. And you had better know what to do.”
    â€œI don’t know what to do!” He was trying to be straightforward with Mauryl, as Mauryl demanded. But he wasbeginning to be scared, now. “How long will you be gone, sir? Where will you go?” He did not conceive a place outside this place. He couldn’t think of one.
    â€œThings end , boy. People go away.”
    â€œNo.” He caught at Mauryl’s hands. “Don’t go away, Mauryl.” He had never thought before that there was anywhere to go, or any other place to look down from, at the woods, or up from, at the sun and the clouds. But there must, then, be other places. “I’ll go, too.”
    â€œNot by my choice,” Mauryl said. “Not now. And if you’re good, if you think hard, if you study—maybe I won’t have to go at all. I could be wrong. I might stay after all. If you’re very, very good. If you study.”
    â€œI will study.” He snatched at Mauryl’s hands. “I will. I’ll try not to make mistakes.”
    â€œDo you know, boy, that your mistakes could open the keep to the Shadows, that you could leave a door unlatched, that you could be outside enjoying the breeze and the rain, and do something so utterly foolish by your inattention to the hour, that they could get you while you’re outside,—and then what could I do, can you say? I had to come out in the rain just now to get you, foolish lad, and what if it were something worse than rain, what if it only looked good and felt good to touch, and what if it only felt good for the moment, boy, eh? What if it opened the doors and opened the windows and left you nowhere to run, then what would you do? Can you answer me that?”
    â€œI don’t know, Mauryl!”
    Mauryl freed his own hands and captured his instead. “Well, you’d do well to figure it out before you do something so foolish, wouldn’t you, boy?”
    â€œI want to! I want to, Mauryl!”
    â€œWanting to won’t be enough. Trying won’t be enough. After it’s got you is far too late. Before is the only time you own, lad, the only before you can trust is now , and you don’t even know how long before is, do you, foolish boy?”
    â€œNo.” He thought that Mauryl was telling him his answer,maybe the very means to assure that he would never go away, but he could by no desperate reach of his wits comprehend what Mauryl was saying. “I don’t know, Mauryl. I want to know, but I’m a fool. I don’t understand anything!”
    Mauryl bumped his chin with his finger, and made him look up.
    â€œThen until you do understand, pay very close attention to doors and windows. Don’t do stupid things on the parapets. Don’t risk your safety. Don’t go out in storms, don’t let the sun sneak behind the walls when you’re not paying attention.”
    â€œI won’t, Mauryl!”
    â€œGo practice your letters while the storm lasts. Read and write. These are useful things.” Mauryl stood up and rummaged among parchments on the table, sending several off onto the dusty floor, along with a tin plate and a dirty spoon. Tristen dived down and rescued them, and put them up on the table again; but