{"id":2265,"date":"2026-01-03T22:19:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/tristan-02-cherryh-c-j\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:19:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:19:38","slug":"tristan-02-cherryh-c-j","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/tristan-02-cherryh-c-j\/","title":{"rendered":"Tristan 02 – Cherryh, C. J."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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Ages ago, before the time of Men, a place named Galasien grew to rule as far and wide as any records tell. Mauryl Gestaurien came from that time and that place. So did Hasufin Heltain, who may have been a prince of Galasien. Assuredly he was a wizard, as was Mauryl. Hasufin attempted a kind of magic that defied law and time and death, and would have ruled with absolute power, if not for Mauryl, who opposed him, and who at last visited the lands far to the north, whence he brought back five strangers to aid him. These were the Sihh\u00eb-lords, who wielded not wizardry but magic. In the struggle that followed, Hasufin fell, and with him fell Galasien, the citadel of which became the fortress known to the next age as Ynefel.<\/p>\n

The five lords and their halfling offspring comprised a dynasty whose fortress was Ynefel and whose peaceful unwalled capital was Althalen. They conquered the lands of Men, had Men living freely among them, and for a golden age lasting centuries they built and learned and brought comforts and prosperity to the land.<\/p>\n

But as Sihh\u00eb blood was running thin and a halfling, Elfwyn, sat the throne in Althalen, a prince was born, and died, and lived again, a circumstance which alarmed the wizards, the more so when other princes died one by one. By that means Hasufin crept back into influence among the living, bidding fair to succeed gentle Elfwyn and reestablish the dynasty of lost Galasien.<\/p>\n

Mauryl led a conspiracy of wizards to prevent that succession, and had for an ally a lord of Men, namely Elfwyn\u2019s chief general, Selwyn Marhanen, who seized power, burned the capital and killed every last bearer of royal Sihh\u00eb blood he could find.<\/p>\n

But some of the bloodline survived in the peasantry of Amefel, and in a few of the lineage who dwelt across the river Len\u00faalim in the district of Elwynor. Elwynor refused to join the rebellion, and loyal Men there established the Regency, believing some claimant to the throne would arise to defeat the Marhanen lord.<\/p>\n

It was not an unwarrantable hope in those days, for indeed every duke in the realm of Men on the other side of the river attempted to seize power. Only Selwyn proved more ruthless than any of his rivals, and established the Marhanen dynasty in Guelessar. From that time on the name of the kingdom was Ylesuin, and it ruled from Amefel eastward and north and south. Selwyn\u2019s son In\u00e9reddrin succeeded him; Uleman Syrillas continually reigned as Regent in Elwynor, and the old capital of Althalen became a place of ruins within Ylesuin\u2019s backward province of Amefel, a province despised for its unorthodoxy, given to know far more of witchery and wizardry than the dominant sect of Ylesuin, the godly Quinalt, liked.<\/p>\n

Mauryl, however, had no part in the wars of Men. Kingmaker, they called him; but he would not settle the quarrels of Men, ally himself to either side of the dispute, or set aside either Uleman\u2019s claims or Selwyn\u2019s to a united kingdom. Elwynor chose Ilef\u00ednian as its capital; Ylesuin chose Guelemara, heart of Guelessar, as the seat of the Marhanen kings, and Mauryl retreated to the shattered citadel of Ynefel to brood or study or do whatever a wizard did who had survived age after age of the world. Selwyn had appointed him Warden of Ynefel, and no one knew what Mauryl did, but one supposed that the world of Men was safer because ungodly Mauryl sat in his tower and kept away whatever ill might come from that place.<\/p>\n

But Mauryl was not immortal, despite the rumors. The years sat heavily on him. His studies took their toll. And his enemy, Hasufin Heltain, was not quite banished. On a certain night in a certain spring in the reign of In\u00e9reddrin Marhanen, beset by Hasufin\u2019s threat and working with the last of his strength, Mauryl Gestaurien worked what he knew would be his last great spell, a Summoning, to be precise, and a Shaping.<\/p>\n

Perhaps he flinched, perhaps he doubted his intention. He had expected something rather more formidable than what he found before him. The result was a gray-eyed youth: Tristen, who arrived without the least understanding even how to protect himself\u2026 a young man far from any understanding of wizardry.<\/p>\n

The youth\u2019s understanding of Mauryl, however, grew apace, and by late spring Tristen clambered about the old fortress at Ynefel with a childish curiosity about all the world, taming the pigeons of the loft, even exploring the walled-off end where Owl held sway. Ynefel was a curious place, and faces appeared in its walls, faces that on certain nights and in certain light seemed to take on life and move. But Tristen seldom saw them at it. Every night he took the potion Mauryl gave, every night slept soundly\u2026 every night except one. And on that night Tristen began to understand there was danger in the world. On that night, perhaps, only perhaps, Hasufin found a chink in the wall that otherwise was warded.<\/p>\n

On a day not too long after, Hasufin advantaged himself of that opening. Mauryl fell at last\u2026 himself immured in the dreadful walls. And on that day Tristen found himself bereft of everything, left alone to face a world he had never seen or imagined.<\/p>\n

He set out on the Road through Marna Wood, guided by Owl, in possession of a silver mirror and a book he could not read, not knowing where he was going, but that Mauryl had said someday he would walk that Road.<\/p>\n

He came to the town of Henas\u2019amef, principal city of Amefel, and into the hands of Prince Cefwyn, viceroy of that uneasy province. Cefwyn was heir to the Marhanen throne, and through Cefwyn Tristen came to the tutelage of Emuin, once Mauryl\u2019s student himself.<\/p>\n

But in short order Tristen so frightened Emuin that the old man fled the court, seeking sanctuary elsewhere\u2014for Emuin realized what Mauryl had done and set into his hands. \u201cWin his love,\u201d was Emuin\u2019s parting advice to Cefwyn, and Cefwyn, bored, isolate amid Amefel\u2019s rustic lords, now realized he had a somewhat dangerous guest\u2026 and attempted to entertain the strange young man.<\/p>\n

Therein a prince who had no friends discovered one\u2026 and saved his own life, for Hasufin Heltain, the ancient spirit that had destroyed Ynefel and Mauryl, had failed to overcome Tristen, and had come whispering to any ally he might find to bring him back to power\u2026 the enemies of the lord of the Elwynim, and also the lord of Amefel, Cefwyn\u2019s host, Lord Heryn Aswydd, who himself had Sihh\u00eb blood.<\/p>\n

Cefwyn might have died in ambush. But Tristen, finding a horse under him and a sword in his hand, discovered gifts he did not know he possessed\u2026 and Cefwyn began to be sure that what Mauryl had Summoned was, in his captain\u2019s parlance, no lad from lost Elfwyn\u2019s scullery, no halfling, even, but one of the vanished Sihh\u00eb-lords, perhaps Barrakk\u00eath himself, the first, and the most feared.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the plot Hasufin engendered reached to the king\u2026 who fell to ambush. Cefwyn, crowned, challenged the traitor, Lord Heryn. But not only the Marhanen king had perished. As Uleman of Elwynor was old and weak, disputations regarding that succession had arisen, and Uleman was hounded to his death by rebels pursuing him even into Cefwyn\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n

At the Regent\u2019s death, Cefwyn met Nin\u00e9vris\u00eb, the new Lady Regent, face-to-face\u2026 and knew he had met his bride.<\/p>\n

But Orien, Lord Heryn\u2019s sister, was not disposed to forgive her brother\u2019s death or to cede Cefwyn to a foreigner; and Hasufin had now a sorcerous and angry woman to do his work. Cefwyn\u2019s brother also opposed a foreign bride. And the Elwynim Lord who had hoped to claim Uleman\u2019s daughter and the kingdom was open to persuasion\u2026 and to sorcery.<\/p>\n

Orien\u2019s attempt on Cefwyn\u2019s life failed. And to set Nin\u00e9vris\u00eb on her father\u2019s throne and to marry his way to a unified Ylesuin, Cefwyn summoned all the lords of the south to war, to prevent the intrusion of Elwynim rebels into Amefel\u2026 and win his bride her throne. But he faced more than the rebel leader: he faced a shadow building and building along that frontier, one Tristen understood, and knew for a greater threat than Cefwyn could possibly understand. Cefwyn was moving exactly where that shadow wished him to move, and Tristen had no choice but to take up arms as the army of the south of Ylesuin marched to Lewenbrook. Wizardry had allied itself with those rebels, wizardry which had brought down one Marhanen king, Cefwyn\u2019s father, and now bid fair to set its own pawn on the throne of a new kingdom.<\/p>\n

Tristen, however, found within the book the mastery of magic, his own heritage, which had eluded him. He rode to war as lord of Althalen and Ynefel, under a banner counted anathema by the holy Quinalt, but cheered by the Amefin commons. At the last he and his man Uwen Lewen\u2019s-son rode against the Shadow that had loomed over Marna Wood in an hour when men were falling left and right to a power no sword could fight.<\/p>\n

But Tristen rode with a sword graven with magical words of Truth<\/strong> and Illusion<\/strong>, cleaving one from the other, and wielded that weapon against the Shadow of shadows. He found himself at Ynefel, then hurled into shadow, lost to Men forever\u2026<\/p>\n

Except that fearing that his power might grow too great and overwhelm him, and draw him out of the world of Men, he had given his shieldman, Uwen Lewen\u2019s-son, power over him. He made a common soldier his judge, whether to call him back or to let him vanish from the world as too great and too dark a danger.<\/p>\n

And Vwen called him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview Ages ago, before the time of Men, a place named Galasien grew to rule as far and wide as any records tell. Mauryl Gestaurien came from that time and that place. So did Hasufin Heltain, who may have been a prince of Galasien. Assuredly he was a wizard, as was Mauryl. Hasufin attempted … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[138],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-c-j-cherryh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}