“Very well,” she said, but before Alton could be surprised by her quick acquiescence, she asked, “Have you any messages for your father?”

“My father?”

“Yes. I believe I’ll go to Woodhaven to visit him. I should think he’d listen to reason and permit me to stay here. After all, I’ve official greetings to present to him from my own father. My father tells me that Lord D’Yer appreciates the importance of well-recorded histories.”

They all did, since so much about the wall and magic in general had fallen into obscurity following the Long War, leaving them in their current fix of trying to relearn what to their ancestors was common knowledge.

“My father,” Alton said, “also appreciates the dangers of this wall. It wasn’t that long ago he lost his brother and nephew to it.”

Estral shrugged. “All the more reason he may wish to have everything recorded for the future. I’m sure I’ll be back soon.” She spun on her heel and started walking away while Alton could only watch after her in astonishment. But then she paused and turned back to him. “You know, Karigan never mentioned how inflexible you were.”

“Inflexible?”

Estral nodded slowly. “Yes, I’d definitely say inflexible.” Without further ado, she was off again, striding away, leaving a fuming Alton behind her.

“Inflexible?” he muttered. “I’m not the inflexible one.”

He faced the wall, arms crossed. In regard to Estral Andovian, the term insufferable came to mind. He’d never gotten the impression from Karigan that her friend was such a pain in the—in the rear.

He grumbled and headed for the tower. Let Estral travel to Woodhaven to see his father. If Lord D’Yer approved of Estral’s presence at the wall, then he could be responsible for her well-being. Problem was, Alton reflected, if something happened to Estral, Karigan would not blame his father, but him. He sighed.

He paused before the tower and tried to clear his mind of Estral Andovian and whatever Karigan would think or say. It was not easy to do, but once he pressed his palm against the granite of the wall, the throb of music pulsing through it, the song of the guardians, helped him focus.

The tower possessed no door, not even any windows or arrow loops on its impassive facade, but it allowed certain persons to permeate its wall. So far those persons had been primarily Green Riders. He brushed his hand against his brooch and sank into the wall. He was absorbed through stone, the passage no more difficult than a brief submersion in water and taking no longer than half a breath. When he emerged into the chamber within, the wall he had just passed through rippled and then hardened into solid granite behind him.

The tower chamber had seen better days. Columns in the center of the chamber had fallen over and broken, and stone had crashed to the floor from above. The damage occurred when the wall guardians had been on the verge of insanity, driven there by both the breach and the influence of Alton’s late cousin, Pendric. They’d lost their rhythm, the thread of song that unified the magic of the wall began to unravel, almost causing all to fall into ruin.

There was still a hole far above where snow and rain had seeped through all winter and Alton did not know how he might fix it, for no ladder reached it. Apparently there had also been an observation platform that was now a pile of rubble on the floor, but how the wallkeepers of old reached it, he had no idea for there were no stairs he could find.

Living wallkeepers had once been stationed in the towers to keep watch on Blackveil and the wall itself, but with the passage of the ages and various wars, their duty diminished until it was entirely forgotten and the wall taken for granted. The towers, however, were not left completely uninhabited. Magical presences remained. They’d once been great mages, fully corporeal beings, but once their physical selves passed on, they continued to reside in the towers in their current ghostly manifestations.

Merdigen, the resident of Tower of the Heavens, constantly nattered at Alton about the poor state of his tower, as if Alton could fix the mess with a snap of his fingers. If only it were so easy! He’d done his best through the winter to sweep up debris and move rubble, but it would require more strength and craftsmanship than he possessed to remake columns and return the chamber to its former condition.

There was a table in the chamber that miraculously survived the destruction, and Alton did much of his work there. Books were piled on one end. Dale had promised the tower mages books if they’d work on solving the riddles of the wall, and since then, Alton’s father had shipped them a large quantity of books. The mages did not seem to care what they were about, just that they were books.

“There you are!”

Merdigen’s voice made Alton jump. As often as he entered the tower and expected Merdigen to be there, the mage always managed to surprise him with his sudden appearances. Alton turned to face him.

“It’s about time,” Merdigen said, tugging on his long flowing beard. It was the color of old ivory.

Alton braced himself, wondering what the mage would complain about this time.

“This is not the most convenient method to read a book.”

“What’s not?”

“One page at a time,” Merdigen replied. “You left me on page ten of Chettley’s Theories of Light and then never came back to turn the page.”

Merdigen was right: it was not the most convenient way to read a book, or to have it be read. Merdigen was not a corporeal being, and therefore could not affect physical objects. It was wonderful that the mages now had access to all these books, but it was not wonderful that Alton and Dale had to flip the pages for them.