Fortress, tome 1 : Fortress in the Eye of Time
Carolyn J. Cherryh1995

Deep in an abandoned, shattered castle, an old man of the Old Magic muttered almost forgotten words. His purpose—to create out of the insubstance of the air, from a shimmering of light and a fluttering of shadows. that most wonderous of spells, a Shaping. A Shaping in the form of a young man who will be sent east on the road the old was to old to travel. To right the wrongs of a long-forgotten wizard war, and call new wars into being. Here is the long-awaited major new novel from one of the brightest stars in the fantasy and science fiction firmament. C.J.Cherryh's haunting story of the wizard Mauryl, kingmaker for a thousand years of Men, and Tristen, fated to sow distrust between a prince and his father being. A tale as deep as legend and a intimate as love, it tells of a battle beyond Time, in which all Destiny turns on the wheel of an old man's ambition, a young man's innocence, and the unkept promised of a king to come.

A ruined tower in a vast forest is the haunted home of the world's last great wizard, Mauryl. Here in the storm drenched night, Mauryl performs a final act of the highest Old Magic, a Shaping, hoping that by this most wondrous of spells the wrongs of a long forgotten wizard war may be righted.

In the tower, a boy is brought full grown to life. Named Tristen, he is neither golem nor man, and to Mauryl's dismay he has none of the wisdom needed to ensure the success of his last gambit of the wizard's long life. Presented with the precious book that contains the knowledge he needs, Tristen cannot understand a single word. Instead, Tristen loves his maker blindly, and loves the beauty of the world.

Tristen walks alone and helpless from the last outpost of the Old Lands into a new age of holiness rife with treachery and war. A glamour protects him until, as the veils of unknowning are blown aside by events, Tristen's power is manifest. Then Mauryl's enemies become his. And though Mauryl's book is with him always, still Tristen cannot read it.

Titre original : Fortress in the Eye of Time (1995)