The Time of The Dark

by Barbara Hambly

Version 1.0

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Gil knew that it was only a dream. There was no reason

for her to feel fear—she knew that the danger, the chaos,

the blind, sickening nightmare terror that filled the scream-

ing night were not real; this city with its dark, unfamiliar

architecture, these fleeing crowds of panic-stricken men

and women who shoved her aside, unseeing, were only the

vivid dregs of an overloaded subconscious, wraiths that

would melt with daylight.

 

She knew all this; nevertheless, she was afraid.

 

She seemed to be standing at the foot of a flight of green

marble stairs, facing into a square courtyard surrounded

by tall peak-roofed buildings. Fleeing people were shoving

past her, jostling her back against the gigantic pedestal

of a malachite statue, without seeming to be aware of her

presence at all; gasping, wild-eyed people, terrified faces

bleached to corpses by the brilliance of the cold quarter

moon. They were pouring out of the gabled houses, the

men clutching chests or bags of money, the women jewels,

lap-dogs, or children crying in uncomprehending terror.

Their hair was wild from sleep, for it was deep night; some

of them were dressed but many were naked, or tripping

over bedclothes hastily snatched, and Gil could smell the

rank terror-sweat of their bodies as they brushed against

her. None of them saw her, none of them stopped; they

stumbled frantically up those vast steps of moonlit marble,

through the dark arch of the gates at the top, and out into

the clamoring streets of the stricken city beyond.

 

What city? Gil wondered confusedly. And why am I

afraid? This is only a dream.

 

But she knew. In her heart she knew, as things are

known in dreams, that this scene of frenzied escape was

even now being repeated, like the hundredfold reflections

in a doubled mirror, everywhere in the city around her.

The knowledge and the horror created a chill that crept

along her skin, crawled wormlike through her guts.

 

They all felt it, too. For not a man would stop to lean

on the pillar behind her, nor a woman stumble on the

steps at her feet. They looked back with the blank, wide

eyes of madness, their frenzied gaze drawn as if against

their will to the cyclopean doors of ancient time-greened

bronze that dominated the wall opposite. It was from these

that they fled. It was behind this monstrous trapezoidal

gateway that the horror was building, as water builds be-

hind a weakening dam a soft, shifting, bodiless evil, an

unspeakable eruption into the land of the living from out

of black abysses of space and time.

 

There was motion, and voices, in the cavern of the

arched gateway behind her, muffled footfalls and the

thin, ringing whine of a sword as it was drawn. Gil turned,

her thick hair tangling in her eyes. The wild, jumping dance

of wind-bent torches silhouetted crowding forms, flicker-

ing across a face, a blade-edge, the dull pebbled gleam of

chain mail. Against the thinning tide of desperate civilians,

the Guards stepped into the cool pewter monochrome of the

moonlight—black-uniformed, lightly mailed, booted, men

and women both, the honed blades of their weapons shin-

ing thinly against the play of the shadows. Gil could catch

a glimpse of a nervous rabble of hastily armed civilians

massing up behind them, whispering in dread and fumbling

with unpracticed hands at the hilts of borrowed armament,

grim fear fighting terrified bewilderment in their half-seen

faces. And striding down ahead of them all was an old

man in a brown robe, an old wizard, hawk-eyed and

bearded and bearing a sword of flame.

 

It was he who stopped on the top step, scanning the

court before him like a hunting eagle while the last of the

fleeing, half-naked populace streamed raggedly up the stairs

past Gil, brushing against her, unseeing, past the wizard,

past the Guards, bare feet slapping hollowly in the black

passage of the gates. She saw him fix his gaze on the doors,

 

knowing the nature of that eldritch unseen horror, know-

ing from whence it would come. The battered, nondescript

face was serene behind the tangled chaparral of beard.

Then his gaze shifted, judging his battleground, and his

eyes met hers.

 

He could see her. She knew it instantly, even before

his eyes widened in startled surprise. The Guards and vol-

unteers, hesitating behind the old man, unwilling to go

where he was not ahead of them, were looking around and

through and past her, dubiously seeking the wizard's vision

in the suddenly still moonlight of the empty court. But he

could see her, and she wondered confusedly why.

 

Across the court, from the cracks and hinges of those

tuneless doors, a thin, directionless wind had begun to

blow, stirring and whispering over the silver-washed circles

of the pavement, tugging at Gil's coarse black hair. It

carried on it the dank, cold scent of evil, of acid and stone

and things that should never see light, of blood and dark-

ness. But the wizard sheathed the gleaming blade he held

and came cautiously down the steps toward her, as if he

feared to frighten her.

 

But that, Gil thought, would not be possible—and any-

way she was only dreaming. He looked like a gentle old

man, she thought. His eyes, blue and bright and very fierce,

held in them neither pride nor cruelty, and if he were

afraid of the shifting, sightless thing welling in darkness

behind the doors, he did not show it. He advanced to within

a few feet of where she stood shivering in the green shad-

ows of the monstrous statue, those blue eyes puzzled and

wary, as if trying to understand what he saw. Then he held

out his hand and made as if to speak.

 

Abruptly, Gil woke up—but not in her bed.

 

For a moment she didn't know where she was. She

threw out her hand awkwardly, startled and disoriented,

as those suddenly wakened are, and the cold fluted marble

of the pedestal's edge bit savagely into her palm. The

night's damp cold knifed her bare legs, froze her naked

feet on the pavement. The cries of fear from the night-

gripped city came to her suddenly clearer on the wind, and

with them the elusive scent of water. For an instant, the

shrieking horror of what lay behind the doors was like

a gripping hand at her throat, and then it sank, whirled

 

away like leaves in the face of shock and confusion and

even greater horror.

 

She had waked up.

 

She was no longer dreaming.

 

She was still there.

 

All the eyes were on her now; startled, uncertain, even

afraid. The warriors, still gathered at the top of the broad

polished steps, stared in surprise at this thin young woman,

dark-haired and scantily clad in the green polka-dot cow-

boy shirt that she habitually wore to bed, who had so

suddenly appeared in their midst. Gil stared back, clutching

for support the sharp edge of the marble behind her, weak

with shock and frantic with bewilderment and dread, her

legs shaking and her breath strangling in her throat

 

But the wizard was still there, and she realized that it

was impossible to be truly afraid when she was with him.

 

Quietly, he asked her, "Who are you?"

 

To her own surprise she found the voice to answer.

"Gil," she said. "Gil Patterson."

 

"How did you come here?"

 

Around them the black wind blew stronger from the

doors, rank and cold and vibrant with brooding abhuman

lusts. The Guards murmured among themselves, tension

spreading along the line, visible as the humming quiver of a

tautened wire—they, too, were afraid. But the wizard

didn't stir, and the mellow, scratchy warmth of his voice

was unshaken.

 

"I—I was dreaming," Gil stammered. "But—this—I—

it isn't a dream anymore, is it?"

 

"No," the old man said kindly. "But don't be afraid."

He raised his scarred fingers and made some movement

in the air with them that she could not clearly see. "Go

back to your dreams."

 

The night's cold faded as the cloying haziness of sleep

blurred sound and smell and fear. Gil saw the Guards

peer with startled eyes at the blue, flickering shadows that

she knew were all they could now see. Then the wizard

spoke to them, and they followed him as he strode across

the deserted pavement of the court, facing into the black

winds and the nameless menace of the doors. He raised his

sword, a long two-handed blade, and it sparked in the

darkness like summer lightning. Then, as if an explosion

 

had rocked the vaults below the building, the doors burst

open, and blackness poured forth over them like smoke.

 

Gil saw what was in the darkness, and her own screams

of terror woke her.

 

Her hands shook so badly she could barely switch on

the bedside lamp. The clock on the table beside her bed

said two-thirty. Drenched in sweat and colder than death,

Gil fell back against the pillow, whispering frantically to

herself that it was only a dream—only a dream. I am

twenty-four years old and a graduate student in medieval

history and I will have my Ph.D. in a year and it's stupid

to be afraid of a dream. And it was only a dream. It's all

over now and none of it was real. It was only a dream.

 

She told herself this, staring out from the fortress of

worn sheets and cheap blankets at the convincing famil-

iarity of her own apartment—the Levi's lolling out of the

half-closed dresser drawer, Rooster Cogburn glowering

down from a poster on the wall, the absent-minded litter of

textbooks, tissues, pennies, and dog-eared paperbacks that

strewed the threadbare shag of the rug. She thought about

the early hour of today's seminar, glanced again at the

clock and the lamp, and considered seeking sleep and

darkness. But though she was, as she had said, twenty-four

years old and almost a Ph.D., far too old to be troubled

by the fears felt in a dream, she rolled over after a short

time and groped Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages from

the floor beside her bed. She found her place in it, and by

act of will forced herself to become fascinated by the

legal status of the King's Highway in fifteenth-century

England.

 

She did not trust herself to sleep again until it was

almost dawn.

 

Oddly enough, Gil remembered nothing of the dream

until nearly a week later. And what she did remember,

driving home from the university in the tawny-golden

brilliance of a California September afternoon, was the

wizard's voice, wondering where she had heard it, the warm

timbre of it and the characteristic break in tone, the velvet

smoothness sliding into roughness and then abruptly back.

 

Then she remembered the eyes, the city, the shadows,

and the fear. And she realized, turning her red VW down

 

Clarke Street toward her apartment building, that it wasn't

the first time she'd dreamed about that city.

 

The odd thing about the first dream, Gil recalled,

maneuvering into a narrow parking space on the perenni-

ally crowded cul-de-sac, was that, though there had been

nothing at all in it to cause her fear, she had been afraid

and had waked up chilled with a lingering sense of dread.

 

She had dreamed of wandering alone in a vaulted cham-

ber, so huge that the lines of shadow-curtained arches sup-

porting the low, groined ceiling had vanished into darkness

all about her. Dust had stirred mustily beneath her bare

feet, had coated the disused junk and dilapidated boxes

piled between and among the pillars, and had fogged the

distant glow of a yellow flame that she was following to

its source, a little tallow-dip lamp burning beside the dark

sweep of a red porphyry Stair. All around her, as cloaking

as the dust, as ubiquitous as the shadows, was that sense

of lurking fear, of being watched from the darkness by

things that had no eyes.

 

The pallid flame had gleamed dully on the broad red

steps and had thrown back the half-seen shape of monu-

mental bronze doors at their top, but had drawn no reflec-

tion from the leaden blackness of the basalt floor, in spite

of the fact that the floor was as smooth as glass, polished

by the passage of countless feet; how this could be in the

deeps of the vaults she did not know, and it was clear from

the dust that few if any came here now. The floor was

old, far older than the walls, though how she knew this

Gil was not sure—older, she thought, than the city over

her head, or any city of mankind. In the midst of that

dark pavement, right before the lamplit steps, one single

slab of the floor was new, hewn of pale gray granite, its

surface rough against the worn, silken smoothness of the

rest of the floor, though it, too, was covered with that

agelong mantle of dust.

 

In the darkness above her a door creaked, and light

wavered across the many arches. Gil slipped back into the

shadow of a pillar, though she knew it was only a dream,

and knew that people here could not see her because they

did not exist. A woman, a servant by her dress, came

padding down the steps with a basket on her arm, hold-

ing a lamp up above her head; at her heels lumbered a

hunchbacked slave, peering around him at the darkness

 

out of shadowed, wary eyes. The woman led the way un-

concernedly down the Stair, across the smooth dark floor,

turning aside to avoid walking on the odd granite slab,

although her goal—a bin of dried apples—lay directly

opposite the foot of the stairs, and the odd slab was in no

way raised above the level of the rest of the floor. The

hunchback made an even wider circuit, moving from pillar

to pillar, woofing and clucking quietly to himself and

never taking those sharp, fear-filled eyes from the pale

stone.

 

The woman loaded her basket and handed it to the

hunchback to carry. She started back toward the steps

and paused, irresolute, clearly telling herself not to be a

silly, superstitious goose, that there was no reason to be

afraid, not of the darkness that pressed so close around

her, and certainly not of six feet by twelve of pavement

that was gray instead of black, granite instead of basalt.

But in the end, she took the long way around, to avoid

walking on that odd slab.

 

That's why it's rough, when the rest of the floor is so

weirdly smooth, Gil thought. No one walks on it. No one

has ever walked on it.

 

Why?

 

But even the sense that the two dreams were somehow

connected held only a kind of passing curiosity for her,

until the third dream. They did nothing to disturb the fabric

of her daily existence. She continued to spend hours in the

university library, searching scholarly articles and molder-

ing Middle English town records, jotting information on

index cards that she later sorted out at the kitchen table

back in the Clarke Street apartment, trying to make sense

of what she knew. She graded undergraduate papers,

sweated over her grant proposal, and had her dealings

with friends and lovers—the routine of her life—until she

dreamed of that beleaguered city again.

 

She knew it was the same city, though she looked down

on it now from above. She found herself standing in the

embrasure of a tall window, in a tower, she thought. So

bright was the moonlight that she could discern the patterns

of the courtyard pavement far below, see the designs

worked into the wrought-iron lace of the gates, and make

out even the shadows of the fallen leaves, like a furring of

 

dust on the ground. Raising her eyes, she could catch,

across the peaked maze of rooftrees, the glimpse of distant

water. In the other direction, the black shoulders of moun-

tains loomed against the hem of a star-blazing sky.

 

In the room behind her a solitary tongue of flame stood

above the polished silver of the lamp on the table, and by

its small, unwavering glow she could distinguish the fur-

nishings, few and simple, each exquisitely wrought out of

dark wood and ivory. Though the design and motifs were

alien to her eyes, she could recognize in them the creative

height of a well-founded tradition, the product of a sophis-

ticated and tasteful culture.

And she saw that she was not alone.

Against the chamber's far wall stood the room's largest

piece of furniture, a massive ebony crib, its scrolled rail-

ings veined in mother-of-pearl that caught the dim lamp-

light. Above it, all but hidden in the massed shadows, a

tall canopy loomed, with an emblem picked out in gold:

a stylized eagle striking, beneath a tiny crown. This em-

blem was repeated, stitched in pinfire glints of bullion, on

the black surcoat of the man who stood beside that crib,

head bent and silent as a statue, looking down at its sleep-

ing occupant.

 

He was a tall man, handsome in an austere way. Some

silver showed in his shoulder-length brown hair, though Gil

would not have put his age much above thirty-five. From

the soles of his soft leather boots to the folds of the billow-

ing robe that covered surcoat and tunic, the man's clothing

was rich, of a piece with the subdued grandeur of the

room, dark, plain, flawlessly tailored of the most expensive

fabric. The gems in the hilt of his sword flickered like

stars in the lamplight with the small movement of his

breath.

 

A sound in the corridor beyond made him raise his

head, and Gil saw his face, haunted with the expectation

of terrible news. Then the door beside him opened.

 

"I thought I should find you here," the wizard said.

For one moment Gil had the absurd notion that he was

speaking to her. But the man in black nodded, his face

setting into lines worn by grim concentration on a problem

beyond solving, and his long, slender hand continued to

stroke the inward-curling circles of the rail of the crib.

 

"I was on my way down," he apologized, his voice

 

muffled, his face turned half away. "I only wanted to see

him."

 

The wizard closed the door. The movement of the air

made the single lampflame shudder, the flickering color

briefly gilding sunbursts of wrinkles around his eyes, show-

ing that same expression of weariness and strain. Gil saw

that he, too, wore a sword, belted over the pale homespun

of his robe. The hilt of it was not jeweled, but was worn

silky with years of use. He said, "There is no need. I

doubt they will attack again tonight."

 

"Tonight," the man in black repeated somberly. His

bitter eyes were a hard smoke-gray, like steel in the

dense shadows of the little room. "What about tomorrow

night, Ingold? And the night after? Yes, we pushed them

back tonight, back down under the earth where they be-

long. We won—here. What about in the other cities of the

Realm? What have you seen in that crystal of yours,

Ingold? What has been happening elsewhere tonight? In

Penambra in the south, where it seems now even my gov-

ernor has been slain, and the Dark Ones haunt his palace

like foul ghosts? In the provinces along the valley of the

Yellow River to the east, where you tell me they hold

such sway that not a man will leave his house after the sun

goes in? In Gettlesand across the mountains, where the

fear of the Dark Ones is so great that men will stay within

their doors while the White Raiders ride down off the

plains to burn and loot among them at will?

 

"The Army cannot be everywhere. They're scattered in

the four corners of the Realm, most of them still at Penam-

bra. We here in Gae cannot hold out forever. We may

not even be able to hold the Palace, should they come

again tomorrow night."

 

"That is tomorrow," the wizard replied quietly. "We

can only do what we must—and hope."

 

"Hope." He said it without scorn or irony, only as if it

were a word long unfamiliar, whose very sound was awk-

ward upon his tongue. "Hope for what, Ingold? That the

Council of Wizards will break this silence of theirs and

come out of hiding in their city at Quo? Or that, if and

when they do, they will have an answer?"

 

"You narrow hope when you define it, Eldor."

"God knows it's narrow enough as it is." Eldor turned

away, to pace like a restless lion to the window and back,

 

taking the room in three of his long strides. He passed

within a foot of Gil without seeing her, but Ingold the

wizard looked up, and his eyes rested briefly, curiously,

on her. Eldor swung around, his sleeve brushing Gil's

hand on the windowsill. "It's the helplessness I can't

stand," he burst out angrily. "They are my people, Ingold.

The Realm—and all of civilization, if what you tell me is

true—is falling to pieces around me, and you and I together

cannot so much as offer it a shield to hide behind. You

can tell me what the Dark Ones are, and where they come

from, but all your powers cannot touch them. You can't

tell us what we can do to defeat them. You can only fight

them, as we all must, with a sword."

 

"It may be, there is nothing we can do," Ingold said,

settling back in his chair. He folded his hands, but his

eyes were alert.

 

"I won't accept that."

 

"You may have to."

 

"It's not true. You know it's not true."

 

"Humankind did defeat the Dark, all those thousands of

years ago," the wizard said quietly, the flickering of the

light doing curious things to the scar-seamed contours of

his weathered face. "As to how they did it—perhaps they

themselves were not certain how it came about; in any case,

we have found no record of it. My power cannot touch

the Dark Ones because I do not know them, do not under-

stand either their being or their nature. They have a power

of their own, Eldor, very different from mine—beyond

the comprehension of any human wizard, except, perhaps,

Lohiro, the Master of the Council of Quo. Of what hap-

pened in the Time of the Dark, three thousand years ago,

when they rose for the first time to devastate the earth—

you know it all as well as I."

 

"Know it?" The King laughed bitterly, facing the wiz-

ard like a beast brought to bay, his eyes dark with the

memory of ancient outrage. "I remember it. I remember

it as clearly as if it had happened to me, instead of to my

however-many-times-great-grandfather." He strode to stand

over the wizard, shadowing him like a blighted tree, the

single lamp flinging the great distorted shape of him to

blend with the crowding dimness of the room. "And he

remembers, too." His hand moved toward the crib, the

vast shadow-hand on the wall its dark echo, toward the

 

child asleep within. "Deep in his baby mind those memor-

ies are buried. He's barely six months old—six months, yet

he'll wake up screaming, rigid with fear. What can a

child that young dream of, Ingold? He dreams of the

Dark. I know."

 

"Yes," the wizard agreed, "you dreamed of it, too. Your

father never did—in fact, I doubt your father ever feared

or imagined anything in his life. Those memories were

buried too deep in him—or perhaps there was simply no

need for him to remember. But you dreamed of them and

feared them, although you did not know what they were."

 

Standing in the cool draft of the window, Gil felt that

bond between them, palpable as a word or a touch: the

memory of a gawky, dark-haired boy waked screaming

from nameless nightmares, and the comfort given him by a

vagabond wizard. Some of the harshness left Eldor's face,

and the grimness faded from his voice, leaving it only sad.

 

"Would I had remained ignorant," he said. "We of our

line are never entirely young, you know. The memories

that we carry are the curse of our race."

 

"They may be the saving of it," Ingold replied. "And

of us all."

 

Eldor sighed and moved back to the crib in reflective

silence, his slim, strong hands clasped lightly behind his

back. But he was not now looking down at the child

asleep. His eyes, brooding away into the shadows, lost

their sharpness, focusing on times beyond his lifetime, on

experience beyond his own.

 

After a while he said, "Will you do me one last service,

Ingold?"

 

The old man's eyes slid sharply over to him. "There is

no last."

 

The lines of Eldor's face creased briefly deeper with

his tired smile. He was evidently long familiar with the

wizard's stubbornness. "In the end," he said, "there is

always a last. I know," he went on, "that your power

cannot touch the Dark Ones. But it can elude them. I've

seen you do it. When the night comes that they rise again,

your power will allow you to escape, when the rest of us

must die fighting. No—" He raised his hand to forestall

the wizard's next words. "I know what you're going to

say. But I want you to leave. If it comes to that, as your

 

King, I order you to. When they come—and they will—I

want you to take my son Altir. Take him and flee."

 

The wizard sat silent, but his beard bristled with the set

of his jaw. At last he said, "For one thing, you are not my

King."

 

"Then as your friend, I ask it," the King said, and his

voice was very low. "You couldn't save us. Not all of us.

You're a great swordsman, Ingold, perhaps the greatest

alive, but the touch of the Dark is death, to a wizard as

well as to any other. Our doom is surely upon us here,

for they will come again, as sure as the ice in the north,

and there can be no escape. But you can save Tir. He's

the last of my line, the last of Dare of Renweth's line—

the last of the lineage of the Kings of Darwath. He's the

only one in the Realm now who will remember the Time

of the Dark. History itself has all but forgotten; no record

at all exists of that time, bar a mention in the oldest of

chronicles. My father remembered nothing of it—my

own memories are sketchy. But the need is greater now.

Maybe that has something to do with it—I don't know.

 

"But I know, and you know, that three thousand years

ago the Dark Ones came and virtually wiped humankind

from the face of the earth. And they departed away again.

Why, Ingold, did they depart?"

 

The wizard shook his head.

 

"He knows," Eldor said softly. "He knows. My memo-

ries are incomplete. You know that; I've told you a dozen

times. He's a promise, Ingold. I'm only a failed hope, a

guttered candle. Somewhere in his memory, the heritage of

the line of Dare, is the clue that all the rest of us have

forgotten, that will lead to the undoing of the Dark. If I

ever had it, it's buried too deeply; and he's the only other

one. Him you must save."

 

The wizard said nothing. The quiet Same of the lamp,

pure and small as a gold com, reflected in his thinking

eyes. In the stillness of the room, that tiny gleam was

unmoving, the pool of waxy gold that lay around the

lamp on the polished surface of the table as steady and

sharply defined as a spotlight. At length he said, "And what

about you?"

 

"A King has the right," Eldor replied, "to die with his

kingdom. I will not leave the final battle. Indeed, I do

not see how I could. But for all the love you have ever

 

borne me, do this thing for me now. Take Mm, and see

him to a place of safety. I charge you with it—it is in

your hands."

 

Ingold sighed and bent his head, as if to receive a yoke,

the gold of the lamplight limning his silver hair. "I will

save him," he said. "That I promise you. But I will not

desert you until the cause is hopeless."

 

"Do not trouble yourself," the King said harshly. "The

cause is hopeless already."

 

Deep below the dark foundations of the Palace a hollow

booming resounded, like the stroke of a gigantic drum,

and Gil felt the sound vibrate through the marble of the

floor. Eldor's head jerked up and around, his long mouth

hardening in the smooth gold and shadows, his hand flinch-

ing automatically to the hilt of his jeweled sword, but In-

gold only sat, a statue of stone and darkness. A second

booming shivered the weight of the Palace on its deep-

found piers, as if struck by a great fist. Breathless in the

closeness of that peaceful room, three people waited for

the third stroke. But no third stroke fell; only a cold,

creeping horror that prickled Gil's hair seemed to seep into

the silence from below, the wordless threat of unknown

peril.

 

Finally Ingold said, "They will not come tonight."

Through his weariness, his tone was certain. "Go to the

Queen and comfort her."

 

Eldor sighed; like a man released from a spell that had

turned him to stone, he shifted broad, rawboned shoulders

to relax the tension from his back. "The landchiefs of the

Realm meet in an hour," he excused himself tiredly, and

rubbed at his eyes, his fingers grinding the dark smudges

that ringed them. "And I should speak with the Guards

before then about moving provisions out of the old vaults

under the Prefecture, in case our supply lines are cut. But

you're right, I should go to see her . . . though first I

should speak with the Bishop about bringing Church troops

into the city." He began to pace again, the restless move-

ment of an active man whose mind forever outran his

body. Ingold remained seated in the carved ivory chair

with its little gilded deer-hoof feet, and the flame before

him moved with Eldor's motion, as if it, too, were drawn

by the restless vitality of the man. "Will you be at the

council?"

 

"I have given all the help and advice I can," Ingold

replied. "I shall remain here, I think, and try again to

get in touch with the wizards at Quo. Tir may not be our

only answer. There are records in the Library at Quo,

and traditions handed down from master to pupil over

millennia; knowledge and the search for knowledge are

the key and the heart of wizardry. Tir is an infant. By

the time he learns to speak, it may be too late for what

he has to tell us."

 

"It may already be too late." The flame bowed with

the soft closing of the door behind Eldor.

 

Ingold sat for a tune after he had gone, brooding si-

lently on that pure small slip of fire. The glow of it played

across his shadowed eyes, touched the knuckles of his

folded hands—blunt-fingered, powerful hands, nicked all

over with the scars of old sword cuts and marked on one

heavy wrist with an age-whitened shackle gall. Then he

rubbed his eyes tiredly and looked straight into the deep

hollow of shadow where Gil stood, framed by the intri-

cately screened filigree of the pillars beside the window.

He beckoned to her. "Come here," he said gently, "and

tell me about yourself. Don't be afraid."

 

"I'm not afraid." But as she took a hesitating step for-

ward, the lamplight darkened, and the whole room was

lost to her sight in the foggy mazes of sleep.

 

Gil told no one about the third dream. She had spoken

of the second one to a woman friend who had listened sym-

pathetically but hadn't, she felt, understood. Indeed, she

didn't understand it herself. But the third dream she

mentioned to no one, because she knew that it had been

no dream. The certainty troubled her. Maybe, she told

herself, she would tell her friend about it one day, when

enough time had passed so that it was no longer im-

portant. But for now she locked it away, with several other

irrelevant matters, in her secret heart.

 

Then one night she woke from a sound sleep standing

up. She saw, as her eyes cleared, that she was in a sunken

courtyard in that deserted city. The great houses sur-

rounded her like lightless cliffs, and moonlight drenched

the square, throwing her shadow clearly on muddy and

unwashed flagstones under her bare feet. The place was

deserted, like a courtyard of the dead. Where the ghastly

 

silver light blanched the facade of the east-facing house,

she saw that its great doors had been blown off their

hinges from within and lay in scattered pieces about her

feet.

 

From out of that empty doorway, a sudden little wind

stirred, restless and without direction, turning back on

itself in a small scritching eddy of fallen leaves. She

sensed beyond the blind windows and vacant doors of

that house a sound, a fumbling movement, as if dark

shifted through dark, bumbling eyelessly at the inner walls,

seeking a way out. She swallowed hard, her breath quick-

ening in fear, and she glanced behind her at the arched

gateway that led out into the deserted street beyond. But

the gate was dark, and she felt a clammy, unreasoning

terror of walking beneath the clustered shadows in the

high vault of the enclosed passage.

 

The wind from the house increased, chilling her. She

edged her way back toward the dark gate, feeling herself

beginning to shiver, her feet icy on the marble pavement.

The silence of the place was terrible; even the screaming

flight of that first night would have been more welcome.

Then she had been in a crowd, though unseen; then she had

not been alone. Silent and terrible, the lurker waited on

the threshold of that dark house, and she knew that she

must flee for her life. She would not be able to waken

out of this dream; she knew that she was already awake.

 

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she had the brief im-

pression of something moving, low to the ground, in the

shadows by the wall. Swinging around, she saw nothing.

But she thought that the darkness itself was reaching out

toward her, damping even the moonlight.

 

Turning, she fled, her black shadow running on the

ground before her in the ivory moonlight. Broken stone

and iron gashed her bare feet as she plunged into the black

arch of the gate, but the pain was swallowed in icy fear as

thin, aimless winds tugged at her—as she sensed, rather

than saw, something move in the utter blackness over her

head. She stumbled into the street outside, her bleeding

feet leaving red blotches on the wet slime of the cobbles,

running, running in heart-bursting panic through the empty

boulevards of the city that she now saw lay half in ruins,

the silent pavements cluttered with rubble and new-stripped

human bones. Shadows, black and as staring as walls of

 

stone, confronted her with new horrors at every turn; gar-

goyle shapes of terror lurked under every eave and fallen

rooftree. The only sounds in all that empty city of freezing

night were the moist, pattering slap of her bare feet on

stone and the gasp of her laboring breath, the only move-

ments her own frenzied flight and that of her jerking, leap-

ing shadow, and, behind her, the drifting movement of

wind and darkness pouring after her like smoke. She fled

blindly down black canyons, feet numb, legs numb, stum-

bling over she knew not what, knowing by instinct in which

direction the Palace lay, knowing that Ingold the wizard

was there and that Ingold would save her.

 

She ran until she woke, sobbing, clutching her pillow in

the dark, soaked with cold terror-sweat, her body aching

with exhaustion. Only gradually did the filtered moonlight

register the familiar things of the Clarke Street apartment,

alien to her wondering eyes, as if both worlds were now

equally hers. She forced her gasping breath to slow, forced

her mind to think; her legs smarted; her feet were like ice

beneath the covers. In a confused clutching at the straws

of sanity she thought, That's why I dreamed of having cold

feet; because my feet are cold. She groped for the light

with trembling fingers, turned it on, and lay there shiver-

ing, repeating to herself the desperate, unbelieving litany:

It was only a dream, it was only a dream. Please, God, let

it be only a dream.

 

But even as she whispered, she felt the sticky wetness

matting her numb toes. Reaching down, unwillingly, to

warm them, she brought her fingers back streaked with

fresh blood, from where she had cut her feet on the broken

stone in the gateway.

 

Five nights later, the moon was full.

 

Its light woke Gil, startling her out of sleep into a split-

second convulsion of fear, until she recognized the night-

muted patterns of familiar things and realized she was in

her place on Clarke Street. Waking suddenly in the night,

she was seldom sure anymore. She lay still for a time,

listening open-eyed in the darkness, waiting for the quick

flood of panic to subside from her veins. White moonlight

lay on the blanket beside her, palpable as a sheet of paper.

 

Then she thought, Dammit, I forgot to put the chain on

the door.

 

This was purely a formality, a bedtime ritual; the apart-

ment had a regular lock and, moreover, the neighborhood

was a quiet one. She almost decided to forget the whole

thing, roll over, and go back to sleep; but after a minute,

she crawled out of bed, shivering in the cold, and groped

her peacock kimono from its accustomed place on the floor.

Wrapping it about her, she padded silently into the dark

kitchen, her feet finding their way easily. Her hand found

the light switch by touch in the darkness and flicked it up.

 

The wizard Ingold was sitting at the kitchen table.

 

Absurdly, Gil's first thought was that this was the only

time she'd seen him in decent lighting. He looked older,

wearier, the brown and white of his homespun robes faded

and stained and shabby, but he was essentially the same

fierce, gentlemanly old man she knew from her dreams:

the advisor of the dark King; the man whose face she'd

seen reflected in the foxfire glow of his sword, striding

down to meet the darkness.

 

This is stupid, she thought. This is crazy. Not because

she was seeing him again—for she'd known all along that

she would—but because it was in her apartment, her world.

What the hell was he doing here if it wasn't a dream? And

she knew it wasn't. She glanced automatically around the

kitchen. The supper dishes—and the previous night's sup-

per dishes—were piled unwashed on the counter, the table

top invisible under a litter of apple cores and index cards,

cups of moldering coffee and sheets of scribbled notebook

paper. Two of her old T-shirts were dumped over the back

of the chair on which Ingold sat. The seedy electric clock

behind his head read just past three. It was all too squalidly

depressing to be anything but real—she was definitely

neither asleep nor dreaming.

 

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

 

The wizard raised shaggy eyebrows in surprise. "I came

to talk to you," he replied. She knew the voice. She felt

that she had always known it.

 

"I mean—how did you get here?"

 

"I could give you a technical explanation, of course," he

said, and the smile that briefly illuminated his face turned

it suddenly very young. "But would it matter? I crossed

the Void to find you, because I need your help."

 

"Huhh?"

 

It was not the kind of response best suited to what she'd

 

read of dealing with wizards, but Ingold's eyes twinkled

with fleeting amusement. "I would not have sought you

out," he told her gently, "if I didn't."

 

"Uh—" Gil said profoundly. "I don't understand." She

started to sit down opposite him, which involved clearing

two textbooks and the calendar section of the Times off

the chair, then paused in a tardy outburst of hospitality.

"Would you like a beer?"

 

"Thank you." He smiled, and gravely studied the open-

ing instructions inscribed on the top of the can. For a first

time, he didn't do badly.

 

"How could you see me?" she asked, sliding into her

chair as he shook the foam off his fingers. "Even when it

was a dream, even when no one else could—King Eldor

and the Guards at the gate—you could. Why was that?"

 

"It's because I understand the nature of the Void," the

wizard said gravely. He folded his hands on the table, the

blunt, scarred fingers idly caressing the gaudy aluminum

of the can, as if memorizing its shape and feel. "You un-

derstand, Gil, that there exists an infinite number of

parallel universes, meshed in the matrix of the Void. In

my world, in my time, I am the only one who understands

the nature of the Void—one of a bare handful who even

suspects its existence."

 

"And how did you learn about it, much less how to

cross it, if no one else in your world knows?" Gil asked

curiously.

 

The wizard smiled again. "That, Gil, is a story that

would take all night to do justice to, without advancing the

present situation. Suffice it to say that I am the only man

in perhaps five hundred years who has been able to cross

the curtain that separates universe from universe—and

having done so, I was able to recognize the imprint of your

thoughts, your personality, that had been drawn across the

Void by the mass vibration of worldwide panic and terror.

I believe there are a very few others in your world who, for

whatever reason, be it psychic or physical or purest coinci-

dence, have felt, from across the Void, the coming of the

Dark. Of them all, you are the only one with whom I have

been able to establish contact. It was seeing you, speaking

to you, and then having you materialize not only in thought

but in body, that made me understand what is happening

with regard to the Void."

 

Outside, a truck rumbled by on Clarke Street, its sound

muffled with distance and the night. Somewhere in the

apartment building, a toilet flushed, a faint echoing gur-

gle along the pipes. Gil stared down at the table for a

time, her eye automatically noting her own jagged black

handwriting spelling out cryptic notes with regard to the

upkeep of fourteenth-century bridges, then looked up again

at the wizard calmly drinking beer across from her, his

staff leaned against the wall at his side.

 

She asked, "What is happening with the Void?"

 

"When I spoke with you in Gae," Ingold went on, "I

realized that our worlds must lie in very close conjunction

at this time—so close that, because of the psychic crisis, a

dreamer could literally walk the line between them and

see from one into the next. This is both a rare and a tem-

porary occurrence, a one-in-a-million chance for two

worlds to drift so close. But it is a situation that I can use

to my advantage in this emergency."

 

"But why did it happen now, at the tune of crisis?" Gil

asked, the harsh electric glare rippling in the embroidery

of her gaudy sleeves as she leaned forward across the table.

"And why did it happen to me?"

 

He must have caught the suppressed slivers of uneasiness

and fear of being singled out in her voice; when he replied

he spoke gently. "Nothing is fortuitous. There are no ran-

dom events. But we cannot know all the reasons."

 

She barely hid a smile. "That's a wizard's answer if I

ever heard one."

 

"Meaning that mages deal in double talk?" His grin was

impish. "That's one of our two occupational hazards."

 

"And what's the other one?"

 

He laughed. "A deplorable tendency to meddle."

 

She joined him in laughter. Then after a moment she

grew quiet and asked, "But if you're a wizard, how could

you need my help? What help could I possibly give you

that you couldn't find for yourself? How could I help you

against—against the Dark? Who is, or what is, the Dark?"

 

He regarded her in silence for a moment, judging her,

testing her, watching her out of blue eyes whose surface

brightness masked a depth and pull like the ocean's. His

face had grown grave again, settled into its sun-scorched

lines. He said, "You know."

 

She looked away, seeing in her unwilling mind mono-

 

lithic bronze doors exploding off their hinges; seeing shad-

ows that ran behind her, inescapable as ghostly wolves. She

spoke without meeting his eyes. "I don't know what they

are."

 

"Nor does anyone," he said, "unless it's Lohiro, the

Master of Quo. It's a question whose answer I wish I had

never been set to seek, a riddle I'm sorry I have to unravel.

 

"What can I say of the Dark, Gil? What can I say that

you don't know already? That they are the sharks of night?

That they pull the flesh from the bones, or the blood from

the flesh, or the soul and spirit from the living body and

let it stumble mindlessly to an eventual death from starva-

tion? That they ride the air in darkness, hunt in darkness,

and that fire or light or even a good bright moon will keep

them away? Would that tell you what they are?"

 

She shook her head, hypnotized by the warm roughness

of his voice, caught by the intensity of his eyes and by the

horror and the memory of even more appalling horrors

that she saw there. "But you know," she whispered.

 

"Would to God I did not." Then he sighed and looked

away; when he turned his head again, there was only that

matter-of-fact self-assurance in his face, without the doubt,

or the fear, or the loathing of what he knew.

 

"I—I dreamed of them." Gil stumbled on the words,

finding it unexpectedly more difficult to speak of that first

forerunning dream to one who understood than to one who

did not "Before I ever saw them, before I ever knew what

they were. I dreamed about a—a vault, a cellar—with

arches going in all directions. The floor was black and

smooth, like glass; and in the middle of that black floor

was a slab of granite that was new and rough, because no-

body ever walked on it. You said they came from—from

beneath the ground."

 

"Indeed," the wizard said, looking at her with an alert,

speculative curiosity. "You seem to have sensed their com-

ing far ahead of its time. That may mean something,

though at the moment I'm not sure . .. Yes, that was the

Dark, or, rather, the blocked-up entrance to one of their

Nests. Under that granite slab—and I know the one you're

talking about—is a stairway, a stairway going downward

incalculable depths into the earth. It was with the stair-

ways, I believe, that it all began.

 

"For the stairways were always there. You find repre-

 

sentations of them in the most ancient prehistoric petro-

glyphs: vast pavements of black stone and, in the midst of

them, stairs descending to the deepest heart of the earth.

No one ever went down them—at least, no one who came

back up again—and no one knew who built them. Some

said it was the titans of old, or the earth-gods; old records

speak of the places as being awesome, full of magic. For

a long time they were considered to be lucky, favored by

the gods—the old religion built temples over them, temples

which became the centers of the first cities of humankind.

 

"All this was millennia ago. Villages grew to towns and

then to great cities. The cities united; states and realms

spread along the rich valleys of the Brown River, on the

shores of the Round Sea and the Western Ocean, and in

the jungles and deserts of Alketch. Civilization flowered

and bore its fruits: wizardry, art, money, learning, war.

Records of that time are so scarce as to be almost non-

existent. Only beguiling fragments of chronicles remain,

mostly in the Library at Quo, a teasing sliver of a civiliza-

tion of great depth and richness, of sublime beauty and

wisdom and truly foul decadence, a society that parented

first wizardry and then the Church and the great codes of

civil law.

 

"I am virtually certain that some kind of tradition ex-

isted then regarding the Dark Ones, simply because the

word for them was in the language. Sueg—dark—isueg—

an archaic, personalized form of the same word. But they

were only a vague rumor of shadow on the edges of the

oldest legends—the misty memory of hidden fear. And if

there was such a tradition, it did not connect them with

the stairways themselves. So they remained, rooted in the

abysses of time, an ancient mystery buried in the heart of

civilization.

 

"Of the destruction of the ancient world we have no co-

herent account. We know that it happened within a matter

of weeks. That what struck, struck worldwide, we also

know—a simultaneous siege of horror. But the horror and

the confusion were so overwhelming that virtually no

record was preserved; and since defense against the Dark

generally entailed uncontrolled use of fire as a weapon, we

lost what little information we might have had about their

coming. We know that they came—but we do not know

why.

 

"Unable to fight, humankind fled and retreated to forti-

fied Keeps, behind whose massive walls they led a window-

less existence, creeping forth by day to till their fields and

hiding when the sun went down. For three hundred years,

absolute chaos and terror held sway on the earth, because

there was no knowing where or when the Dark would

come. Civilization crumbled, fading to a few glowing em-

bers of the great beacon light that it had once been.

 

"And then—" Ingold spread his hands, showing them

empty, like a sideshow magician. "The Dark no longer

came. Whether the cessation was sudden or gradual, we

cannot be sure, for by that time few people were literate

enough to be keeping accurate records. Little villages had

grown up outside the Keeps; in time, new little villages

appeared on the crumbling ruins of the ancient cities whose

very names had been forgotten through the intervening

years. There were wars and change and long spaces of tune.

Old traditions faded; the very language changed. Old songs

and stories were forgotten.

 

"Three thousand years is a long time, Gil. You're an

historian—can you tell me, with any accuracy, what hap-

pened three thousand years ago?"

 

"Uh—" Gil cast a hasty scan over her memories of

Ancient Civilizations 1A. Marathon? Stonehenge? Hyksos'

invasions of Egypt? As a medievalist, she had only the

foggiest impressions of anything prior to Constantine. What

must it be like, she wondered, for the average Joe Doakes

who hadn't been to college and didn't like history much

anyway? Even something as hideous as the Black Death, an

event which had grossly and permanently impacted western

civilization, was only a name to eighty percent of the

population—and that was only six hundred years ago.

 

Ingold nodded, his point made. It occurred to Gil to

wonder how he had known that her subject was history, but

he went on, as she was beginning to find was his habit,

without explaining. "For many years I was the only one

who knew anything about even the old tales of the Dark. I

knew—I learned—that the Dark Ones were not utterly

gone. Eventually I learned that they were not even much

diminished in numbers. And I heard things that made me

believe that they would return. Eldor's father had me ban-

ished for speaking of it, which I thought small-minded of

him, since sending me away could not reduce the danger—

 

but perhaps he thought that I was lying. Eldor believed

me. Without his preparations, I think we would all have

perished the first night of their rising."

"And now?" Gil asked softly.

 

"Now?" The night was far spent; the lines of weariness

etched into his scarred face seemed to settle a little deeper.

"We are holding out in the Palace at Gae. The main body

of the Army under the command of the Chancellor of the

Realm, Alwir, the Queen's brother, has been in Penambra,

where the raids were the worst. They should return to the

city within days; but without a miracle they will be too

late to prevent catastrophe. I have tried vainly to get in

touch with the Council of Wizards in the Hidden City of

Quo, but I fear they, too, may be besieged. They have re-

treated behind their defenses of power and illusion. Though

I still have hopes that we can hold out long enough for

Lohiro to send us aid of some kind, I would not want to

wager the lives of my friends on that hope. The defenders

at the Palace need me, Gil. Though I cannot do much, I

will not leave them until it is beyond doubt that no effort

of mine can save them.

 

"And that," he said, "is where I need your help."

She only looked at him, uncomprehending.

"You understand," Ingold went on in that same quiet

tone, "that by leaving it that late, I shall be cutting my

escape very fine. In the last extremity, my only course will

be to flee across the Void into some other world—this

world. I can cross back and forth at will with relative

impunity. Normally such a crossing is a shocking enough

physical trauma for an adult. For an infant of six months,

even under my protection, it can be injurious, and two

such crossings in a short span of tune could do the child

real harm. I will therefore have to remain a day in this

world, with the child, before I can return to some safer

spot in my own."

 

The light dawned. Gil smiled. "You need a place to hole

up."

 

"As you say. I need an isolated spot and a few creature

comforts—a place to pass that time in obscurity. Do you

know of such a place?"

 

"You could come here," Gil offered.

 

Ingold shook his head. "No," he said decidedly.

 

"Why not?"

 

The wizard hesitated before answering. "It's too dan-

gerous," he said at last. He rose from his chair, moved

restlessly to the flat rectangle of the window, and pushed

the curtain aside, looking out, down into the apartment

courtyard below. The greenish reflections of the courtyard

lights in the waters of the swimming pool rippled over the

old marks of alien battles on his face. "Too many things

could happen. I have a great mistrust of fate, Gil. My

powers are severely limited in your world. If something

were to go wrong, I have no desire to try to explain my

presence or that of the child to the local authorities."

 

Gil had a brief, disturbing picture of Ingold, like some

bearded refugee from the Society for the Preservation of

Dungeons and Dragons in his shabby robes and killing

sword, having a close encounter with the local police or

the Highway Patrol. Despite her impression that the High-

way Patrol would come off second best, she realized such a

confrontation could not be risked. Not with so much at

stake.

 

"There's a place we used to go past on trail rides," she

said, after a moment's thought.

 

"Yes?" He turned back from the window, letting the cur-

tain swish shut.

 

"A girl I used to go to school with lives out near Bar-

stow—it's in the desert, way the hell east of here. I spent

a couple weeks out there two summers ago. She had horses,

and we used to ride all over the back-hills country. I re-

member there was a cabin, kind of a little house, out in

the middle of some abandoned orange groves in the hills.

We holed up there one afternoon during a thunderstorm.

It isn't much, but there's running water and a kerosene

stove, and it's as isolated as you could want."

 

Ingold nodded. "Yes," he murmured, half to himself.

"Yes, it should do."

 

"I can bring you food and blankets," she went on. "Just

tell me when you'll be there."

 

"I don't know that yet," the wizard said quietly. "But

you'll know, at the time."

 

"All right." Though Gil was normally a suspicious per-

son, it never occurred to her to question him, and this did

not even surprise her about herself. She trusted him, she

found, as if she had known him for years.

 

Ingold reached across the table and took her hand.

 

"Thank you," he said. "You are a stranger to our world

and you owe us nothing—it is good of you to help."

 

"Hey," Gil protested softly. "I'm not a stranger. I've

been in your world, and I've seen the Dark. I just about

met King Eldor, as a matter of fact." Then she paused,

confused at her blunder, for she remembered that the King

and the wizard were friends, and that Eldor was almost

certainly going to die before the week was out.

 

But Ingold passed over her error like the gentleman he

was. "I know Eldor would have been pleased to make

your acquaintance," he said. "And you shall always have

his gratitude, and mine, for ..."

 

Some sound in the night made him suddenly alert, and

he broke off, raising his head to listen.

 

"What is it?" Gil whispered.

 

Ingold turned back to her. "I'm afraid I must go," he

said politely. His voice seldom betrayed worry or fear—he

might have been making his excuses because of a prior en-

gagement for tea with the Queen of Numenor. But Gil

knew that something was happening, across the Void, in

the embattled Palace at Gae.

 

He rose to go, the straight dark line of his mantle break-

ing over the sword at his hip. Gil thought of the danger

and of the Dark waiting on the other side of the Void.

She caught at his sleeve. In a voice smaller than she meant,

she said, "Hey, take care."

 

His smile was like the coming of the sun. "Thank you,

my dear. I always do." Then he walked a few paces to the

center of the kitchen and put out his hand to push the

fabric of the universe aside like a curtain. As he did so, he

drew his sword, and Gil could see the cold light that burned

up off the blade as he stepped into the mist and fire beyond.

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

It was the goddam motherless fuel pump!

 

Rudy Solis identified immediately the gasp and drag of

the old Chevy's engine, automatically checked his rear-

vision mirror, and scanned the dark, straight, two-lane

highway ahead, though he knew there was nothing resem-

bling a light in fifty miles. With all of Southern California

to choose from, naturally the thing would decide to give up

the ghost in the dead, endless stretch of desert and hill

country that lay between Barstow and San Bernardino,

miles from anywhere in the middle of Sunday night.

 

Rudy wondered if he could make it back to the party.

 

Be a lot of sorrow and tears if I can't, he thought to him-

self, glancing over his shoulder at the ten cases of beer

stacked amid the shredded foam, old newspapers, and

greasy articles of unidentifiable clothing heaped in the

sagging back seat. The engine faltered, coughed apologet-

ically, and chugged on. Rudy cursed the owner of the car,

the seventh-magnitude rock-and-roll star at whose party

he'd been drinking and sunburning himself into a stupor

all weekend, and the buddies who'd volunteered him to make

the beer run, thirty miles down the hills to Barstow; cursed

them impersonally, and threw in a few curses at himself as

well for being euchred into going.

 

Well, serves 'em right. Next time they want somebody

to buy their beer for 'em, they can damn well lend me a

decent car.

 

But the fact was that most people had arrived at Tarot's

party on motorcycles, as Rudy himself had. And Tarot—

 

who had started out life as James Carrow and was still

known as Jim when not wearing his flameout stage make-

up—wasn't about to lend his custom Eldorado to anybody,

no matter how few cases of beer were left.

 

Well, what the hell. Rudy shook back the long hair from

his eyes and risked another glance at the unrelieved black-

ness of empty desert reflected in his rear-view mirror.

Everybody up at that hundred-thousand-dollar hideaway

in the canyons was so drunk by this tune that it was im-

possible to see what difference ten more cases of beer could

make. If worst came to worst—which it looked like it was

going to, from the sound of that engine—he could always

find someplace in the hills to hole up in until morning and

try to hitch a ride to the nearest phone then. There was a

service road about ten miles farther on that he knew of,

which would take him to a dilapidated shack in what re-

mained of an old orange grove. Half-plastered as he was,

he didn't relish the idea of trying to do anything about the

engine tonight, nor was the thought of sleeping by the road

real appealing. Rudy took a drink from the half-empty

bottle of wine propped on the seat beside him and drove

on.

 

Rudy had been driving and dealing with cars and

motorcycles half his life—not always with legal sanctions

—but it took all his expertise to nurse the failing Chevy

the mile or two from the last lighted billboard to the rutted

track of the service road. The lag and jerk of the big V-8

engine as he maneuvered through potholes, gravel slides,

and the ruinous washes of old stream beds made him

wonder if the problem wasn't simply a blocked line. He

itched to climb out, raise the hood, and check—except that

he had nothing resembling a light with him, and the odds

were that, once stopped, nothing short of total rebuilding

would get the stupid car started again. The feeble glare of

the headlights picked out landmarks he knew from his

motorcycle trips back this way: an oak tree twisted into

the shape of a disapproving monk, gloomily damning the

couples who came out here to park; a rock like a sleeping

buffalo, silhouetted against the star-luminous sky. Rudy's

hobby of hunting with bow and arrow had given him a

familiarity with half the wild country left in Southern

California, a knowledge of these silent desert hills as casual

as his knowledge of the inner workings of a V-8 engine or

 

of the floor plan of his own sparsely furnished apartment.

He was as much at home here as he was anywhere else.

 

Sometimes more so. Maybe the hunting was the reason,

or maybe only the excuse. There were times when he sim-

ply took pleasure in being alone, a different pleasure from

what was to be had from partying and raising hell, from

horsing around with the guys at the body shop, from rat-

pack weekends in the desert. Never self-analytical, Rudy

only understood that he needed the solitude, needed the

touch of the empty land and the demand for slow skill and

perfect accuracy. Perhaps it was this that had kept him on

the edge of the biker crowd; he'd become acquainted with

them at the body shop but never of them. Or perhaps it

was simple cowardice.

 

Whatever his reasons, he was accepted for what he was;

and though not part of any motorcycle gang, as an airbrush

painter and pinstriper at Wild David's body shop in Fon-

tana, he was part of that world. Hence, he understood his

inclusion in Tarot's party—not that anybody in Southern

California was excluded from Tarot's party. Tarot's local

reputation included an apocryphal story about being a for-

mer member of the Hell's Angels. But, thinking the matter

over as he guided the thrombotic car deeper and deeper

into the blackness of the hills, Rudy couldn't imagine any

gang admitting a member as essentially chickenhearted as

Jim Carrow.

 

The car's front wheels dropped suddenly into a twelve-

inch water-cut in the road with a heart-rending scrape of

oil pan against rock. Rudy tried the engine twice and got

only a tired whirring in response. He opened the door and

climbed cautiously out, boots slipping on the round stones

of the dry stream bed. Two days of continuous partying

didn't help his footing much. He ascertained at once that

pushing wouldn't help matters, for the car was nose-down

with its front bumper inches from the far bank of the gully.

It might, he decided, kneeling in the soft sand, be possible

to back out if the engine could be started, but it wasn't

something he'd want to try at one-thirty in the morning.

 

Disgusted, he straightened up.

 

Starlight showed him the shape and roll of the hills, the

shallow valley opening out to his right, with a dark cluster-

ing of dry, black-leaved citrus trees. The shack—a cabin,

 

really—would be over there in the dense shadow of the hill,

a hundred yards farther on.

 

Made it, he thought. Thank God for small favors.

 

It was surprising how silent the night was. There was

little silence in the world; even away from people, there

was usually street noise, airplanes, air conditioning. The

cooling metal of the car's engine ticked softly in the dark-

ness; now and then, dried grass sighed at the memory of

wind. Rudy's eyes, adjusting to the wan glow of the Milky

Way, slowly made out the edges of the cabin's roof line,

the shapes of long grass and twisted trees. His footfalls

seemed very loud in that world of darkness.

 

Walking carefully, if not precisely staggering, he col-

lected two six-packs of beer from the back seat and the

remainder of his bottle of muscatel from the front. His

head was beginning to ache. Just what I need. A busted

fuel pump and a hangover to fix it with. They'll probably

figure I took the beer money and headed for Mexico.

 

He made his way up to the shack.

 

It stood solitary against the dark of the hills, the long

grass around its peeling walls concealing the fossilized re-

mains of dead farm equipment and broken bottles, the

shabby asphalt tile of the roof sagging under the weight of

accumulated leaves. He mounted the crazy front steps and

set down his burdens on the narrow front porch, the mild

chill of the sweet-scented night making him shiver as he

stripped off his greasy denim jacket, wrapped it around his

hand, and punched out a pane of the window beside the

door to let himself in.

 

The lights worked, surprisingly. Hookup to the power

tines in the grove, he decided, taking a quick look around

the dingy kitchen. So did the sink, giving cold water but not

hot. Well, you can't have everything. In the cupboard un-

der the sink he found three cans of pork and beans with

prices stamped on them that were at least four years old,

and a kerosene stove with half a can of kerosene.

 

Not bad, he reflected, if I had anything to cook. Further

exploration revealed a minuscule bathroom and a cell-like

bedroom at the end of a narrow hall, with a sagging cot

whose threadbare mattress would have been thrown out of

any jail in the state as cruel and unusual.

 

Nothing to write home about, he thought, returning to

the kitchen and thence to the star-limned silence of the

 

front porch. He donned his jacket, on which the faded blue

denim was rather gaudily illuminated with a flaming skull

with roses in its eyes, and settled back against the door-

jamb to polish off the muscatel and watch the night in

peace. As the dark quiet of the hills soaked into his soul,

he decided that there was, after all, something to be said

for the place, a perfection of solitude in many ways supe-

rior to all the beer busts thrown by all the rock stars of

California.

 

After a long time of silence he returned inside to sleep.

 

He woke up wondering what he'd done to annoy the

little man with the sledgehammer who lived inside his head.

He rolled over, to his instant regret, and wondered if he

was going to die.

 

The room was barely light. He lay for a time staring at

the shadows of the dry, cobwebby rafters, memories of

yesterday and last night leaking back to his protesting con-

sciousness: Tarot's party; the fact that it was Monday and

he was supposed to be back at work at the body shop,

painting flaming sunsets on custom vans; last night's beer

run to Barstow; and that pig of a Chevy. It might be just

the fuel lines, he told himself, his mind backtracking

creakily through the obstacle course of a splitting head-

ache and assorted other symptoms of the immoderate con-

sumption of muscatel. If that was the case, he could be

under way in a few hours. If it was the pump, he was in

for a long walk.

 

Rudy made his way out of the house and down the steps,

blinking in the pallid light of dawn. He was soon cursing

the owner of the car. There wasn't anything resembling a

tool in all the bushels of trash in the trunk or on the back

seat.

 

There was a shed half-buried in the weeds farther back

in the groves behind the cottage, and he spent ten grimy

minutes picking through spider-infested debris there in

search of tools. The result was hardly satisfactory: a rusted

Phillips screwdriver with a dog-chewed handle; a couple of

blades with the business ends twisted; and an adjustable

end wrench so corroded that he doubted it could be used.

 

The sun was just clearing the hills as he stepped out

again, wiping his hands on his jeans; all around him the

clear magic colors of day were emerging from the dawn's

grayed pastels. The house, formerly a nameless bulk of

 

shadow, ripened into warm russets and weathered sepias,

its windows blazing with the sun's reflected glory like the

dazzle of molten electrum. As Rudy stood there in the

shadow of the shed, he thought for a moment that it was

this burning glare that was playing tricks on his eyes.

 

Then he saw that this was not so, but for a moment he

didn't know what it was. He shaded his eyes against the

blinding silvery shimmer that hung in the air like a twisting

slit of fire, blinking in the almost painful brilliance that

stabbed forth as the slit, or line of brightness, widened

scarcely a dozen yards in front of him. He had the momen-

tary impression that space and reality were splitting apart,

that the three dimensions of this world were merely painted

on a curtain, and that air and ground and cabin and hills

were being folded aside, to reveal a more piercing light,

blinding darkness, and swirling nameless colors beyond.

Then, through that gap, a dark form stumbled, robed and

hooded in brown, a drawn sword gleaming in one hand

and a trailing bundle of black velvet gripped tightly in the

crook of the other arm. The sword blade was bright, as if

it reflected searing light, and it smoked.

 

Blinded by the intensity of the light, Rudy turned his

face away, confused, disoriented, and shocked. When he

turned back, the blazing vision was gone. There remained

only an old man in a brown robe, an old man who held a

sword in one hand and a wailing baby in the other arm.

 

Rudy blinked. "What in hell was I drinking last night?"

he asked aloud. "And who the hell are you?"

 

The old man sheathed the sword in one smooth, com-

petent gesture, and Rudy found himself thinking that who-

ever this was, he must be very quick on the draw with that

thing. It looked real, too, balanced and razor-sharp. The

old man replied, in a scratchy baritone, "I am called In-

gold Inglorion. This is Prince Altir Endorion, last Prince of

the House of Dare."

 

"Hunh?"

 

The old man drew back the hood from his face, reveal-

ing a countenance wholly nondescript except for the re-

markable blueness of the heavy-lidded eyes and for its

expression of awesome serenity. Rudy had never seen a

face like that, gentle, charming, and supremely in com-

mand. It was the face of a saint, a wizard, or a nut.

 

Rudy rubbed his aching eyes. "How'd you get here?"

 

"I came through the Void that separates your universe

from mine," Ingold explained reasonably. "You could hard-

ly have missed it."

 

He's a nut.

 

Curious, Rudy walked slowly around him, keeping his

distance. The guy was armed, after all, and something in

the way he'd handled the sword made Rudy sure he knew

how to use it. He looked like a harmless old buffer, except

for the Francis of Assisi get-up, but years of association

with the brotherhood of the road had given Rudy an in-

stinctive caution of anybody who was armed, no matter

how harmless he looked. Besides, anybody running around

dressed like that was obviously certifiable.

 

The old man watched him in return, looking rather

amused, one thick-muscled hand absently caressing the

child he held into muffled whimpers, then silence. Rudy

noticed that the old man's dark robes and the child's

blankets were rank with smoke. He supposed they could

have come out of the shadows around the corner of the

house in the moment the reflected sunlight had blinded

him, giving the impression they'd stepped out of a kind of

flaming aura, but that explanation still didn't tell him

where they'd come from, or how the old man had happened

to acquire the kid.

 

After a long moment's silence Rudy asked, "Are you for

real?"

 

The old man smiled, a leaping webwork of lines spring-

ing into being among the tangle of white beard. "Are you?"

 

"I mean, are you supposed to be some kind of wizard

or something?"

 

"Not in this universe." Ingold surveyed the young man

before him for a moment, then smiled again. "It's a long

story," he explained, turned, and strolled back toward the

house as if he owned the place, with Rudy tagging along in

his wake. "Would it be possible for me to remain here until

my contact in this world can reach me? It shouldn't be

long."

 

What the hell? "Yeah, sure, go ahead." Rudy sighed.

"I'm only here myself because my car died on me—I

mean, it's not really my car—and I have to check out the

pump and see if I can get it running again." Seeing Ingold's

puzzled frown, he remembered the guy was supposed to

be from another universe where, since they used swords—

 

and he'd still like to know where the old man had picked

that one up—the internal combustion engine hadn't been

invented. "You do know what a car is?"

 

"I'm familiar with the concept. We don't have them in my

world, of course."

 

"Of course."

 

Ingold led the way calmly up the steps and into the

house. He proceeded straight on down the hall to the bed-

room, where he placed the child on the stained, lumpy

mattress of the cot. The baby immediately began working

himself free of his blankets, with the apparently fixed in-

tention of rolling off and braining himself on the cement

floor.

 

"But who are you?" Rudy persisted, leaning in the door-

way.

 

"I told you, my name is Ingold. Here, enough of

that . . ." He reached down and stopped Prince Tir from

worming himself over the edge. Then he glanced back over

bis shoulder. "You haven't told me your name," he added.

 

"Uh—Rudy Solis. Where'd you get the kid?"

 

"I'm rescuing him from enemies," Ingold stated matter-

of-factly.

 

Wonderful, Rudy thought. First the fuel pump and now

this.

 

Untangled, the kid was revealed to be a crawler of six

months or so, with a pink rosebud of a face, fuzzy black

hair, and eyes that were the deep unearthly blue of the

heart of a morning glory. Ingold set the kid back in the

middle of the bed, where he promptly started for the edge

again. The old man removed his dark, smoke-smelling

mantle and spread it out like a groundcloth on the floor.

Under it he wore a white wool robe, much patched and

stained, a worn leather belt, and a low-slung sword belt

that supported the sword and a short dagger in beat-up

scabbards. The whole setup looked authentic as hell.

 

Ingold picked up the child again and put him down on

the mantle on the floor. "There," he said. "Now will you

stay where you are put and fall asleep like a sensible per-

son?"

 

Prince Altir Endorion made a definite but unintelligible

reply.

 

"Good," Ingold said, and turned toward the door.

 

"Whose kid is he?" Rudy asked, folding his arms and

watching the old man and the child.

 

For the first time that look of self-command broke, and

grief, or the concealment of grief, tightened into the mus-

cles of the old man's face. His voice remained perfectly

steady. "He is the child of a friend of mine," he replied

quietly, "who is now dead." There was a moment's silence,

the old man concentrating on turning back the cuffs of his

faded robe, revealing a road map of old scars striping the

hard, heavy muscle of his forearms. When he looked up

again, that expression of gentle amusement was back in his

eyes. "Not that you believe me, of course."

 

"Well, now that you mention it, I don't."

 

"Good." Ingold smiled, stepping past Rudy into the nar-

row hall. "It's better that you shouldn't. Close the door

behind you, would you, please?"

 

"Because, for one thing," Rudy said, following him

down the hall to the kitchen, "if you're from a whole other

universe, like you say, how come you are speaking En-

glish?"

 

"Oh, I'm not." Ingold located one of the six-packs of

beer on the kitchen counter and extricated a can for him-

self and one for Rudy. "Speaking English, that is. You

only hear it as English in your mind. If you were to come

to my world, I could arrange the same spell to cover you."

 

Oh, yeah? Rudy thought cynically. And I suppose you

figured out how to operate push-tab beer cans the same

way?

 

"Unfortunately, there's no way I can prove this to you,"

Ingold went on placidly, seating himself on the corner of

the grimy formica table top, the butter-colored morning

sunlight gilding the worn hilt of his sword with an edge

like fire. "Different universes obey different physical laws,

and yours, despite its present close conjunction with my

own, is very far from the heart and source of Power. The

laws of physics here are very heavy, very certain and irre-

versible, and unaffected by ... certain other considera-

tions." He glanced out the window to his right, scanning

the fall of the land beyond, judging the angle of the sun,

the time of day. The expression of calculation in his eyes,

adding up pieces of information that had nothing to do

with Rudy or with maintaining a role, troubled Rudy with

a disquieting sense that the old man was too calm about it,

 

too matter-of-fact. He'd met masqueraders before; living in

Southern California, you could hardly help it. And, young

or old, all those would-be Brothers of Atlantis had the same

air of being in costume, no matter how cool they were

about it. They all knew you were noticing them.

 

This old croaker didn't seem to be thinking about Rudy

at all, except as a man to be dealt with in the course of

something else.

 

Rudy found himself thinking, He's either what he says

he is, or so far out in left field he's never coming back.

 

And his indignant outrage at being beguiled into admit-

ting two possibilities at all was almost immediately super-

imposed on the uneasy memory of that gap of light and the

colors he'd thought he'd seen beyond.

 

Watch it, kiddo, he told himself. The old guy's not hit-

ting on all his cylinders. If you're not careful, he'll have

you doing it next. So he asked, "But you are a wizard in

your own world?" Because the outfit couldn't be for any-

thing else.

 

Ingold hesitated, his attention returning to Rudy; then

he nodded. "Yes," he said slowly.

 

Rudy leaned back against the counter and took a pull at

his beer. "You pretty good?"

 

Ingold shrugged and seemed to relax, as if reassured by

the disbelief in Rudy's tone. "I'm said to be."

 

"But you can't do any magic here." A foregone conclu-

sion—the ersatz Merlins of the world did not often operate

outside a friendly environment.

 

But the ersatz Merlins of the world didn't usually smile,

then hide the smile, at the suggestion of fraud. "No. That

isn't possible."

 

Rudy simply couldn't figure the guy. But something in

that serene self-assurance prompted him to ask, "Yeah, but

how can you be a wizard without magic?" He finished his

beer, crumpled the aluminum with one hand, and tossed it

into the corner of the bare room.

 

"Oh, wizardry has really very little to do with magic."

 

Taken off-balance, Rudy paused, the old man's voice

and words touching some feeling in his soul that echoed,

like the distant note of a long-forgotten guitar. "Yeah,

but—" he began, and stopped again. "What is wizardry?"

he asked quietly. "What is magic?"

 

"What isn't?"

 

There was silence for the space of about two long-drawn

breaths, Rudy fighting the sudden, illogical, and over-

whelming notion that that was the reply of a man who un-

derstood magic. Then he shook bis head, as if to clear it

of the webs of the old man's crazy fantasies. "I don't un-

derstand you."

 

Ingold's voice was soft. "I think you do."

 

He really did step out of that light.

 

In another minute you'll be as crazy as he is.

 

Confusion made Rudy's voice rough. "All I understand

is that you're crazier than a loon..."

 

"Am I really?" The white eyebrows lifted in mock of-

fense. "And just how do you define crazy?"

 

"Crazy is somebody who doesn't know the difference be-

tween what's real and what's just in his imagination."

 

"Ah," Ingold said, all things made clear. "You mean if

I disbelieved something that I saw with my own eyes, just

because I imagined it to be impossible, I would be crazy?"

 

"I did not either see it!" Rudy yelled.

 

"You know you did," the wizard said reasonably. "Come

now, Rudy, you believe in thousands of things you've never

seen with your own eyes."

 

"I do not!"

 

"You believe in the ruler of your country."

 

"Well, I've seen him! I've seen him on television."

 

"And have you not also seen people materializing out of

showers of silver light on this television?" Ingold asked.

 

"Dammit, don't argue that way! You know as well as I

do..."

 

"But I don't, Rudy. If you choose deliberately to disre-

gard the evidence of your own senses, it's your problem,

not mine. I am what I am..."

 

"You are not!"

 

Slowly, in an absent-minded imitation of Rudy's can-

squashing ritual, Ingold crushed his empty beer can into a

wad slightly smaller than his own fist. "Really, you're one

of the most prejudiced young men I've ever met," he de-

clared. "For an artist you have singularly little scope."

 

Rudy drew in his breath to reply to that one, then let it

out again. "How did you know I'm an artist?"

 

Amused blue eyes challenged him. "A wild guess." In

his heart Rudy knew it had been nothing of the kind. "You

are, aren't you?"

 

"Uh—wen, I paint airbrush pictures on the sides of cus-

tom vans, and pinstripe motorcycle fuel tanks, that kind of

stuff." Seeing Ingold's puzzled frown, he conceded, "Yeah,

I guess you could call it art."

 

There was another silence, the old man looking down at

his scarred hands in the sunlight on the table top, the iso-

lated cabin utterly silent but for the fault creaking insect

noises in the long grasses outside. Then he looked up and

smiled. "And is it beneath your dignity to have friends

with, I think you call it, nonstandard reality?"

 

Rudy thought about some of the people who hung

around Wild David's bike shop. Nonstandard was one way

of putting it. He laughed. "Hell, if I felt that way I'd have

maybe about two friends. Okay, you win."

 

The old man looked startled and just a little worried,

"You mean you believe me?"

 

"No—but it doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you."

 

If he's schizo, Rudy found himself thinking later in the

morning, he's got it all down. Wizardry, the mythical

Realm of Darwath, the Hidden City of Quo on the West-

ern Ocean where the garnered learning of a hundred gen-

erations of mages was stored in the dark labyrinths of

Forn's Tower—Ingold had it all, seemed to know it as

intimately as Rudy knew his own world of bars and bikes

and body shops, of smog and steel. Through the long, warm

morning, Rudy messed with the Chevy's engine, Ingold

lending a hand occasionally when one was needed and stay-

ing out of the way when it wasn't, and their talk drifted

over magic, the Void, engines, and painting. Ingold never

slipped up.

 

Not only was he totally familiar with his own fantasy

world, but Rudy noticed he had the lapses of knowledge

that a man imperfectly acquainted with this world would

have. He seemed totally fascinated with Rudy's world, with

the wonders of radio and television, the complexities of the

welfare system, and the mysteries of the internal combus-

tion engine. He had the insatiable curiosity that, he had

said, was the hallmark of wizards: the lust for knowledge,

almost any kind of knowledge, that superseded even the

most elementary considerations of physical comfort or

safety.

 

If it wasn't for the kid, Rudy thought, glancing from

 

the tangled shadows of the car toward the wizard, who was

seated in the long grass, thoughtfully dissecting and exam-

ining a seed pod, I wouldn't care. Hell, the guy could

claim to be Napoleon and it'd be no business of mine. But

he's got no business with a kid that young, wandering

around a million miles from noplace.

 

And his hangover hallucination of their stepping out of

the burning air returned to him, the absolute reality of the

vision, far clearer than anything muscatel or anything else

had ever done for him. Something about it troubled him,

something he could not yet define.

 

Then the rusted nut he was working on gave way, and

other matters claimed his attention. Ten minutes later he

crawled out from under the car, grease-smudged, hot, and

disgusted. Ingold set aside the seed pod and raised his eye-

brows inquiringly.

 

Rudy flung the wrench he was holding violently into the

dirt. "Goddam fuel pump," he sighed, and dropped cross-

legged to the ground at the wizard's side.

 

"It is the pump, then, and not the line?" Rudy had

briefed him on the problem.

 

"Yeah." He cursed, and elaborated on the car, its owner,

and things in general. He finished with, "So I guess the

only thing to do is walk to the highway and hitch."

 

"Well," Ingold said comfortably, "my contact in this

world should be here very shortly. You could always get a

ride back to civilization with her."

 

Rudy paused in wiping his oily hands on a rag he'd

fished out of the back seat. "Your what?"

 

"My contact in this world." Seeing Rudy's surprise, In-

gold explained. "I shall be stranded the night in your

world and, though on occasion I've starved, I see no reason

to do it if it can be avoided."

 

"So you're just passing through, is that it?" Rudy won-

dered if there was, in fact, such a contact, or if this was

yet one more strange figment of the old man's peculiar

imagination.

 

"In a manner of speaking," Ingold said slowly.

 

"But if you're a wizard in your own world, how come

you'd starve?" Rudy asked, more out of lazy curiosity than

anything else. "How come you can't just make food appear

if you're hungry?"

 

"Because it doesn't work that way," Ingold said simply.

 

"Creating the illusion of food is relatively simple. To make

a piece of grass like this one convincingly resemble bread

requires only that in taste, texture, and appearance, I con-

vince you that you are eating bread. But if you ate it, it

would provide you no more nourishment than the grass,

and on a steady diet of such things you would quickly

starve. But literally to transform the inner nature of the

grass would be to alter reality itself, to tamper with the

fabric of the entire universe."

 

"Lot of trouble to go through for a crummy piece of

bread."

 

"Well, more than that, it's potentially dangerous. Any

tampering, no matter how small, with the fabric of the

universe is perilous. That is why shape-changing is seldom

done. Most high-ranking wizards understand the principle

behind turning oneself into a beast—with the mind and

heart of a beast—but very, very few would dare to put it

into practice. An archmage might do it, in peril of his life.

But . . ." He raised his head suddenly, and Rudy caught

the far-off chugging of an engine in the still, pale air of

afternoon.

 

"My friend," Ingold explained. He got up, brushing dry

grass and twigs off his robe. Rudy scrambled likewise to

his feet as a dusty red Volkswagen beetle crept into view

around the shoulder of the hill.

 

"This I gotta see."

 

The bug's tires surrounded it in a light cloud of dust as

it made its slow approach, bumping cautiously over every

rut and pothole of the treacherous road. It came to a stop a

few yards away, the door opened, and a girl got out

 

She took one look at Rudy and stopped, her eyes filled

with suspicion and distrust. Then Ingold stepped down the

bank toward her, both hands held out in welcome. "Gil,"

he said. "This is Rudy Solis. He thinks I'm crazy. Rudy—

Gil Patterson. My contact in this world."

 

They regarded each other in silent animosity.

 

Gil would almost have preferred the Highway Patrol.

This character had "biker" written on him in letters a foot

tall: greasy jeans, grubby white T-shirt, scarred boots.

Dark hair faintly tinged with red fell loosely on either side

of a long widow's peak almost to his shoulders; cocky dark-

blue eyes under sharply backslanted black brows gave her

an arrogant once-over and dismissed her. She noted the

 

bump of an old break on his nose. RUDY was tattooed on

a banner across a flaming torch on his left wrist. A red

prize.

 

Kind of tall and scrawny, but not bad-looking, Rudy de-

cided, checking her out. Bitchy, though, I bet. A real

spook. Beyond that he noted the worn jeans, blue check-

ered shirt, lack of make-up, unworked hands and bitten

nails, and cool, pale, forbidding eyes. Where'd Ingold dig

her up?

 

Ingold went on, "Rudy's been stranded here with car

trouble. Could you take him back with you as far as he

needs to go when you leave, Gil, as a favor to me?"

 

Her eyes went warily from Ingold to Rudy, then back

to the wizard's face. Ingold rested a hand briefly on her

shoulder and said quietly, "It's all right. He doesn't have to

believe me, Gil."

 

She sighed and forced herself to relax. "All right," she

agreed.

 

Rudy had watched all this with curiosity bordering on

annoyance. "Well, don't do me any favors."

 

Those pale gray eyes grew colder. But Ingold's hand

tightened almost imperceptibly on Gil's bony shoulder, and

she said, in a more natural voice, "No, it's all right."

 

Rudy, in turn, relaxed and meant it when he said,

"Thank you. Uh—can I give you a hand with that?" for

Gil had turned back to the car and was fetching out as-

sorted provisions, including canned beef stew and diapers,

from the back seat. He dropped back a pace to walk beside

her as they followed Ingold up to the cabin, however, and

as soon as the old man was out of earshot Rudy asked

softly, "Who is he?"

 

She regarded him with those pale schoolmarm eyes—

old-maid eyes in the face of a girl his own age. "What did

he tell you?"

 

"That he was some kind of a wizard from another uni-

verse."

 

When Gil was embarrassed, she became brusque. "That's

his story."

 

Rudy refused to be put off. "Where'd you meet him?"

 

Gil sighed. "It's a long story," she said, falling back on

Ingold's usual explanation. "And it doesn't matter, not

really."

 

"It matters to me," Rudy said, and glanced up ahead of

 

them to where Ingold was just vanishing into the shadows

of the little house. "You see, I like the old guy, I really do,

even if he isn't playing with a full deck. I'm just worried

some land of harm will come to the kid."

 

They stopped at the foot of the rickety steps, and Gil

looked carefully for the first time at the young man's face.

It was sun-bronzed and sensual, but not a crass face, nor a

stupid one. "Do you think he'd let any harm come to Tir?"

 

Rudy remembered the old man and the child together,

Ingold's gentle competence and the protectiveness in his

voice when he spoke to the baby. "No," he said slowly.

"No—but what are they doing out here? And what's gonna

happen when he goes wandering back to civilization like

that?"

 

There was genuine concern in his voice, which Gil found

rather touching. Besides, she thought, if I hadn't had the

dreams, I'd probably think the same,

 

She shifted her burden from one hand to the other. "It

will be okay," she assured him quietly.

 

"You know what's going on?"

 

She nodded.

 

Rudy looked down at her doubtfully, not quite satisfied

and sensing something amiss. Still, in one real sense this girl

was Ingold's contact with reality, which in spite of his ob-

vious shrewdness and charm the old man sorely needed.

And yet—and yet— Troubled visions of the old man stum-

bling out of a blazing aura of silver light returned to him

as he started up the steps, Gil climbing at his heels. He

swung around on her abruptly, to ask, "Do you believe

him?"

 

But before Gil could answer, the cabin door opened

again, and Ingold re-emerged onto the narrow porch, a

flushed, sleepy infant in his arms. "This is Prince Altir

Endorion," he introduced.

 

Gil and Rudy came up the last few steps to join him,

the question left unanswered. On the whole, Gil disliked

children, but, like most hard-hearted women, she had a

soft spot for the very young and helpless. She touched the

round pink cheek with gingerly reverence, as if afraid

the child would shatter on contact. "He's very beautiful,"

she whispered.

 

"And very wet," Ingold replied, and led the way back

into the house.

 

It was Rudy who ended up doing the changing as the

only one with experience in the task, while Gil made a

lunch of beef stew and coffee on the kerosene stove, and

Ingold investigated the light switches to see how electricity

worked. Rudy noticed that, among other things, Gil had

brought an extra can of kerosene; though, if he recalled,

the little stove had been out of sight beneath a counter

when he'd first come in, and there had been no signs that

the house had been entered in years.

 

How had Ingold known?

 

Gil came over to him and set a styrofoam cup of steam-

ing black liquid on the floor at his side. She watched Rudy

playing tickle-me with Tir for some moments, smiling,

then said, "You know, you're probably the first man I've

ever seen who'd volunteer for diaper duty."

 

"Hell," Rudy told her, grinning. "With six younger

brothers and sisters, you get used to it."

 

"I suppose so." She tested one of the wobbly chairs,

then sat in it, her arm resting over the back. "I only had

the one sister, and she's just two years younger than I

am, so I never knew."

 

Rudy glanced up at her. "Is she like you?" he asked.

 

Gil shook her head ruefully. "No. She's pretty. She's

twenty-two and already getting her second divorce."

 

"Yeah, my next-next younger sister's like that," Rudy

said thoughtfully, fishing in the pocket of his discarded

jacket for his motorcycle keys, which Tir received with

blissful fascination and proceeded to try to eat. "She's

seventeen years old, and she's been around more than I

have." He caught Gil's raised eyebrow and askance look,

and followed her eye to the decoration on the back of

his jacket—skulls, roses, black flames, and all. "Aah, that,"

he said, a little embarrassed at it "Picasso had a Blue

Period. I had my Pachuco Period."

 

"Oh," Gil said distastefully, not believing him. "Are

you in a gang?"

 

Rudy sat back on his heels, hearing the tone in her

voice. "What the hell do you think I do, live in Fontana

and go out on raids?"

 

Since that was exactly what she thought he did, she

said, "No. I mean—" She broke off in confusion. "You

mean you painted that yourself?"

 

"Sure," Rudy said, reaching over to spread out the

 

offending garment with its elaborate symbology and multi-

ple grease stains. "I'd do it better now—I'd have different

lettering, and no fire; the fire makes it look kind of trashy.

That is, if I did it at all. It's kind of tacky," he admitted.

"But it's good advertising."

 

"You mean you make your living at that?"

 

"Oh, yeah. For now, anyway. I work at Wild David

Wilde's Paint and Body Shop in Berdoo, and painting's

a hell of a lot easier than body work, let me tell you."

 

Gil contemplated the jacket for a moment longer, her

chin resting on her folded hands on the back of the chair.

Though morbid, violent, and weird, the design was well-

executed and argued a certain ability and sensitivity of

style. "Then you're not a biker yourself?"

 

"I ride a motorcycle," Rudy said. "I like bikes, work on

them. I'm not in a gang, though. You can run yourself

into real trouble that way." He shrugged. "Those guys are

really heavy-duty. I couldn't do it."

 

Ingold came back in, having traced the power cables

to their sources and explored the land around the little

house as if seeking something in the dusty silence of the

groves. Gil dished up canned beef stew and bread. As they

ate, Rudy listened to the girl and the wizard talk and

wondered again how much this thin, spooky-looking wom-

an believed the old man, and how much of her conversa-

tion was tactful humoring of an old, well-loved, and

totally crazy friend.

 

It was impossible to tell. That she was fond of him was

obvious; her guarded stiffness relaxed, and with liveliness

her face was almost pretty. But it was Ingold who domi-

nated and led, she who followed, and there were tunes

when Rudy wondered if she was as crazy as the old man.

 

"I never understood that about the memories," Gil was

saying, blowing on her coffee to cool it. "You and Eldor

talked about it, but I don't understand."

 

"No one really understands it," Ingold said. "It's a

rare phenomenon, far rarer than wizardry. To my knowl-

edge, in all the history of the Realm it has appeared in

only three noble houses and two peasant ones. We don't

know what it is or why it works, why a son will suddenly

recall events that happened to his grandfather, when the

grandfather never exhibited such a talent in his life, why

it seems to descend only in the male line, why it skips one

 

generation, or two, or five, why some sons will remember

certain events and be ignorant of others that their brothers

recall with exacting clarity."

 

"I could be like a double-recessive gene," Gil began

thoughtfully.

 

"A what?"

 

"A genetic trait . . ." She stopped. "Jeez, you people

don't understand genetics, do you?"

 

"As in horse breeding?" Ingold asked with a smile.

 

She nodded. "Sort of. It's how you breed for a trait,

how you get throwbacks, the more you inbreed. I'll ex-

plain it sometime."

 

"You mean," Rudy said, drawn into the conversation in

spite of himself, "Pugsley here is supposed to remember

stuff that happened to his dad and his grandpa and stuff

like that?" He jiggled the baby sitting in his lap.

 

"He should," Ingold said. "But it's a gamble, for we do

not know for certain if—and what—he will remember. His

father remembers—remembered—" There was a slight

shift, almost a crack, in the wizard's rusty voice as he

changed the tense. "—things that happened at the time

of their most remote ancestor, Dare of Renweth. And,

Gil, it was Dare of Renweth who was King at the time

of the rising of the Dark Ones."

 

"The who?" Rudy asked.

 

"The Dark Ones." The touch of that heavy-lidded, blue

gaze gave Rudy the uncomfortable feeling of having his

mind read. "The enemy whom we flee." His eyes shifted

back to Gil, the light from the western window slanting

strong and yellow on the sharp bones of her face. "Un-

fortunately, I fear the Dark Ones know it. They know

many things—their power is different from mine, of a dif-

ferent nature, as if from a different source. I believe their

attacks were concentrated on the Palace at Gae because

they knew that Eldor and Tir were dangerous to them,

that the memories the King and Prince held were the

clue to their ultimate defeat. They have—eliminated—

Eldor. Now only Tir is left."

 

Gil cocked her head and glanced across at the pink-

cheeked baby, gravely manipulating a bunch of motorcycle

keys in Rudy's lap, then at the wizard, profiled against the

cracked and grimy glass of the window through which the

hills could be seen, desolate, isolated, dyed gold by the

 

deep slant of the light. Her voice was quiet. "Could they

have followed you here?"

 

Ingold looked up at her quickly, his azure-crystal eyes

meeting hers, then shifting away. "Oh, I don't think so,"

he said mildly. "They have no notion that the Void exists,

much less how to cross it."

 

"How do you know?" she insisted. "You said yourself

you don't understand their powers, or their knowledge.

You have no power at all in this world. If they crossed

the Void, would they have power?"

 

He shook his head. "I doubt they could even exist in

this world," he told her. "The material laws here are

very different. Which, incidentally, is what makes magic

possible—a change in the ways the laws of physics op-

erate ..."

 

As the conversation turned to a discussion of theoretical

magic and its relation to the martial arts, Rudy listened,

puzzled; if Ingold had his end of the script down pat, Gil

sure as hell had hers.

 

After a time, Ingold took charge of Tir to feed him,

and Gil made her way quietly out onto the porch, seeking

the silence of the last of the westering sunlight. She sat

on the edge of the high platform, her booted feet dangling

in space, leaning her arms along the bottom rail of the

crazy old banister and watching the hills go from tawny

gold to crystal, like champagne in the changing slant of

the light, the air luminous with sunlit dust one moment,

then suddenly overlaid with the cool of the hills' shadow.

The evening wind slurred softly through the lion-colored

grass of the wastelands all around. Each rock and stunted

tree was imbued by the light with a unique and private

beauty. The light even lent something resembling dis-

tinction to the sunken wreck of the blue Impala and the

nondescript VW, half-hidden by the screen of whispering

weeds.

 

She heard the door open and shut behind her then and

smelled the dark scent of tallow and wool permeated with

smoke as Ingold settled down beside her, once more wear-

ing his dark mantle over the pale homespun of his robe. For

some minutes they didn't speak at all, only watched the

sunset in warm and companionable silence, and she was

content.

 

Finally he said, "Thank you for coming, Gil. Your help

has been invaluable."

 

She shook her head. "No trouble."

 

"Do you mind very much taking Rudy back?" She could

tell by his voice he'd sensed her dislike and was troubled

by it.

 

"I don't mind." She turned her head, her cheek resting

on her arm on the rail. "He's okay. If I didn't know you,

I probably wouldn't believe a word of it myself." She

noticed in the golden haze of the light that, though his

hair was white, his eyelashes were still the same fairish

gingery red that must have been his whole coloring at

one time. She went on. "But I'm going to drop him off

at the main highway and come back. I don't like leaving

you here alone."

 

"I shall be quite all right," the wizard said gently.

 

"I don't care," she replied.

 

He glanced sideways at her. "You couldn't possibly help,

you know, if anything did happen."

 

"You have no magic here," she said softly, "and your

back's to the wall. I'm not going to leave you."

 

Ingold folded his arms along the rail, his chin on his

crossed wrists, seeming for a tune only to contemplate the

rippling tracks of the wind in the long grass below the

porch, the rime of sun-fire like a halo on the distant hills.

"I appreciate your loyalty," he said at last, "misguided

though it is. But the situation will not arise. You see, I

have decided to risk going back tonight, before it grows

fully dark."

 

Gil was startled, both relieved and uneasy. "Will Tir

be okay?"

 

"I can put a spell of protection over us both that should

shield him from the worst of the shock." The sun had

touched the edges of the hills already; the evening breeze

wore the thin chill of coming night. "There should be a

good two hours of daylight left in my own world when

Tir and I return—there seems to be a disjunction of time

involved in the Void, your world and mine not quite in

synch. We should be able to come to cover before dark."

 

"Won't that be an awful risk?"

 

"Maybe." He turned his head a little to meet her eyes,

and in the dimming evening light she thought he looked

tired, the shadows of the porch railings barring his face

 

but unable to hide the deepened lines around his mouth

and eyes. His fingers idled with the splinters of the wood,

casually, as if he were not speaking of danger into which

he would walk. "But I would rather take that risk than

imperil your world, your civilization, should the Dark

prove able to follow me through the Void."

 

Then he sighed and stood up, as if dismissing the whole

subject from his mind. He helped her to her feet, his hand

rough and warm and powerful, but as light and deft as a

jeweler's. The last glow of the day surrounded them, sil-

houetted against the burning windows. "I am entitled to

risk my own life, Gil," he said. "But whenever I can, I

draw the line at risking the lives of others, especially those

who are loyal to me, as you are. So don't be concerned.

We shall be quite safe."

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

"Where you headed?" Gil carefully guided the VW in a

small circle, bumping slowly over stones and uneven

ground, and eased it back onto the road again. The road,

the hills, the dark trees of the grove had turned gray-blue

and colorless in the twilight. In her rear-view mirror, Gil

saw Ingold's sword blade held high in salute. She could see

him on the cabin porch, straight and sturdy in his billowing

dark mantle, and her heart ached with fear at the sight.

Rudy, chewing on a grass blade, one sunburned arm hang-

ing out of the open window, was about as comforting as

reruns of The Crawling Eye on a dark and stormy night.

 

"San Bernardino," Rudy said, glancing back also at the

dark form of the wizard in the shadows of the house.

 

"I can take you there," Gil said, negotiating a gravel slide

and the deep-cut spoor of last winter's rains. "I'm heading

on into Los Angeles so it's not out of my way."

 

"Thank you" Rudy said. "It's harder than hell to get

rides at night."

 

Gil grinned in spite of herself. "In that jacket it would

be."

 

Rudy laughed. "You from L.A.?"

 

"Not originally. I go to UCLA; I'm in the Ph.D. pro-

gram in medieval history there." Out of the corner of her

eye she glimpsed his start of surprise, a typical reaction in

men, she had found. "Originally I'm from San Marino."

 

"Ah," Rudy said wisely, recognizing the name of that

wealthy suburb. "Rich kid."

 

"Not really." Gil objected more to the label than to the

 

facts. "Well—I guess you could say that My father's a

doctor."

 

"Specialist?" Rudy inquired, half-teasing.

 

"Child psychiatrist," Gil said, with a faint grin at how

well the label fitted her.

 

"Yow."

 

"They've disowned me," she added with a shrug. "So

it doesn't matter." Her voice was offhand, almost apolo-

getic. She turned on the headlights, and dust plumed

whitely in their feeble glare. By their reflection Rudy

could see that her face wore the shut, wary look again,

a fortress defended against all comers.

 

"Why the hell would they disown you?" He was indig-

nant in spite of himself for her sake. "Christ, my mother

would forgive any one of my sisters for murder if she'd

just finish high school."

 

Gil chuckled bitterly. "It's the Ph.D. mine objects to,"

she told him. "What up-and-coming young doctor or

dentist is going to marry a research scholar in medieval

history? She doesn't say that, but mat's what she means."

And Gil drove on for a time in silence.

 

The dark shapes of the hills loomed closer around the

little car, the stars emerging in the luminous blue of the

evening sky, small and bright with distance. Staring out

into the milky darkness, Rudy identified the landmarks of

his trip into the hills, rock and tree and the round, smooth

shapes of the land. The green eyes of some tiny animal

flashed briefly in the gloom, then vanished as a furry shape

whipped across the dark surface of the road.

 

"So they kicked you out just because you want to get

a Ph.D.?"

 

She shrugged. "They didn't really kick me out. I just

don't go home anymore. I don't miss it," she added truth-

fully.

 

"Really? I'd miss it like hell." Rudy slouched back

against the door, one arm draped out the window, the

wind cool against wrist and throat. "I mean, yeah, my

mom's house is like a bus stop, with the younger kids all

over the place, and the cats, and her sisters, and dirty

dishes all over the house, and my sisters' boyfriends hang-

ing out in the back yard—but it's someplace to go, you

know? Someplace I'll always be welcome, even if I do

 

have to shout to make myself heard. I'd go crazy if I had

 

to live there, but it's nice to go back."

 

Gil grinned at the picture he painted, mentally contrast-

ing it with the frigid good taste of her mother's home.

 

"And you left your family just to go to school?" He

sounded wondering, unbelieving that she could have done

such a thing.

 

"There was nothing there for me," Gil said. "And I

want to be a scholar. They can't understand that I've

never wanted to do or be or have anything else."

 

Another long silence. Up ahead, yellow headlights flick-

ered in the dark. Long and low, the cement bridge of the

freeway overpass bulked against the paler background of

the hills; like a glittering fortress of red and amber flame,

a semi roared by, the rumble of its engine like distant thun-

der. The VW whined up the overpass; Rudy settled back

in his seat, considering her sharp-boned, rather delicate

face, the generosity belying the tautness of the mouth, the

sentimentalism lurking in the depths of those hard, intelli-

gent eyes. "That's funny," he said at last.

 

"That anybody would like school that much?" Her voice

held a trace of sarcasm, but he let it go by.

 

"That you'd want anything that much," he said quietly.

"Me, I've never really wanted to have or do or be any-

thing. I mean, not so much that I'd dump everything else

for it. Sounds rough."

 

"It is," Gil said, and returned her attention to the road.

 

"Was that where you ran into Ingold?"

 

She shook her head. Though it hadn't seemed to bother

the wizard that Rudy thought him a candidate for the soft

room, she didn't want to discuss Ingold with Rudy.

 

Rudy, however, persisted. "Can you tell me what the

hell that was all about? Is he really as cracked as he

seems?"

 

"No," Gil said evasively. She tried to think up a reason-

able explanation for the whole thing that she could palm

off on Rudy to keep him from asking further questions.

At the moment a queer uneasiness haunted her, and she

didn't feel much in the mood for questions, let alone obvi-

ous disbelief. In spite of the occasional lights on the high-

way, she was conscious as she had never been before of

the weight and depth of the night, of darkness pressing

down all around them. She found herself wishing vaguely

 

that Rudy would roll up his window instead of leaning

against the frame, letting the night-scented desert winds

brush through the car.

 

Billboards fleeted garishly by them, primitive colors bril-

liant in the darkness; now and then a car would swoosh

past, with yellow eyes staring wildly into the night. Her

mind traced the long road home, the road she'd seen in

last night's aching dream of restlessness that had told her

where she must come, then had framed awkwardly the

next chapter of her thesis, which had to be worked on

tonight if she were going to make her seminar deadline.

But her mind moved uncontrolledly from thing to thing,

returning again and again to that silent, isolated cabin, the

salute from the blade of an upraised sword...

 

"You believe him."

 

She turned, startled, and met Rudy's eyes.

 

"You believe him," he repeated quietly, not as an accusa-

tion, but as a statement.

 

"Yes," Gil said. "Yes, I do."

 

Rudy. looked away from her and stared out the window.

"Fantastic."

 

"It sounds crazy ..." she began.

 

He turned back to her. "Not when he says it," he con-

tradicted, pointing his finger accusingly, as if she would

deny it. "He's the most goddam believable man I've ever

met."

 

"You've never seen him step through the Void," Gil said

simply. "I have."

 

That stopped Rudy. He couldn't bring himself to say, I

have, too.

 

Because he knew it had just been a hallucination, born

of bright sunlight and a killing hangover. But the image of

it returned disturbingly—the glaring gap of light, the fold-

big air. But I didn't see it, he protested; it was all in my

head.

 

And, like an echo, he heard Ingold's voice saying, You

know you did.

 

I know I did.

 

But if it was all a hangover hallucination, how did he

know it?

 

Rudy sighed, feeling exhausted beyond words. "I don't

know what the hell to believe."

 

"Believe what you choose," Gil said. "It doesn't matter.

 

He's crossing back to his own world tonight, he and Tir.

So they'll be gone."

 

"That's fairy-tale stuff!" Rudy insisted. "Why would a—

a wizard be toting a kidnapped Prince through this world

on the way to someplace else anyway?"

 

Gil shrugged, keeping her eyes on the highway.

 

Annoyed, he went on. "And besides, if he was going

back tonight to some world where he's got magical powers,

why would he need to bum my matches off me? He

wouldn't need them there."

 

"No, he wouldn't," Gil agreed mildly. Then the sense

of what Rudy had said sank in, and she looked quickly

across at him. "You mean, he did?"

 

"Just before we left," Rudy told her, a little smug at

having caught the pair of them out. "Why would he need

matches?"

 

Gil felt as if the blood in her veins had turned suddenly

to ice. "Oh, my God," she whispered.

 

I am entitled to risk my own life . . . but I draw the

line at risking the lives of others...

 

As if a door had opened, showing her the room beyond,

she knew that Ingold had lied. And she knew why he had

lied.

 

She swerved the Volkswagen to the side of the highway,

suspicion passing instantaneously to certainty as the thread-

bare tires jolted on the stones of the unpaved shoulder.

There was only one reason for the wizard to need matches,

the wizard who, in his own world, could bring fire at his

bidding.

 

There was only one reason, in this world, that the wizard

would need fire tonight

 

He hadn't spoken of going back until she'd offered to

remain with him, until she'd spoken of the possibility of

the Dark following him through the Void. He had refused

to flee Gae until all those who needed him were utterly

past help. So he would take his own chances, alone in the

isolated cabin, rather than risk involving anyone else.

 

"Climb out," she said. "I'm going back."

 

"What the hell?" Rudy was staring at her as if she'd

gone crazy.

 

"He lied," Gil said, her low voice suddenly trembling

with urgency. "He lied about crossing the Void tonight.

 

He wanted to get rid of us both, get us out of there, be-

fore the Dark Ones come."

 

"What?"

 

"I don't care what you think," she went on rapidly, "but

I'm going back. He was afraid from the beginning that

they'd come after him across the Void ..."

 

"Now, wait a minute," Rudy began, alarmed.

 

"No. You can hitch your way to where you're going.

I'm not leaving him to face them alone."

 

Her face was white in the glare of the headlights, her

pale eyes burning with an intensity that was almost fright-

ening. Crazy, Rudy thought. Both of them, totally schizoid.

Why does this have to happen to me?

 

"I'll go with you," he said. It was a statement, not an

offer.

 

She drew back, instantly suspicious.

 

"Not that I believe you," Rudy went on, slouching

against the tattered upholstery. "But you two gotta have

one sane person there to look after that kid. Now turn

this thing around."

 

With scarcely a glance at the road behind her, Gil

jammed the accelerator, smoking across the center divider

in a hailstorm of gravel, and roaring like a tin-pan thun-

derbolt into the night.

 

"There," Rudy said, half an hour later, as the car skidded

to a bone-jarring stop on the service road below the

groves. Ahead of them on its little rise, the cabin was

clearly visible, every window showing a dingy yellow elec-

tric glare. Gil was out of the car before the choking cloud

of dust had settled, striding quickly over the rough ground

toward the porch steps. Rudy followed more slowly, pick-

ing his way carefully through the weeds, wondering how

in hell he was going to get out of this situation and what

he was going to say to his boss back at the body shop.

Dave, I didn't make it to work Monday because I was

helping a wizard rescue a baby Prince out someplace be-

tween Barstow and San Bernardino? Not to mention ex-

plaining why he never made it back to Tarot's party from

the beer run.

 

He looked around him at the dark landscape, distorted

by starlight, and shivered at the utter desolation of it. Cold,

aimless wind stirred his long hair, bearing a scent that was

 

not of dusty grass or hot sunlight—a scent he'd never

smelled before. He hurried to catch up with Gil, his boot-

heels thumping hollowly on the board stairs.

 

She pounded on the door. "Ingold!" she called out. "In-

gold, let me in!"

 

Rudy slipped past her and reached through the pane of

glass he'd broken last night to unlock the door from the

inside. They stepped into the bare and brightly lighted

kitchen as Ingold came striding down the hallway, his

drawn sword in his hand and clearly in a towering rage.

 

"Get out of here!" he ordered them furiously.

 

"The hell I will," Gil said.

 

"You can't possibly be of any help to me..."

 

"I'm not going to leave you alone."

 

Rudy looked from the one to the other: the girl in her

faded jeans and denim jacket, with those pale, wild eyes;

the old man in his dark, billowing mantle, the sword

gripped, poised, in one scarred hand. Loonies, he thought.

What the hell have I walked into? He headed down the hall.

 

Tir lay wrapped in his dark velvet blankets on the bed,

blue eyes wide with fear. The only other thing in the bare

room was a pile of kindling in one corner, looking as if

every piece of wooden furniture in the little cabin had

been broken up; next to it stood the can of kerosene. Steps

sounded behind him in the hall, and Ingold's voice, taut

as wire, said, "Don't you understand?"

 

"I understand," Gil said quietly. "That's why I came

back."

 

"Rudy," Ingold said, and the tone in his voice was one

of a man utterly used to command. "I want you to take

Gil, get her in the car, and get her out of here. Now.

Instantly."

 

Rudy swung around. "Oh, I'm gonna get out of here all

right," he said grimly. "But I'm taking the kid with me. I

don't know what you guys think you're doing, but I'm not

leaving a six-month-old kid to be mixed up in it"

 

"Don't be a fool," Ingold snapped.

 

"Look who's talking!"

 

Then, as Rudy bent to pick up the child from the bed,

the lights went out.

 

In one swift movement, Ingold turned and kicked the

door shut, the sword gleaming like foxfire in his hand.

 

The little starlight leaking through the room's single win-

dow showed his face beaded with sweat.

 

Rudy set the whimpering baby down again, muttering,

"Goddam fuses." He started for the door.

 

Gil gasped. "Rudy, no!"

 

Ingold caught her arm as she moved to stop him. There

was deceptive mildness in his voice as it came from the

darkness. "You think it's the fuse?"

 

"Either that or a short someplace in the box," Rudy

said. He glanced over his shoulder at them as he opened

the hall door, seeing their indistinct outlines in the near-

total blackness; the faint touch of filtered starlight haloed

Ingold's white hair and picked out random corners of Gil's

angular frame. The edge of Ingold's drawn sword glim-

mered, as if with a pallid light of its own.

 

The hall was black, pitch, utterly black, and Rudy

groped his way blindly along it, telling himself that his

nervousness came from being trapped in a house in the

middle of nowhere with a deluded scholar and a charming

and totally insane old geezer armed with a razor-sharp

sword, a book of matches, and a can and a half of kero-

sene. After that stygian gloom, the dark kitchen seemed

almost bright; he could make out the indistinct forms of the

table, the counter; the thread-silver gleam on the hooked

neck of the faucet; the pale, distinct glow of the windows

by the door; the single one in the left with the broken pane.

 

Then he saw what was coming in through the broken

pane.

 

He never knew how he got back to the bedroom,

though later he found bruises on his body where he'd

blundered against the walls in his flight. It seemed that

one instant he was standing in the darkness of the tiny

kitchen, seeing that hideous shape crawling through the

window, and that next he was falling against the bedroom

door to slam it shut, sobbing. "It's out there! It's out

there!"

 

Ingold, standing over him in the gloom, scarred face out-

lined in the misty gleam of his sword blade, said softly,

"What did you expect, Rudy? Humans?"

 

Firelight flared. Gil had made a kind of campfire out of

splintered kindling in the middle of the cement floor and

was coughing in the rank smoke. Lying on the sagging

mattress, Tir was staring at the darkness with eyes huge

 

with terror, whimpering like a beaten puppy afraid to bark.

Another child would have been screaming; but, whatever

atavistic memories crowded his infant brain, they warned

him that to cry aloud was death.

 

Rudy got slowly to his feet, shaking in every limb with

shock. "What are we gonna do?" he whispered. "We

could get out the back, make it down to the car . .."

 

"You think the car would start?" In the smoldery orange

glare, the old man's eyes never left the door. Even as he

was speaking, Rudy could see that both his hands were on

the long hilt of the sword, poised to strike. "I doubt we

would make it to the car in any case. And—the house

limits its size."

 

Rudy gulped, cold with shock, seeing that thing again,

small and hideous and yet rife with unspeakable terror.

"You mean—it can change its size?"

 

"Oh, yes." Sword in hand, Ingold moved cat-footedly to

the door. "The Dark are not material, as we understand

material. They are only incompletely visible, and not al-

ways of the same—composition. I have seen them go from

the size of your two hands to larger than this house in a

matter of seconds."

 

Rudy wiped sweating palms on his jeans, sickened with

horror and totally disoriented. "But if—if they're not

material," he stammered, "what can we do? How can we

fight?"

 

"There are ways." Firelight played redly over Ingold's

patched mantle as he stood, one hand resting on the door-

knob, the other holding ready the gleaming witchfire of the

blade, his head bowed, listening for some sound. After a

moment he spoke again, his voice barely a whisper. "Gil,"

he said, "I want you to take Tir and get between the bed

and the wall. Rudy, how much of a fire do we have left?"

 

"Not much. That wood was dry as grass. It's going

quick."

 

Ingold stepped back from the door, though he never

took his attention from it. The little room was filled with

smoke, the flaring fire already sinking, feebly holding at

bay the encroaching ring of shadows. Without looking back,

he held out his hand. "Give me the kerosene, Rudy."

 

Wordlessly, Rudy obeyed.

 

Moving swiftly now, Ingold sheathed his sword in a

single fluid gesture, took the can, and set to work, un-

 

screwing the filler-cap and throwing a great swatch of

the clear liquid over the dry wood of the door. It glittered

in the yellow firelight, its throat-catching smell mixing with

the gritty foulness of the smoke, nearly choking Gil, who

stood with her back pressed to the icy concrete of the

wall, the muffled baby motionless in her arms. The fire's

light had gone from yellow to murky orange, the brown

shadows of the wizard's quick, sure movements wavering,

vast and distorted, over the imprisoning walls. Ingold came

hack toward her and saturated the mattress with the last

of the kerosene, its stink nearly suffocating her at close

range. Then he set the empty can down softly, turned

and drew his sword again, all in one smooth move; all

told, he had had his sword sheathed for less than forty

seconds.

 

He returned to the center of the room, a few feet in

front of the dying fire, which had fallen in on itself to a

fading heap of ash and crawling embers. As the darkness

grew around him, the pallid light that seemed to burn up

off the blade grew brighter, bright enough to highlight

his scarred face. He said softly, "Don't be afraid." Whether

it was a spell he cast, or merely the strength of his per-

sonality alone, Gil did not know, but she felt her appre-

hension lessen, her fear give place to a queer, cold

numbness. Rudy moved out of his frozen immobility, took

the last stick of unburned kindling, and lit it from the

remains of the blaze.

 

Darkness seemed to fill the room and, heavier than the

darkness, a silence that breathed. In that silence Gil heard

the faint blundering sounds in the hall, a kind of chitinous

scratching, as if dark fumbled eyelessly through dark.

Against her own heart, she could feel the baby's heart

hammering with small violence, and a chill wind began to

seep through the cracks in the door, touching her sweating

face with feathers of cold. She could smell it, the harsh,

acid blood-smell of the Dark.

 

Ingold's rusty voice came very calmly out of the shadows.

"Rudy," he said, "take that torch and stand next to the

door. Don't be afraid, but when the creature comes in, I

want you to close the door behind it and light the kero-

sene. Will you do that?"

 

Empty, cold, keyed up long past the point of feeling

anything, Rudy whispered, "Yeah, sure." He sidled cau-

 

tiously past the wizard, the flaming wood flickering in his

hand. As he took his post by the door, he could feel the

presence of the thing, a nightmare aura of fear. He felt

it bump the door, softly, a testing tap, far above his own

eye level, and his flesh crawled at the touch. The thing

would pass him—if it did pass him and didn't turn on the

nearest person to it as it came through the door—within

touching distance. But on the other hand, the thought

crossed his mind that if it did pass him, there was nothing

to prevent him from slipping out that open door and

making a run for the car.

 

If the car would start. If, having polished off Ingold and

Gil, the Dark didn't come after him anyway. No! The

need was to finish it now—the Dark One, the Enemy, the

thing from across the Void, the obscene intruder into the

warm, soft world of the California night...

 

Groping for the shattered ends of his world-view, Rudy

could only stand in darkness beside the door, torch in

hand, and wait.

 

The last glow of the embers was fading, the only light

ha the room now Rudy's smoldering torch and the gleaming

challenge of the blade that Ingold held upright before him,

his eyes glittering in the reflected witchlight like the eyes

of an old wolf. There was a sibilant rustle of robes as

he stirred, bracing himself, a whispering sigh as the dying

ashes collapsed and scattered. The wind that ruffled so

coldly through the cracks in the door seemed to drop and

fail.

 

In the same instant that the door exploded inward, In-

gold was striding forward, blade flashing down in an arc

of fire to meet the bursting tidal wave of darkness. Rudy

got a hideous glimpse of the fanning canopy of shadow

and the endless, engulfing mouth, fringed in sloppy tenta-

cles whose writhings splattered the floor with smoking

slime. As if released from a spell, Tir began to scream, the

high, thin, terrified sound going through Rudy's brain like

a needle. The sword flashed, scattering fire; the creature

drew back, unbelievably agile for that soft floating bulk,

the slack of its serpentlike tail brushing Rudy's shoulders

as it uncoiled in a whip of darkness. The thing filled the

room like a cloud, its darkness covering them, seem-

ing to swell and pulse as if its whole bloated, obscene

body were a single slimy organ. The whip-tail slashed out,

 

cutting at Ingold's throat, and the wizard ducked and

shifted inward for position with the split-second reflexes of

a far younger man. In his dark robes, he was barely to be

seen in the darkness; mesmerized, Rudy watched, hypno-

tized by the burning arc of the wizard's blade and the

thing that snatched at him like a giant hand of shadow.

 

Gil was screaming, "The fire! The fire!" The sound was

meaningless to his ears; it was the heat of his touchlight

burning down almost to his hands that made him remem-

ber. As if awakened from a dream, he started, kicked the

door shut, and hit the greasy smear of the kerosene with

the last burning stump. The door exploded into fire, scorch-

ing Rudy as he leaped back.

 

The Dark One, thrown into crimson visibility, writhed

and twisted as if in pain, changing size again and shooting

up toward the ceiling. But streaks of fire were already

rushing up the walls to the tinder-dry rafters. Sparks stung

Rudy's exposed hands and face as he ducked across the

open space of the floor and threw himself over the bed to

crash against the wall at Gil's side. More sparks rained,

sizzling, on the wet, twisting shadow of the Dark.

 

The room was a furnace, blinding and smothering.

Bleeding light silhouetted the creature, which fled this way

and that, seeking a way out. Trapped by the fire, it turned

like a cat and fell on Ingold, the whiplike tail elongating

into spiny wire, slashing at his hands, his eyes, its claws

catching at his body. The blade carved smoking slivers

from the soft tissue, but the thing loomed too big, moved

too swiftly in the cramped space, for Ingold to get in for a

killing blow. Flattened against the wall, suffocating in the

heat, and burned by the rain of falling sparks, Gil and

Rudy both could see that Ingold was being pushed stead-

ily back toward the corner where they crouched behind

the filthy bed, hampered fatally by his need to remain at

all costs between the creature and the Prince. He fell back,

a step at a time, until Gil could have stretched her arms

across the bed and touched his shoulder. Now, along with

the sparks, they were burned by the flying droplets of acid

that scattered like sweat from the creature's twisting body.

 

Then the Dark One feinted with claws and tail, eluding

the slash of the blade by fractions of an inch and throwing

itself past the wizard with a rush. In the same split second

Ingold flung himself over the mattress to the wall, between

 

Gil and Rudy. As he did so, whether by accident or by

design, the kerosene-saturated cotton went up in a wall of

fire that singed the hem of his cloak and engulfed the Dark

One in a roaring wave of scarlet heat. For one second

Gil was conscious only of the wild, terrified screaming of

the child in her arms, of the howling inferno only feet from

her body, and of the heat of the holocaust that swallowed

her. Then the wall of fire bulged inward, and the black

shape appeared, distorted and buckling, blazing as it hurled

itself, burning and dying, upon them all. Gil screamed as

hot wind and darkness covered her.

 

Then all things vanished in a sudden, blinding firefall

of light and color and cold.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

There was only wind, and darkness. Gil stirred, her body

one undifferentiated ache, frozen to the bone. The motion

brought her stomach up into her throat. She felt as if

she had swum a long way in rough cold water after a

heavy meal, sickened and exhausted and weak. There

seemed to be a weight of warm velvet clutched in her

tired arms, a taste of earth and grass in her mouth, and

the rankness of smoke in her jacket and hair.

 

All around her, there was no sound but the wind.

 

Painfully, she sat up. The child in her arms was silent.

Under wispy starlight, she could make out bleak, rounded

foothills stretching away in all directions around her, stony

and forsaken, and combed incessantly by the ice-winds out

of the north. Close beside her lay Ingold, face down, all

but invisible in the darkness save for the faint edge of

starlight on his drawn sword. A little farther away Rudy

Was sitting, curled in a semifetal position with his head

clasped between his hands.

 

She asked, "You okay?"

 

His voice was muffled. "Okay? I'm still trying to figure

out if I'm alive." He raised his head, his dark, slanting eye-

brows black in the starlight against the whiteness of his

face. "Did you—were you—?"

 

She nodded.

 

He dropped his head back to his hands. "Christ, I was

hoping it was all a hallucination. Are we—wherever In-

gold comes from?"

 

He still won't say it out loud, Gil thought. She looked

 

around her at the ghostly pewter landscape, indistinct under

the starlight, and said, "We're sure not in California."

 

Rudy got up, stumbling as he came over to collapse

beside her. "The kid okay?"

 

"I don't know. I can't wake him. He's breathing—" She

pressed her fingers to the child's waxy cheek, brought her

lips close to the little rosebud mouth, and felt the thin

trickle of breath. "Ingold said two crossings in twenty-four

hours could do him a lot of harm."

 

"The way I feel now, I don't think I could survive an-

other one no matter when I did it. Let's see." He took the

child from her, joggled him gently, and felt how cold his

face was. "We'd better wake Ingold. Does this place have a

moon?"

 

"It should," Gil said. "Look, the constellations are the

same. There's the Big Dipper. That's Orion there."

 

"Weird," Rudy said, and brushed the long hair back

from his face. He turned to scan the barren landscape.

Shoulder upon shoulder, the hills massed up to a low

range of mountains in the north, a black wall of rock

edged with a starlit knife blade of snow. Southward, the

rolling land closed them in, except for a dark gap through

which could be glimpsed the remote glimmer of a distant

river. "Wherever the hell we are, we'd better get some-

place fast. If any more of those things show up, we're in

deep yoghurt. Hey!" he called to Ingold, who stirred and

flung out one groping hand to catch the hilt of his sword.

"Stay with us, man."

 

"I'll be all right," Ingold said quietly.

 

Lying, Gil thought. She touched his shoulder, found his

mantle splotched all over with great patches of charred

slime that brushed off in a kind of flaky, blackish dust. Her

own right sleeve was covered with it, the back of her

hand and wrist smarting and scorched. The Dark One, in

dying, had come very close to taking them all.

 

Ingold half-rolled over, brought his hand up, and rubbed

his eyes. "Is the Prince all right?"

 

"I don't know. He's out cold," Gil said worriedly.

 

The wizard sighed, dragged himself to a sitting position,

and reached out to take the baby from Rudy's arms. He

listened to Tir's breath and stroked the tiny face gently

with one scarred hand. Then he closed his eyes; for a

long time he seemed to be meditating. Only the thin moan-

 

ing of the wind broke the silence, but all around them

the night was alive with danger. Gil and Rudy were both

aware of the depth of the darkness as they had never

been, back in the world of Southern California, where

there was always a glow in the sky from somewhere, com-

peting with moon and star. Here the stars seemed huge,

intent, staring down with great, watchful eyes from the

void of night. Darkness covered the land, and their one

brief contact with the Dark was all Rudy and Gil had

needed to make them conscious of how unprotected they

were, how uneasy with the ancient fear of being in open

ground at night.

 

At length Tir gave a little sob and began to cry, the

weak, persistent cry of an exhausted baby. Ingold rocked

him against his chest and murmured unintelligible words

to him until he grew silent again, then held him, looking

for a moment into the dark distance, idly stroking the

fuzzy black hair. For a moment Gil saw, not a wizard

rescuing the Prince and heir of the Realm, but only an old

man cradling the child of his dead friend.

 

Finally he looked up. "Come. We had best move on."

 

Rudy got stiffly to his feet and gave first Gil, then Ingold,

a hand up. "Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that," he

said as the wizard handed Gil the child and proceeded to

wipe his sword blade on the corner of his mantle and

sheathe it "Just where can we go to, clear the hell out

here?"

 

"I think," the wizard said slowly, "that we had best

make for Karst, the old summer capital of the Realm,

some fifteen miles from here in the hills. Refugees from

Gae have gone there; we can get shelter, and food, and

news, if nothing else."

 

Rudy objected uneasily. "That's a helluva long way to

go truckin' around in the middle of the night."

 

"Well, you may stay here, of course," the old man

agreed magnanimously.

 

"Thanks a lot."

 

The rising moon edged the hills in a thin flame of silver

as they moved off, the shadows of the rolling land profound

and terrible in the icy night. Ingold's dark mantle whis-

pered like a ghost across the silver grass.

 

"Uh, Ingold?" Rudy said hesitantly as they started down

 

the long slope of the land. "I'm sorry I said you were a

nut."

 

Ingold glanced back at him, a glint of the old mischief

in his eyes. Gravely, he said, "Apology accepted, Rudy.

I'm only pleased we were able to convince you—"

 

"Hey—" Rudy bristled, and the wizard laughed softly.

 

"I admit it was not a very likely story. Another time I

shall do better."

 

Rudy picked his way down the stony trail after him,

dusting black crud off the gaudy sleeves of his patched

jacket. "I hope you don't plan to do much of this," he

said. "It's too damn hard on your friends."

 

They were on the move until just before dawn. Though

the night was profoundly silent and cold, nothing worse

was seen or heard. If the Dark Ones hunted, they did

not hunt these hills.

 

After several miles Ingold left the wind-combed silver

slopes of the foothills, and they began working their way

up a steep wooded valley that seemed to lead straight

back into the heart of the mountains, with the scent of

the crackling mat of autumn leaves under their feet and

from somewhere the far-off trickling sounds of water.

Only once in the woods did Ingold break the silence, to

say, "I'm avoiding the main road up from the plains and

leading you into Karst by the back way. The road would

make walking easier, but it will be crowded with refugees

and consequently in greater danger from the Dark Ones.

I personally have no desire for further swordplay tonight."

 

Gil, weary already from stumbling over broken ground

with fifteen pounds of sleeping infant in her arms, won-

dered how Ingold had managed this far, after the original

battle at the Palace of Gae, no sleep, and the fight with

the Dark in the isolated shack in the orange groves. Did

all wizards have that kind of reserve strength to draw on,

she wondered, or was Ingold simply incredibly tough and

enduring? In the shadows of his hood, his face was white

and tired, his eyes circled by dark smudges of weariness.

Red welts marked where the thing's whiplike tail had cut

his face, and the shoulders of his mantle were scattered

with spark-holes; dappled with the wan starlight, he moved

through the darkness of the woods as straight and serene

as some old gentleman out for an afternoon promenade in

the park.

 

They stepped from the dark beneath the trees into the

clearer area of second growth along the stream, and the

music of the water grew suddenly louder to their ears. After

the darkness of the woods, even the shifting moonlight

seemed bright. It illuminated a ghostly dreamscape of black

and pewter, of deep patches of river sand and water-

smoothed rocks. Before them, up the stream bed, loomed

the black wall of the mountain's flank, featureless against

the muted glow of the sky, save for one spot of orange, a

distant glimmer of fire in the night.

 

"There," Ingold said, pointing. "That will be Karst.

There we should find what is left of the government of the

Realm of Darwath."

 

Karst, when they reached the town, reminded Gil of

 

every wealthy mountain resort town she had ever seen,

beautiful with a self-consciously rustic elegance of roomy,

splendid houses mingled with ancient trees. As they passed

the dark mansions, locked up tight in leafy shadows, she

could make out variations of the architecture which she

had never before seen, but which were eerily familiar to

her—the clusters of smooth, narrow pilasters, the twining

plant motifs of the capitals, and, here and there, pierced

stone molding in an elaborate geometrical design. As they

came toward the center of town she saw sheep and cows

tethered or in folds close around some of the buildings,

their staring eyes gleaming in fright in the darkness. As

they passed out of the woods, the path they walked turned

to cobblestones, the mossy pavement down the center of

the lane sporting a thin, silver trickle of water. For a mo-

ment, walls enclosed them in sinister shadow; then they

emerged into firelight as brilliant as day.

 

The town square was deserted. Huge bonfires had been

kindled there, the flames reaching fifteen feet toward the

cool, watching stars, the light gleaming redly on the black

waters of the great town fountain with its wide lichen-

rimmed bowl and dark, obscure statuary. In the flickering

shadows surrounding the square, Gil could distinguish the

walls and turrets of several opulent villas, the fortresslike

towers of what she guessed was a church, and the massive

foursquare bulk of what was undoubtedly the Grand Mar-

ket and Town Hall, three and a half storeys of gemlike

 

half-timbering, like black and white lace in the dark. It

was for this edifice that Ingold made.

 

The double doors of the hall were ten feet high and

wide enough to admit a cart and team, with a little man-

size postern door cut in one corner. Ingold tested it; it was

bolted from within. Since his body interposed between

them and the door, Gil didn't see what he did, but a mo-

ment later he pushed it open and slipped through into the

light and the clamoring noise beyond.

 

The entire lower floor of the building, one immense

pillared market hall, was jammed to bursting with people.

It was deafening with the unceasing chaos of voices, rank

with grease and urine and unwashed bodies, smelly clothes

and fried fish. A blue fog of woodsmoke hid the groined

ceiling, stung the eyes, and limited visibility to a few yards

in any direction. It must have been close to five in the

morning, but people wandered around, talking, arguing,

fetching water from a couple of half-empty butts over in

one corner of the room. Children dashed aimlessly be-

tween the serried pillars and endless jumbled mounds of

personal belongings; men stood in clusters, gesturing, curs-

ing, sharpening swords. Mothers called to children; grand-

mothers and grandfathers huddled next to pitiful bundles

of possessions, elbow to elbow with one another in hope-

less confusion. Some people had brought crated ducks,

chickens, and geese; the gabble of fowl and stink of guano

mingled with the rest of the sensory onslaught. Gil glimpsed

a girl of about ten in the homespun dress of a peasant,

sitting on a pile of bedding, cradling a sleek brown cat in

her arms; somewhere else, a woman in yellow satin, her

elaborately coiffed hair falling in haglike disarray around

her face, rocked back and forth on her heels next to a

chicken crate and prayed at the top of her voice. The fire-

light threw a glaring orange cast over everything, turning

the crowd and enclosure into a scene from the anteroom

of Hell.

 

Smoke stung Gil's eyes and made them water as she

picked her way in Ingold's wake through the close-packed

ranks of people, sidestepping pots, pans, water buckets,

bundles of clothes and bedding, small children and men's

feet, heading toward the massive stairway that curved up-

ward from the room's center to the floor above, and the

table at the foot of those stairs.

 

Someone recognized Ingold and called out in surprise.

His name was repeated, back and back, washing like

ripples of meaningless sound to the far corners of that

shadow-muffled room. And that sound was of awe and

wonder and fear. People edged away from the wizard's

feet to let him pass by. Someone snatched a sleeping child

back; someone else raked a bundle of clothes and a

money-bag out of his path. Magically, an aisle opened be-

fore him, an aisle lined with obscure forms and the glitter

of watching eyes, a path to the table at the foot of the

stairs and the small group of people assembled about it.

 

Except for the soft clucking of some chickens and one

infant crying, the hall had fallen silent. Expectant eyes

pinned them, the hooded form of the wizard in his singed

brown robe, the man and woman, strangers in outlandish

garb of scuffed blue denim, the bundle of dirty black

blankets the woman carried in her arms. Gil had never felt

so conspicuous in her life.

 

"Ingold!" A big man in the black uniform Gil recog-

nized at once from her dreams came striding from the

group to meet them, caught Ingold, and crushed him in a

bear-hug that could easily have broken ribs. "We gave you

up for dead, man!"

 

"Giving me up for dead is always unwise, Janus," In-

gold replied a little breathlessly. "Especially when . .."

 

But the big man's eyes had already shifted past him,

taking in Rudy, Gil, and the grimy bundle in Gil's arms,

the grubby gold of the emblems embroidered there. His

expression changed from delight and relief to a kind of

awe-struck wonder, and he released the wizard numbly,

as if he had half-forgotten him. "You saved him," he

whispered. "You saved him after all."

 

Ingold nodded. Janus looked from the child back to the

sturdy old man at his side, as if he expected Ingold to

vanish or change shape before his eyes. The murmuring

voices of the multitude swelled again, like the swell of the

sea, and washed to the far corners of the crowded room.

But around the table, there was still that island of silence.

 

Into that silence Ingold said, perfectly calmly, "This is

Gil, and this is Rudy. They were kind enough to aid me

in the Prince's rescue. They are strangers from another

land and know nothing of the Realm or its customs, but

they are both loyal and valiant."

 

Rudy ducked his head, embarrassed at the description.

Gil, for her part, had subconsciously avoided thinking any-

thing positive about herself for the last fifteen years and

blushed hotly. Undisturbed, Ingold continued. "Gil, Rudy—

Janus of Weg, Commander of the City Guards of Gae."

His gesture included the two still seated at the table.

"Bektis, Court Wizard of the House of Dare; Govannin

Narmenlion, Bishop of Gae."

 

Startled that Ingold did not hold the title, Gil looked

at Bektis, a self-consciously haughty man with the signs

of the Zodiac worked into the borders of his gray velvet

cloak. Because of the shaven head that gave the Bishop

of Gae the look of some ancient Egyptian scribe, and be-

cause of the voluminous scarlet robes that hid the thin,

straight body, it took Gil a moment to realize that this

was a woman, but there was not a second of doubt that

she was a Bishop. That harsh ascetic face would tolerate

nothing less than spiritual command and would trust no

one else to guard sufficiently the honor of her God.

 

As proper acknowledgments were made and the Bishop

extended her dark amethyst ring to be kissed, Gil heard

behind her the low murmur of Janus' deep voice speaking

to Ingold. ". . . fight in the hall," he was saying. "Alwir's

set up refugee camps here .. . sent patrols into the city ...

convoying food . . . bringing people to safety here . . ."

 

"My lord Alwir has taken command, then?" Ingold asked

sharply.

 

Janus nodded. "He is the Chancellor of the Realm, and

the Queen's brother."

 

"And Eldor?"

 

Janus sighed and shook his head. "Ingold, it was like a

slaughterhouse. We reached Gae just before dawn. The

ashes were still hot—parts of the Palace were still in

flames. It was burned—"

 

"I know," Ingold said quietly.

 

"I'm sorry. I forgot you were there. The roof of the

hall had caved in. The place was like a furnace. Bones

and bodies were buried under the rubble. It was too hot

to do much searching. But we found this, back by the

door of that little retiring room behind the throne. It was

in the hand of a skeleton, buried under the fallen rafters."

He pointed to something on the table.

 

With the practiced grip of one long accustomed to

 

handling such things, the Bishop picked up the long,

straight, two-handed sword and offered it hilt-first to Ingold.

Though it was badly fire-blackened, Gil could recognize

the pattern of rubies on the hilt. Once in a dream, she'd

seen those gems gleam in lamplight with the movement

of the breath of the man who'd worn them. Ingold sighed,

and bowed his head.

 

"I'm sorry," Janus said again. His tough, square face

was marked with weariness and grief under the reddish

stubble of beard; he had lost a friend he valued, as well

as a King. Gil remembered a lamplit room, a tall man in

black saying, ". . . as your friend, I ask you . . ." She

grieved with the old man's grief.

 

"And the Queen?" The tone of his voice indicated that

Ingold knew what answer to expect.

 

"Oh," Janus said, startled, raising his head. "She was

taken prisoner."

 

Ingold started, shocked. "Prisoner?" Shaggy eyebrows

drew down over his nose. "Then I was right."

 

Janus nodded. "We finally caught them at it. They can

carry weight; those tails of theirs are like cable. The Ice-

falcon and a dozen of the boys were trapped in the main

vault. They'd been guarding the Stair since the slab was

broken—"

 

"Yes, yes," Ingold said impatiently. "I thought they were

killed in the first rush. I discounted them. It doesn't do,"

he added, with the quick ghost of a grin, "to discount

the Icefalcon—but go on."

 

"Well, the fire in the hall spread throughout the Palace—

anyone who was trapped anywhere started burning things

for the light. The Dark Ones came back down to the

vaults like a river of night, dragging what must have been

half a hundred captives, mostly women and some of the

dooic slaves, yammering and screaming like beasts. The

Icefalcon and the boys had the sense not to fire the vault

and they put up a hell of a fight. In the end, half the pris-

oners got left aboveground, and the Dark fled back down

the Stair. Five of the women and some of the dooic died,

of shock, we think—"

 

"And the Queen?"

 

Janus shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, his eyes

troubled. "She was—badly shocked."

 

The wizard regarded him narrowly for a moment, sifting

 

the sound of his voice, the evasion of his stance. "Has she

spoken?"

 

Bektis the Court Wizard broke in officiously, his voice

low. "It is my own fear that the Dark Ones devoured her

mind, as so often happens to their victims. She has lain

raving in a kind of madness, and with all the arts at my

command I have been unable to summon her back."

 

"Has she spoken?" Ingold repeated, glancing from Janus

to Bektis, seeking something; Gil could not tell what.

 

"She called for her brother," Janus said quietly. "He

arrived with his men and a great part of the Army a few

hours after daylight."

 

Ingold nodded, and seemed satisfied. "And this?" He

gestured around him, at the silent sea of people crowded

in the smoky hall.

 

Janus shook his head wearily. "They've been coming up

the mountain all day," he said. "A great train of them

formed around us when we left the Palace. They've been

pouring up the road ever since. And three-quarters of them

are without food. It isn't entirely fear of the Dark that

makes them leave Gae—even with all the Guards and

Alwir's regiments, Gae is broken. There's a madness in

the town, even by daylight. All law is gone. We rode in

just after dawn, to the relief of the Palace, and people were

already looting it. Every farm within ten miles of the city

has been abandoned—harvests rotting in the fields while

refugees starve on the roads. Karst's a small town, and

they're fighting over food here already, and over water, and

for space in every building. We may be safe here from the

Dark, but by tomorrow I'll wager we're not safe from one

another."

 

"And what," Ingold asked quietly, "makes you think

you're safe here from the Dark?"

 

Shocked, the big man started to protest, then fell silent.

The Bishop slid her eyes sideways at Ingold, like a cat, and

purred, "And what, my lord Ingold, know you of the

Dark?"

 

"Only what we all know," a new voice said. Such was

the quality of it, deep and regal, like a fine-tuned wood-

wind played by a master, that all eyes turned toward the

speaker, the man who stood like a dark king, gilded by the

glare of the torches. His shadow rippled down before him

like water as he descended; like a second shadow, the wings

 

of his black velvet cloak belled behind him. His pale face

was coldly handsome, the regular fleshly features marked

with thought and wisdom as with a carefully wielded grav-

ing tool. The wavy raven-black hair that framed his face

half-obscured the chain of gold and sapphires that glittered

over his shoulders and breast like a ring of cold blue eyes.

"There is a certain amount of profit and prestige attendant

upon warnings of disaster, as we all have seen."

 

"There is profit only for those who will heed them, my

lord Alwir," Ingold replied mildly, and his gesture took in

the smoke-fouled shadows of the room behind them, the

grubby mob that had for the most part gone back to chat-

tering among themselves, chasing children, arguing over

space and water. "And sometimes even that is not enough."

 

"As my lord Eldor found." The Chancellor Alwir stood

for a moment, his height and elegance dominating the

small, shabby form of the wizard. His face, naturally

rather sensual, was controlled into a cool mask of immo-

bility, but Gil sensed in the posture of his big, powerful

body the tension and distrust between the two men that

looked to be of long standing. Alwir was annoyed, Ingold

wary. "Indeed," the Chancellor went on, "his warning was

the first; the stirring of the memories of the House of Dare

long buried in his family. Yet that did not save him. We

surmised that you had taken the Prince and fled the battle,

when we did not find your sword in the rubble of the hall

—though indeed there were enough of the fighters, toward

the end, who snatched up the weapons of the fallen to

make that not a sure clue. Was it possible, then, for you to

assume the form of the Dark and so escape their notice?"

 

"No," Ingold replied, without elaboration. But a mur-

muring went through those nearest the table—for the hall

was crowded to the bursting-point, and the conference be-

tween wizard and Chancellor, though conducted in low

tones, had at least two hundred onlookers besides the five

who stood closest to them. Gil, standing half-forgotten with

the sleeping child in her arms and her back to the mon-

strous newel post of the granite stair, could see the glances

men gave to Ingold. Fear, awe, and distrust; he was un-

canny, an alien even in the Realm. A maverick-wizard, she

realized suddenly, and subject to neither king nor law.

People could believe of him, and evidently did, that he could

take the form of the Dark,

 

"And yet you contrived it somehow," Alwir went on.

"And for that we thank you. Will you be remaining in

Karst?"

 

"Why did you leave Gae?"

 

Dark, graceful brows lifted, startled and amused at the

question. "My dear Ingold, had you been there—"

 

"I was there," Ingold said quietly. "In Gae at least there

was water, food, and buildings in which to hide sufficient

for all. At least there one could be reasonably safe from

one's fellow man."

 

"Karst is certainly smaller," Alwir conceded, glancing

deprecatingly about him at the jammed, airless cavern of

the smoky hall. "But my men and the City Guards under

the able leadership of Commander Janus can control the

people more easily than in that crazy half-burned laby-

rinth that is all that remains of the most beautiful city in

the West of the World. The Dark haunt the river valleys,"

he went on, "like the marsh sickness of the south; but, like

the marsh sickness, they shun the high ground. It may be

possible to make a pact with them, such as the mountain

sheep make with the lions of the plain. To avoid the lion,

one stays clear of his runs."

 

"To avoid the hunter," Ingold replied in that same quiet

tone, "the deer shun the towns of men, but men seek them

in the forest. The Dark never stalked the high country be-

cause there was no profit in it. When their prey flee there,

thither they will come, to take them in open ground, scat-

tered broadcast halfway to Gettlesand, without wall or fire,

believing themselves safe."

 

The sapphires flashed in the torchlight as the Chancellor

shifted his weight, and his cornflower-blue eyes were as

hard as the jewels. "Two days ago there was a King at

Gae," he said. "And now there is none. This situation is

temporary. Believe me, Ingold Inglorion, a city of people

cannot come and go as lightly as you do yourself. We obvi-

ously could not remain in Gae ..."

 

"Why not?" the wizard bit at him.

 

The slipping temper showed in the steel that suddenly

edged his voice. "It was chaos there. We . . ."

 

"That will be as nothing," Ingold said slowly, "to the

chaos you will find when the Dark Ones come here."

 

In the silence that followed, Gil was conscious of the

rustling presence of the onlookers and eavesdroppers,

 

chance-camped around the parchment-littered table that

was all the headquarters the Realm of Gae now had—men

and women, with their children or bereft of them, sitting

or curled uncomfortably on their blankets, drawn against

their will into the vortex around the tall, elegant Chancellor

and this shabby pilgrim whose only possession seemed to be

the killing sword at his hip. Though all around them in the

obscure, pillared fastnesses of the hot, murky hall there was

subdued talk and movement, here there was none. The

duel was fought perforce in the presence of witnesses.

 

Alwir seemed to remember them, for the tension in him

eased perceptibly, and his voice was lighter, with just a

trace of amusement, as he said, "You run ahead of your-

self, my lord wizard. The Dark have not come to Karst—

of all the cities in this part of the Realm, it is without trace

of their Nests. As I have said, this state of affairs is tem-

porary; it takes time to relocate and reorganize. Those who

have refugeed here have nothing to fear. We shall make of

Karst the new heart of the Realm, away from the danger

of the Dark; it is here that we shall assemble an army of

the allies of mankind. We have sent already to Quo, to the

Archmage Lohiro, for his advice and aid, and south for

help, to the Empire of Alketch."

 

"You've what?" It was Ingold's turn to be shocked and

as angry as Gil had ever seen him.

 

"My dear Ingold," Alwir said patronizingly, "surely you

don't expect us to sit on our hands. With the aid of the

armies of the Empire of Alketch, we can carry the fight

into the Nests of the Dark. With such aid and that of the

Council of Wizards, we can attack the Dark in their own

territory, burn them out, and rid the earth once and for all

of that foul pestilence."

 

"That's nonsense!"

 

Alwir hooked his thumbs in his jeweled belt, clearly

satisfied that he had taken the wizard off his usual balance.

"And what would you propose, my lord wizard?" he asked

silkily. "Returning to Gae, to be devoured by the Dark?"

 

Ingold recovered himself, but Gil could see, from her

post by the stairs, how shaken he had been by the Chan-

cellor's suggestion. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet.

"I propose that we go to ground," he said, "at Renweth."

 

"Renweth?" Alwir threw back his head, as if uncertain

whether to explode into rage or laughter. "Renweth? That

 

frozen hellhole? It's ten days' journey from the end of the

world, the jumping-off place of Hell. We might as well dig

our graves and bury ourselves in them. Renweth! You

aren't serious!"

 

The Bishop shifted her black, lizard's gaze to Ingold

curiously and spoke for the first time. "The monastery there

closed twenty years ago, during the Bad Winter. I doubt

there's even a village there anymore." Her voice was a dry,

thin whisper, like the wind whistling through bleached

bones in the desert. "Surely it is too isolated from the heart

of the Realm to establish as its capital?"

 

"Isolated!" Alwir barked. "That's like saying Hell has an

unseasonable climate. A backwater pit in the heart of the

mountains!"

 

"I am not concerned with the Realm," Ingold said, his

scratchy voice uninflected now, but his eyes glittering in

the murky torchlight. "There is no Realm anymore, only

people in danger. You deceive yourself to think political

power will hold together when every man's thoughts are on

refuge alone." The Chancellor made no reply to this, but

along his cheekbones Gil saw the flush of anger redden

the white skin. Ingold went on. "Renweth Vale is the site of

the old Keep of Dare. From the Keep, whatever else you

choose to do, you can hold off the Dark."

 

"Oh, I suppose we could, if the Keep's still standing,"

the Chancellor admitted brusquely. "We could also hold

them off if we lived in the wilds like the dooic, hiding in

caves and living on bugs and snails, if you wanted to go

that far. But you're not going to fit the entire population

of the Realm into the Keep of Dare, for all your vaunted

magic."

 

"There are other Keeps," the Bishop put in suddenly, and

Alwir shot her a look black with anger. She ignored it, re-

folding her long, bony fingers, her parchment-dry whisper

of a voice thoughtful. "There is a Keep in Gettlesand that

they still use as a fortress against the incursions of the

White Raiders; there are others in the north ..."

 

"That they've been using to cure hides in for the last

three thousand years," Alwir snapped, really angry now.

"The Church might not suffer much, my lady Bishop, in

the breakup of human civilization; your, organization was

made to hold sway in scattered places. And you, my lord

 

wizard, think your own kind wouldn't be hurt—wanderers

and brothers to the birds. But it's a long trek to Renweth."

He jerked his head at all those watching eyes, that blur of

faces in the blue fog of smoke-the girl with the cat, the

old man with his crates of chickens, the fat woman in her

nest of sleeping children. "How many of these would sur-

vive a half-month of nights in the open, journeying through

the river valleys where the road runs down to Renweth

Vale? We are safe here, I tell you—safer than we'd be on

the way."

 

There was a murmuring among them, a shoal-whisper

of agreement and fear. They had fled once from comfort-

able homes and pleasant lives in a city now deteriorating

into lawlessness by day and nightmare terror by dark—a

weary climb up muddy roads, burdened by all they could

carry away with them. Frightened and confused, they had

no desire to flee farther, and there was not one of them

who, by hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, could have been

induced to spend the night in the open.

 

Alwir went on, his voice dropping to exclude all but

those closest in the smoky glare that surrounded the foot

of the stairs. "My lord Ingold," he said quietly, "you held

a great deal of power under King Eldor, power based on

the trust he had in you from the time he was a child under

your tutelage. How you used that power was your own

affair and his; for you had your secrets that even those of

Eldor's family were not privy to. But Eldor is dead; his

Queen lies raving. Someone must command, else the Realm

will destroy itself, like a horse running mad over a cliff.

Your magic cannot touch the Dark—your power in the

Realm is over."

 

Their gazes met and locked, like sword blades held im-

mobile by the matched strength of their wielders. The

tension between them concentrated to a core of silence un-

broken save by the sound of their breathing; blue eyes

looking into blue, framed in darkness and the smoldery

glare of jumping torchlight.

 

Without taking his eyes from Alwir's, Ingold said, "King

Eldor is dead. But I swore to see his son to a place of

safety, and that place is not Karst."

 

Alwir smiled, a thin change of his lips that neither

touched nor shifted his eyes. "It will have to be, won't it,

 

my lord wizard? For I am his Regent now. He is under my

care, not yours." Only then did his eyes move, the entire

stance of his body changing, and his voice lightened, like

that of an actor stepping out of a role—or into one. His

smile was genuine then, and deprecating. "Come, my lord,"

he said pleasantly. "You must understand that there are

conditions under which life is definitely not worth preserv-

ing, and I'm afraid you've named one of them. Now—"

He held up his hand against the wizard's next words. "I'm

sure we will get off with less drastic consequences than the

complete dismantling of civilization. I admit we are hard-

pressed for certain things here, and I do not doubt that

there are more refugees from Gae and the surrounding

countryside coming up the mountain tomorrow. We're send-

ing a convoy of the Guards down to the storehouses under

the Prefecture Building at the Palace of Gae as soon as it

grows light. As for getting in touch with the Archmage

Lohiro, I'm afraid your colleagues seem to be in hiding,

and it is beyond even Bektis' powers to get through to

them."

 

"There is a glamour thrown over the City of Quo,"

Bektis said stiffly, looking down his high, hooked nose at

Ingold. "With all my spells and the magic of fire and jewel,

I have been unable to pierce it."

 

"I'm not surprised," Ingold said mildly.

 

The Bishop's flat black gaze rested briefly upon them

both. "The Devil guards his own."

 

Ingold inclined his head toward her politely. "As does

the Straight God, my lady. But we wizards are of neither

world and so must protect ourselves as best we can. As the

stronghold of the teachings of wizardry, Quo has always

been guarded against invasion and destruction. I doubt that

any wizard, however skilled, could pierce the town's de-

fenses now."

 

"But that is what you propose to do?" Alwir asked, a

note of genuine curiosity stealing into his trained melodious

voice. He had won his battle—or at least this particular

gambit. He could afford now to drop pose and ploy that

Gil sensed were habitual with him.

 

"It is what I propose to try. As soon, as I said, as I have

seen the Prince to a place of safety. But first, my lord

Alwir, I need rest, for myself and my two young friends.

 

They have journeyed far from their homes, and will set out

on their return before today's sun sets. And, by your leave,

I would like to see the Queen."

 

There was a stirring in the hall beyond; someone opened

the postern door, and the sudden, sharp draft of fresh,

biting air threw smoke over them, making the Bishop

cough, a dry, rasping sound. Beyond the door, the darkness

was stained with paler gray.

 

As if the opening of that small door had let in an unfelt

wind that stirred the crowded multitude like leaves, ripples

of movement eddied restlessly throughout the dim, smoky

chamber. Some people settled down to sleep at last, secure

for the first time in the long night; others got up and began

to move about, the rise in their talk like the voice of the

sea when the tide turns. The draft from the door caused

the torchlight to flicker jerkily over stone arches and

haggard faces. Men and women who had hitherto kept

their distance from the red-lit circle of power and danger

surrounding the great of the Realm edged stealthily closer,

and Gil could hear the murmuring whisper in the shadows

behind her as she stood against the banister with the flushed,

sleeping child in her arms. "That's his Little Majesty him-

self? . . . That's his little lordship, and a sweeter child there

never was . . . Praise God he be safe . . . They say old

Ingold stole him clean away from the Dark—he's a caution,

ain't he? . . . Tricky old bastard, I say. Mirror of Satan,

like all them wizards . . . He has his uses, and he did save

the Prince that would have been dead, sure as the ice in

the north . . . King, now; Lord Eldor's only child . . ."

 

The great unwashed, Gil thought, and straightened her

cricked back against hours of standing and the accu-

mulated weight of the sleeping child in her arms. People

came as near as they dared—for she, too, was an out-

worlder and uncanny. She could smell on them the stench

of old sweat and the grime of travel. At her movement

Tir woke, grasped at a handful of her hair, and began to

whimper fretfully.

 

Rudy, who had been slumped, dozing, on the granite

steps at her feet, glanced up at her, then stood up stiffly

and held out his arms. "Here," he said, "I'll hold him for a

while. Poor little bugger's probably starving."

 

Gil started to hand him over, then stopped in mid-motion

 

as Alwir turned toward them. The close-crowding people

fell back. "I shall take the child," he said, speaking to Gil

and Rudy as if they had been servants, "and give him to

his nurse."

 

"Let the Queen see him first," Ingold said, materializing

quietly at his elbow. "That, I think, will help her more

than any medicine."

 

Alwir nodded absently. "It may be that you are right.

Come." He turned away and moved up the stairs into the

shadows, the child beginning to fret and cry weakly in his

arms. Ingold started to follow him, but Janus caught the

sleeve of his brown mantle and held him back.

 

"Ingold—can I ask a favor of you?" His voice was

pitched low to exclude all but those nearest him—Govan-

nin had already gone to speak to a couple of shaven-headed

monks in scarlet, and Bektis was ascending the stairs in

Alwir's wake, his long hands tucked in his fur-lined sleeves

and a look of pious despair on his narrow face. Ordinarily,

Gil thought, the Commander of the Guards would be a

big, roaring man, like an Irish cop; but strain and worry

had quieted him, aging his square pug face. "We're riding

for Gae in half an hour. The Icefalcon's already rounding

up the troops. We've got as many of the Guards as we can

spare and Alwir's private soldiers. The woods are full of

bandits, refugees, people who'd kill for food, now it's so

short, and in Gae it will be worse. The law's destroyed,

whatever Alwir says about holding the Realm together—

you know that, and so do I, and so does he, I think."

 

Ingold nodded, folding his arms against the cold that was

blowing in from outside. With that cold came the growing

murmur of voices, the rattle of cart wheels on cobblestones,

and the far-off creaking of leather.

 

"I know it's hell to ask you," Janus went on, "after all

you've done. God knows, whatever Alwir says, you've done

a hero's part. But will you ride with us to Gae? The storage

vaults are underground, and we may need you, Ingold, to

get the food clear safely. You can't touch the Dark but you

can call the light and you're the finest swordsman in the

West of the World besides. We need every sword we can

get. I asked Bektis to come, as a wizard, but he won't."

The Commander chuckled wryly. "He says he won't risk

leaving the Realm without a wizard to council its rulers."

 

Ingold snorted with laughter or indignation, then was

silent. Outside could be heard the voices of Guards and

the sound of people coming into the square, new refugees

already arriving in the town. In the corners of the smoky

hall could be heard the muted rattle of cook pots, a man's

complaining voice, young children crying.

 

The wizard sighed deeply, but nodded. "All right. I can

sleep in one of the carts on the way down—I must see the

Queen first, though. Get as many carts and as many swords

as you can." He turned toward the stairs, his white hair

matching the gold of the torchlight as he moved. Gil took

a step after him, uncertain whether to call his name, and

he stopped, as if he had heard her speak. He came back

down to her. "I shall be back before night falls," he said

quietly. "By day you two should be safe enough, but don't

wander about alone. As Janus says, the town isn't safe.

Before sunset I'll return to send you back through the

Void."

 

"Isn't that a little soon?" Rudy asked doubtfully. "I

mean, you were right about the Void crossing being rough,

and that will be only—" He calculated on his fingers.

"—fifteen or sixteen hours."

 

"I understand the risk," Ingold said. "You're both young

and strong and should take no permanent harm from it.

And consider the alternative. By daylight, you're safe in

Karst; so far Alwir seems to be right, and the Dark do not

haunt these hills. But I have no surety what another night

will bring. Our worlds lie very close; the Dark followed

me across the Void once, and it would be too easy for one

to do so again. I said once that I was the only one who

understands the Void, and as such I have a responsibility.

I cannot let them contaminate other worlds. Surely not one

as populous and as undefended as yours. Another night

could trap you here," he finished bluntly. "For if the Dark

are anywhere near, I will not send you back."

 

"So you don't believe Alwir," Rudy said, folding his

arms and slouching against the great granite newel post.

 

"No. It's only a matter of time until the Dark Ones come

to Karst, and I want you well away from here before it

happens."

 

"Hey, affirmative, man. When you get back to town, I'm

gonna be right here on the front steps waiting for you."

 

Ingold smiled. "You're wise," he said. "You two alone

have the option to leave this world. With what will come,

believe me, you are to be envied." And he was gone, mov-

ing up the long stairway as lightly as if he hadn't been

without sleep for two nights, and was swallowed by the

shadows at the top.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

The first sensation in Gil's mind, as she stepped from the

dark slot of the postern door into soft pearl daylight and

bone-chilling morning cold, was relief. She had made it,

somehow, through the bizarre terrors of the night; she had

lived to see dawn. She could not remember when she had

ever taken such conscious pleasure in simple daylight.

 

The second sensation was dismay. As she came out on

the top step, the noise and stink hit her like a wall. People

were quarreling, arguing, yelling at the tops of their voices,

demanding where food could be found, squabbling over

the possession of ragged and frightened animals, and clus-

tering in an arm-waving group around the doorways of

buildings already jammed to the rafters with refugees de-

manding admittance; others were milling around the half-

drained town fountain, bickering over water in voices sharp

with the anger bred of fear. The growing light showed Gil

faces pale and taut, wary eyes shifting like those of rats.

They were physically and mentally angling for a toehold

of position in this slipping world. The ice-breeze of the

mountains bore on its cold breath the drifting stench of

untended waste.

 

Jesus, Gil thought, appalled, they're setting themselves

up for cholera, plague . . . you name it. How much do

these people know about sanitation and disease anyway?

 

And her third sensation, as she stood shivering at the

top of the steps in the biting cold, was ravenous hunger.

She gave the matter some thought. The Commander of the

Guards seemed to be on Ingold's side, and could probably

 

be talked into giving her something to eat on the basis of

her connection with the wizard. She made her way down

the steps, having to pick her path around a middle-aged

man in soiled broadcloth who seemed to have set up camp

on the lowest step with every intention of staying there, to

where half a dozen men and women in the black uniform

of the City Guards were readying the transport carts to

join the convoy to Gae. They were evidently under the

command of a tall young man with ivory-blond braids that

hung to his waist, who was currently engaged in a heated

argument with a knot of civilians in dirty homespun. The

chief of the civilians was shaking his head emphatically,

the Guard gesturing to the mob in the square. As she came

close, he dismissed the men in disgust and swung around

to face her, regarding her from under colorless brows with

eyes as light and cold as polar ice.

 

"Can you drive?" he demanded.

 

"A horse?" Gil asked, startled, her mind going to cars.

 

"I don't mean geese. If you can't drive, will you lead on

foot? Or ride the bloody thing. I don't care."

 

"I can ride," Gil told him, suddenly aware of why she

was being asked. "And I don't fear the Dark."

 

"You're a fool, then." The captain stared down at her,

those haughty white-blond brows drawing slightly together

as he took in her alien clothes. But he said nothing of it,

only turned to call to a grizzle-haired woman in a shabby

black uniform. "Seya! Get this one a cart with riding

reins." He turned back to Gil. "She'll take care of you."

Then, as Gil started to go with Seya, he asked, "Can you

fight?"

 

Gil stopped. "I've never used a sword."

 

"Then if we're ambushed, for God's sake stay out of the

way of those who can." He turned away, calling out orders

to someone else, as concise and cold as a hunting cat. The

woman Seya came up to Gil, wry amusement on her deep-

lined face, her sword slapping at her soft booted feet.

 

"Don't let him fret you," she said, glancing after his

slim, retreating figure. "He'd put the High King himself to

driving a cart if we were short, with never a by-your-leave.

There, look."

 

Gil followed the gesture of the woman's hand and saw

Janus and Ingold standing in the middle of the ruckus at

the foot of the steps, surrounded by quarreling drivers,

 

gesturing Guards, and rickety carts. The tall captain was

talking to them, gazing down the length of his aristocratic

nose. Janus looked shocked, Ingold amused. The wizard

swung himself up into the nearest cart, settled down on the

driver's seat, and gathered the reins into his hands as deftly

as a coachman.

 

The sun cleared the spiky peaks in the east as they were

leaving the last houses of Karst behind them, brightening

the scene without dispersing the white mist lying so thickly

among the trees. Gil was mounted uncomfortably on the

narrow harness-saddle of a fat roan, drawing a cart close

to the head of the convoy. She could see that most of the

vehicles in town had been commandeered, far more than

could be provided with civilian drivers who were willing to

return to the haunted city of Gae. Many were driven by

Guards, and a thin, straggling line of them walked on either

side of the train—men and women both, she saw, mostly

young, though there were gray or balding heads visible up

and down the line as well. They moved restlessly, and she

could see the marks of strain and exhaustion clearly on

their faces. These were the fighters who had borne the

brunt of the defense of Gae.

 

As the light grew, Gil could make out little camps of

refugees in the woods, straggling out along the road and

far back among the trees. There were refugees on the road,

too, men and women in wrinkled and dirty clothes, carry-

ing awkward bundles of blankets and cooking pots on their

backs, pushing makeshift wheelbarrows, or dragging crude

travois. Now and then a man would be leading a donkey,

or a woman drawing an unwilling cow at the end of a rope.

Mostly they did not stop and gave only scant attention to

the winding file of carts and their ragged line of escorts.

They were too weary with flight and fear to have any

thought but for the refuge ahead.

 

Eventually, the road dipped and bent. Beyond the thin

screen of brown-leaved trees, Gil felt the wind freshen

and change. She looked up to see the land fall away on

one side of the road, to show her the city of Gae.

 

Recognition caught at her heart. It lay in the distance,

surrounded by its many walls, held in the crook of the

river's arm, facing out across a plain turned tawny gold

with autumn and latticed with the white of the city roads.

It was almost as if she had lived there, walked those close-

 

angled streets, and known from childhood that skyline of

turrets and branches. Against the morning sky, six spires of

stone rose up, flying buttresses bereft of the walls they had

supported, stretching like the bony fingers of a skeleton

hand into the whiteness of the air.

 

"The trees are bare," a man's light, breathless voice said

beside her. "In summer it was a garden."

 

She looked down. By her knee, pacing with the jogging

of the cart, walked the pale-haired captain, his eyes reflect-

ing the flat white light of the sky. She said, "I know."

 

The light eyes shifted back to her face. "You're Ingold's

far traveler."

 

She nodded. "But I've been in Gae."

 

Again there were no questions, only a docketing of in-

formation in his mind. He was spare and loose-boned; in the

mingling shadows of the trees, she saw that he was younger

than she'd first supposed—in his early twenties, possibly a

few years younger than she was. It was the toughness, the

sheath of self-sufficiency, that aged him—that and the long

wrinkles scored by weather around his pale eyes. After a

moment he said, "I am called the Icefalcon of the Guards."

 

"My name is Gil," she said, ducking as they passed be-

neath the overhanging branches of a huge oak. Gae was

lost to them once more behind the woods of rust and silver

and opal mist. The sound of the cart wheels mingled with

the crackle of the dead leaves underfoot.

 

"In the old language of the Wath, gil means ice," he said

absently. "Gil-shahs—a spear of ice, an icicle. I had a

hunting hawk by that name once."

 

Gil looked down at him curiously. "Then your own name

would be—Gil-something-or-other."

 

He shook his head. "In the language of my people, we

call the icefalcon Nyagchilios, Pilgrim of the Sky. Why did

you come with us?"

 

"Because you ordered me to," Gil replied.

 

The Icefalcon raised colorless eyebrows. But he did not

ask further, and she could not have answered if he had

done so. She only knew that she had felt drawn to these

calm and competent warriors; asked to join them, she could

not have stayed away.

 

They broke from the woods and came down out of the

foothills, riding through the lion-colored grasses of the plain

as if swimming in a lake of soft, blown gold, the sun small

 

and remote in a colorless morning sky. They passed more

refugees, straggling family or neighborhood groups,

wretched single men and women carrying the last of their

possessions on their backs, confused gangs of children, the

older herding the younger like geese. The edges of the road

were scattered with the flotsam of flight—books, bedding,

and in one place a silver bird cage, dainty as lace, on whose

open door-frame a pink, ornamental finch sat chirping

fearfully in the sky-wide freedom of the winds. The Ice-

falcon pointed out Trad's Hill, the round promontory in

the middle of the golden plain, crowned with its lichened

cross, but Gil's eyes went past it to the walls of Gae. She

saw towers mounting spire on shattered spire, arch and

corbel and crenelations as fine as hand-tooled miniatures,

with woven trellises of bare branches, and above it all, the

broken, arching ribs of the buttresses that were all that re-

mained of the Palace.

 

And as surely as she knew her name, Gil knew that

somewhere in that city there was a square whose steps were

guarded by statues of malachite, where bronze doors lay

broken among the rubble. Somewhere was a vault with the

red porphyry Stair, an odd slab in the smooth basalt of the

floor, and a shadow-crowded archway into an empty and

ruined street. Cold wind stung her chapped hands on the

duty leather of the riding reins; the jog of the slow-moving

cob between her knees and the squeal of cart wheels came

like elements of waking into an uncertain world of dreams;

and with them came the mellow, rusty voice that floated

back along the line of march, like a breath of mist on the

wind, talking with the Commander of the Guards.

 

Gae stank of death. Gil had not been prepared for it,

and it took her by the throat like a strangler's hand. Her

otherworld life had encompassed enough bus stations, rock

concerts, and weekends in the desert to have in some

measure inured her to the stench of Karst, but the fetor

that hung like a cloud over the ruined city was the miasma

of rot, dead rot that her world was wont to hide or incin-

erate.

 

The streets lay empty to the sunlight, the echoes of

hooves and booted feet and the creaking wheels of the

carts ringing back off bare walls. House after house bore

signs of burning—caved-in upper storeys, charred timbers

 

jutting like the broken ribs of picked carcasses, barricaded

doors and windows with the telltale crawling of soot reach-

ing halfway up the walls above them. Gil saw how some of

the walls had been broken inward; in other places, little

slides of rubble spewed down into the street, mixed with

stripped, rat-chewed bones. The hollow shadows rustled

with the suggestion of a rodent population released from

its old war with man and gorged on the spoils of victory.

From the tops of broken walls, wild scrawny cats watched

them with mad eyes. Gil held the short riding reins of her

fat carthorse and tried not to be sick.

 

"Three days ago it was going," a man's soft voice said

beside her, and she almost jumped. "And now it is gone."

Ingold had drawn up his cart next to her, blinking in the

sharp changes of the barred and broken sunlight.

 

Something unwholesome rustled and flicked out of sight

behind a garden wall. Gil shivered, feeling unclean. "You

mean the city?"

 

"In a sense." A branch cracked under the wheels. The

Icefalcon, scouting alongside, turned sharply at the sound.

Gil could see they all felt it, all sensed the foulness of those

buzzing, crawling streets. What must it be, she wondered,

to be coming back now, after having known it, grown up

with it, as it was?

 

Her eye traveled slowly down the broken lines of a

graceful colonnade that bordered the street, picking out

sophisticated motifs of mathematics and flowers, the gaiety

and balance of its multiple interwoven friezes. She remem-

bered again the furnishings of Tir's nursery, museum pieces

of inlaid ivory and ebony. All that was rich and beautiful

of this civilization, all the good things that could be had,

could once have been found here. She turned her horse's

head a little to avoid the black ruin of a doorway in which

the body of a woman lay sprawled in shadow, one gnawed

white arm trailing limply in the sun, diamonds sparkling

on the wrist among crawling flies.

 

Even for those who had survived, there was no going

back. She wondered if the people up at Karst had realized

this yet.

 

Ingold did. She saw it in the hard set of his mouth, in

the line of pain that had appeared between his brows.

Janus did. The Commander of the Guards looked white

and ill; but beyond that, strange on a pug face that would

 

look more at home above a Coors T-shirt and a six-pack

of beer, was a look of a deep, quiet, and aching regret

His expression was that of a man who looked on tragedy

and understood the meaning of what he saw. The Ice-

falcon— It was hard to tell. That enigmatic young man

picked his fastidious way through the ruins of human

civilization with the single-minded wariness of an animal,

uncaring for anything beyond his personal safety and the

accomplishment of his job.

 

Under her, the horse let out a sudden, frightened squeal

and threw up its head with white, rolling eyes. Almost be-

neath their hooves, two shambling, misshappen things broke

cover from a ruined doorway and fled down the lane at a

scrambling run. Gil had a horrified glimpse of flat, semi-

human faces under snarling manes of reddish hair, of

hunched bodies and trailing, apelike arms. She stared after

them, shocked and breathless, until she heard Ingold say

softly, "No, let them go." Turning, she saw that the Ice-

falcon had taken bow and arrow from one of the carts,

preparatory to shooting the creatures down. At Ingold's

command he paused, one pale eyebrow raised inquiringly,

and in those few instants the creatures, whatever they

were, had vanished down the lane.

 

The Icefalcon shrugged and replaced his weapons.

"They're only dooic," he stated, as a self-evident fact.

 

Ingold's face was expressionless. "So they are."

 

"We'll have them all around the carts, once we get the

food." He might have been speaking of rats.

 

The wizard turned back to his own business and flicked

the reins of his mismated team. "We can deal with them

then." The convoy started forward again, jostling in the

cold shadows of the narrow streets. After a moment the

Icefalcon shrugged again and slipped back, catlike, to his

place in the Guard line.

 

"What are they?" Gil asked of the Guard nearest her, a

fair-haired young man with the shining face of an ap-

prentice Galahad, walking at her other side. "Are they—

people?"

 

He glanced up at her, shading his eyes against the sun-

light that fell through the breaks in the buildings. "No,

they're only dooic," he repeated the Icefalcon's excuse.

"Don't you have dooic in your land?"

 

Gil shook her head.

 

"They do look like people," the Guard went on casu-

ally. "But no, they're beasts. They run wild in most of

the wastelands of the West—the plains beyond the moun-

tains are crawling with them."

 

"Your people might call them Neanderthal," Ingold's

soft voice said at her side. "If they're caught they're put

to work in the south cutting cane, or in the silver-mines

of Gettlesand, but many people train them for household

tasks as well. They're said to make useful slaves, but

evidently no one considered them worth taking when their

owners fled."

 

The dry distaste in his voice wasn't lost on the young

Guard. "We could never afford to feed them," he pro-

tested. "Food's short enough in Karst." And he added

to Gil, as if excusing himself, "I never liked them myself."

 

The grain stores were in the vaults of the City Prefecture

Building, a low, solid structure that formed one side of

the great Palace square. As the convoy drew up before it,

Gil saw that it had been little touched by fire, though

clearly there had been looting going on—a trail of muddy

tracks, torn grain sacks, and spilled corn led like a stream

up the steps from the sunken doorway, to be dispersed

among the general garbage of the square. The square itself

she recognized, though she had last seen it from the win-

dow of a tower that had now fallen to flaming ruin: a

broad expanse of patterned marble; wide gates of intri-

cately worked iron; and trees whose bare gray branches

were scorched from the inferno that had swallowed the

last battle. The monumental shadow of the Palace reared

to her left, storey upon storey of sliding ruin, the gutted

belly that had been the Throne Hall of the Realm laid open

to the day, half-buried under rubble and ash.

 

This, then, was the Palace of Gae, she thought, viewing

it dispassionately, sane and awake and by daylight, from

the back of a fat, jittery carthorse, with her hands blistered

from the reins and her eyes aching from lack of sleep. This

was what she had come to see, the place where Eldor had

died, the place she had known in dreams. This was where

humankind had fought—and lost—its last organized battle

against the Dark.

 

By the look of those blackened ruins, it was very clear

that the place had been looted before the ashes were cold.

 

More voices, angry this time, rang against the stone

 

walls of the square in faint derisive echoes. Turning from

her silent contemplation, Gil saw that a little group of

carters and Guards had formed before the wide, shallow

steps that led down to the broken doors of the Prefecture,

centering on Commander Janus and a big, brawny man in

homespun whom Gil remembered vaguely as having driven

the lead cart. The man was saying, "Well, this driver's not

going down to fetch no grain. If the top level of the vaults

has been cleared out like you say, that means going down

the subcellar, and that's death, sure as the ice in the north."

 

Someone else chimed in over the general din of agree-

ment. "The vaults is haunted, haunted by the Dark. I said

I'd drive a cart, but going against the Dark ain't in it."

 

A Guard shouted back, "Well, who in hell did you

think was going down for the stuff?"

 

Janus, red-faced with anger, spoke quietly, his brown

eyes cold. "Every man knows the value of his own cour-

age. Those drivers brave enough to do so can help us

fetch the food out. I have no use for cowards. Icefalcon,

I'm leaving you in charge on top. Pick twelve Guards and

shoot anyone or anything that comes near the food once

we get it up here. Get it loaded and be ready to move out."

 

From the back of the cart he had been driving, Ingold

handed down a bundle of cold pitch torches, then stepped

down himself, bringing with him a six-foot walking staff

on which he leaned tiredly.

 

The Commander disengaged a torch from the bundle

and went on. "Gae isn't empty, by any means. It's dead,

but every corpse has its maggots. There's danger above the

ground as well as below." He turned and walked, torch in

hand, toward the steps. Without a glance at him, Ingold

made a slight gesture with his fingers; the cold torch in the

Commander's hand burst into flame with a loud whoof! The

other Guards, and over half the drivers, clustered around

to get their own torches and light them from his.

 

As Gil was picking up a torch from the bundle on the

ground, Ingold stepped over to her and laid a hand on her

shoulder. "That didn't apply to you, Gil. This is none

of your affair."

 

She looked up at him, then straightened to bring her

eyes level with his. "You don't have to look after me spe-

cially," she said. "I'll stay with the Guards."

 

He glanced back over his shoulder at the small group

 

already descending to the vaults, then at the long train

of empty carts that would have to be filled by afternoon.

"I brought you here against your will," he said quietly.

"You are in my charge. I won't demand that you put your-

self in danger of death in another universe, when you're

going back to your own tonight. This is no dream, Gil. To

die here is to die."

 

The ice-winds from the north pierced her thin jacket

like a knife, and the heatless sun glared in her eyes with-

out power to warm her. From the steps a woman's voice—

Seya's, she thought—called out. "Gil-shalos! You staying

or coming?"

 

She yelled back, "Coming!" Ingold caught her arm as

she started to move off. To him she said, "I won't get in

your hair", I promise."

 

He smiled, the weary lines of his face lightening with a

brief illusion of youth. "Like a bat, eh? As you will. But

as you love your life, stay close to the others." And he

walked with her to join the Guards.

 

They worked swiftly in the darkness of the vaults,

soundlessly, with drawn swords, their efficiency unpaired

by the need to keep together. Following the bobbing chain

of weak yellow lights, Gil found herself almost afraid to

breathe, straining every nerve for the glimpse of some

anomalous motion in the blackness, the breath of alien

wind. In the deeper vaults where the food was stored,

the endless darkness was all a whisper of tiny pattering

feet and a sea of glaring little red eyes, gray bodies swarm-

ing soundlessly away from the light of the torches; but

beside the fear of the Dark, that was of no more moment

than a cockroach on the wall might have been. They

carried burden after burden back toward the light, sacks of

grain, cured meats, great waxed wheels of cheese, treading

the swiftest path they could under their loads, with Ingold

flitting beside them like a will-o'-the-wisp, sword in one

hand, the tip of his upraised staff throwing clear white

light that dispelled the crowding shadows.

 

It was hard labor, and they kept it up all the forenoon.

Gil's arms ached; her blistered hands were smarting, her

nerves humming like a plucked bowstring every tune she

dumped a burden of corn or dried fruit or an unwieldy

slab of cheese onto the pile at the top of the steps and

turned back down to the waiting darkness. Her head

 

throbbed with hunger and fatigue. Toward afternoon she

was trembling uncontrollably, the stairs, the vaults, and

the men and women around her blurring before her eyes.

She stopped, leaning against the carved pilasters of the

great doorway, trying to get her breath; someone passed

her in a black uniform, bearing a torch, and laid a light,

companionable hand briefly on her shoulder. Blindly, she

followed him back into the vaults.

 

It was well into afternoon when the job was done after

a last, sweating hour of loading the carts. Lightheaded and

sick with weariness, Gil wondered if it were only a hallu-

cination on her part or if they were really watched from

every black window by unseen eyes—if the prickling on

the back of her neck were some premonition of real danger

or only the result of fatigue whose like she had never be-

fore known. That last hour she had noticed no one and

nothing, only the pain that throbbed with every movement

of her tired arms.

 

When someone said that Ingold was gone, she could

not remember when she had seen him last.

 

"He was with us on the final trip out of the vaults, I

think," Seya was saying to the Icefalcon, wiping sweat from

her brow with the sleeve of her damp undertunic.

 

"But not after?"

 

The woman shook her head. "I really don't remember."

 

"Did anyone see him above the ground?"

 

Glances were exchanged, heads were shaken. No one

could recall. The fat carter in brown said, "Well, he's a

wizard, and he's got his tricks, to be sure. Likely he'll

meet us halfway up the mountains. Let's go, I say, if we're

to make Karst in the daylight."

 

The remark evidently didn't merit reply—Guards were

already picking up the smoldered ends of doused torches

and rekindling them from a little fire someone had lit

in a corner of the court for warmth. Gil joined them as

a matter of course, though she knew that there was no

question of staying together for this search. Janus saw her

as she was going down the steps and called out. "Gil-

shalos!" But before he could go to her, the fat carter

caught him by the arm and started a long expostulation,

about reaching Karst before night. Quietly, Gil slipped into

the shadows.

 

It was different, entering the vaults alone. Her single

 

torch called forth leaping, distorted shapes on the low

groinings of the ceiling, her own footfalls multiplied eerily

in the darkness, as if she were being stalked by a legion

of goblins. The red gleams of wicked little eyes blinked

momentarily from the impenetrable gloom around her,

then were gone. All the stillness seemed to breathe. Some

instinct warned her not to call out, and she continued alone

in silence, scanning the maze of dark pillars for some sign

of that bobbing white light or the soft tread of booted

feet—though now that she thought of it, Ingold was a

man who could move as noiselessly as a shadow. She left

the trampled way the salvagers had taken and turned

toward the deeper vaults, wandering down identical aisles

of dark stone pillars, granite trees in a symmetrical forest,

her torchlight calling no reflection from the smooth black

basalt of the floor.

 

She felt it grow upon her gradually, imperceptibly; a

sense of having passed this way before, a lingering sense

of unnamed dread, an uneasy feeling of being watched from

the dark by things that had no eyes.

 

How she could have helped Ingold she could not have

said, for she was unarmed and less familiar than he with

the haunts of the Dark. But she knew he had to be found

and she knew that he was exhausted, pushed far past the

limits of his endurance; she knew that, wizard or not, in

such a state mistakes were fatally easy to make.

 

She had almost given up the hope of finding him when

she saw the faint reflection of white light against the dark

granite of the pillars. She hurried toward the light, com-

ing at last to a cleared space in that stone forest, where

her torchlight gleamed on the dark sweep of the red por-

phyry Stair that curved upward to the blown-out ruin of

cyclopean bronze doors, with nothing but darkness beyond

them. Among the rubble of disused furniture and dusty

old boxes, she could make out the shapes of skeletons,

bones scattered among the pillars, stripped of their flesh

by the Dark. Almost at her feet, a sword-split box had

disgorged its contents, and dried apples lay strewn among

the skulls.

 

She knew the place; the familiarity of it made her heart

pound and the blood din in her ears. But no granite slab

broke the ancient regularity of the smooth basalt of the

floor. Only a great rectangular hole gaped where it had

 

lain, black and yawning, the blasphemous gate of the

abyss. And down from the pavement black stairs led, un-

speakably ancient, cold with the ruinous horror of un-

counted millennia, looking as she knew they would look,

even in her dreams—as they had looked since the begin-

ning of time. The damp chill that breathed out of that

darkness brushed her cheek like the echo of primordial

chaos, an evil beyond comprehension by humankind.

 

And up from that unspeakable chasm, like the distant

glow of a far-off lamp, shone the soft white light she had

been seeking. It picked out the curves of the ceiling arches,

echoed in the lines of a skull and the delicate roundness of

the bone over the eye socket. Hands shaking, Gil stooped

and picked up a long sword that lay on the floor amid a

tumble of acid-eaten handbones. With the balanced weight

of the hilt in her hand she felt better, steadier, and less

afraid. She held the torch aloft and walked to the edge

of the abyss.

 

Far down the stairs, outlined by the soft brightness of

his staff's white radiance, she could see Ingold. He stood

as unmoving as a statue some fifty steps below her, just

at the point where the stairs curved and were lost to sight

in the black throat of the earth. His face was intent, as if

listening for some sound which Gil could not hear. He

had sheathed his sword, and his right hand hung empty at

his side. As she watched, he moved with the slow hesitance

of one hypnotized, down one step, and then another, like

a man in a trance following enchanted music. She knew

that after another step or two she would lose sight of him

utterly, unless she chose to follow him down. He took the

next step, the shadows closing him around.

 

"Ingold!" she called out in despair.

 

He turned and looked Inquiringly up at her. "Yes, my

dear?" His voice echoed softly, ringing against the dark-

ness of the overarching walls. He stared around him, at

the stairway and the walls, and frowned, as if a little sur-

prised to find he had come that far down. Then he turned

thoughtfully to look at the deeper chasm below him again,

and Gil remembered with a shiver that he had once told

her that curiosity was the leading characteristic of any wiz-

ard, and that a mage would pursue a riddle to the brink

of his own grave. For a moment she had the terrible im-

pression that he was toying with the notion of descending

 

that eldritch stairs, of walking willingly into the trap to see

of what it consisted.

 

But he turned away and came up toward her, the dark-

ness seeming to fall back at the advent of his light. He

emerged to stand beside her on the top step and asked

quite calmly, "Do you hear it?"

 

Gil shook her head, mute and frightened. "Hear what?"

 

His blue gaze rested on her face for a moment, then

moved away, back toward that endless dark. There was

a slight frown between his white brows, as if his mind

worried at a riddle, oblivious to the danger in which they

stood. She sensed that danger all around them, watching

and waiting in the shadows, pressing behind them as if

it would drive them into the accursed pit. But when he

spoke, his rusty voice was calm. "You don't hear any-

thing?"

 

"No," Gil said softly. "What do you hear?"

 

He hesitated, then shook his head. "Nothing," he lied.

"I must be more tired than I thought. I—I thought—I

didn't think I had descended the stairs quite that far. I

hadn't meant to>."

 

That, more than anything else, shocked her—the note

of exhaustion in his voice, the admission of how close he

had come to being trapped. He frowned again, looking

down at the darkness that gaped below his feet, puzzling

at some new knowledge, disconcerted, not by the darkness,

but by something else.

 

Then he sighed and let the matter go>. "You came alone?"

he asked.

 

She nodded, a curiously forlorn figure in her grubby

jeans, with her guttering torch and the borrowed sword

heavy in her hand. "The others are searching, too," she

explained—no explanation, really, as to why she had come

alone.

 

"Thank you," he said quietly, and laid a hand on her

shoulder. "It's extremely likely that you just saved my life.

I—I feel as if I have been under a spell, as if—" He broke

off, and shook his head as if to clear it. "Come," he said

at last. "This way out is quicker. Keep the sword," he

added as she moved to lay it down where she had found

it. "You may need it. Its owner never will again."

 

*        *        *

 

By the time the convoy reached Karst the air was cold,

and the late, weary day was drawing down to evening.

They traveled slowly, for the underfed horses were dead-

beat and the road steep and foully muddy. The closer they

got to the town, the more often they were stopped by

men and women who had been camping in the woods

and who came hurrying down the steep banks to them,

begging for something to eat. Only a little—it was always

only a little.

 

Janus, riding in the lead, shook his head. "There'll be

shares given out at Karst."

 

"Bah!" A woman in a torn purple gown spat. "Karst—

if you can get into the town! And them as are there'll be

sure they get first pickings!"

 

The Commander only looked down with stony eyes.

"Move aside." He kneed his sweat-darkened horse forward,

past her. The wagons had not even stopped.

 

"Pig!" the woman yelled at him, and bent to pick up

a stone from the roadway. It struck his back hard enough.

to raise dust. He didn't turn. "All of you, pigs!!"

 

It wasn't what Gil had expected. Walking beside her

horse's head, hanging grimly onto the cheekpiece of the

bridle to keep from staggering, she'd half-expected to be

cheered into town. But, she thought cynically, people are

people—nobody cheers the lunchwagon unless he gets

first dibs on the food. She looked back along the line of

the convoy and saw none of her own feeling reflected in

the strained and dusty faces of the other Guards. It's a

hell of a thing, she thought, to risk your life to feed some-

one and have him pelt you with mud on your way into

town. But she supposed the Guards had seen too much of

human nature in this crisis ever to be surprised by anything

again.

 

They walked quietly along the blue evening road with

a tirelessness and an endurance she bitterly envied. The

civilians moved dully with fatigue, leading the over-

burdened horses in silence. The sun had already vanished

behind the tips of the surrounding mountains, and the

evening grew cold. It would soon be night. Someone had

scrounged a heavy, hooded cloak for her from the ruins

of the Palace, and it flapped awkwardly around her ankles,

the folds of it catching on her sword; the rhythmic slap

of the scabbarded weapon against her calf was curious,

 

but somehow comforting. She would take the sword back to

California with her along with the memory of this strange

and terrifying place.

 

Where in hell are all these people coming from? she

wondered, as a dozen or more came scrambling down the

ferns of the roadside and into the way of the carts. She

straightened up and scanned the woods, picking out the

hundreds of trashy little campsites that strewed the slopes

all around Karst. Sweet Mother of God, do they think

there's a magic force-field around the place? Did they

really buy that line of Alwir's about how safe they all are?

The refugees tacked themselves onto the train, keeping

pace with exhausted horses and their Guards, tagging them

through the blue rivers of shadow between the first out-

lying buildings. Some of the Guards drew their swords,

but no move was made against them; the people simply

followed, crowding one another but not the warriors, only

making sure of being at the distribution point when share-

outs began. Gil heard the murmur of voices thrown back

by the moss-grown walls, a restless tension and discontent.

So many people, so few wagons, so little food!

 

And then they moved into the twilit square. Gil paused

in shock, stiffening as if against a physical blow, and cold

apprehension fisted in her chest. The square was nearly

solid with people, all ages, both sexes, dirty, in rags or

clothes soiled enough to be rags, and watchful as wolves.

The great bonfires of last night had been kindled at the

four corners of the square, and the leaping scarlet light

repeated itself a millionfold in their glittering eyes, like

the eyes of the rats in the vaults. The ugly tension was

palpable; even Gil's horse, drooping with weariness, sensed

it and threw up its head with a snort of fear.

 

At the head of the convoy, Janus moved his horse

toward the mob that was headed for the villa across the

square where the food was to be stored. There was a slight

movement, an uneasy convection current in the dark mass

of eyes and faces, but no one stepped aside. The Com-

mander's war horse fidgeted and sidestepped from that

wall of hatred. Janus drew his sword.

 

Then Gil felt the cart she was leading creak with a

sudden motion, and Ingold, who had been dozing in the

back, swung himself up onto the driver's seat. In the fire-

light, he was visible to everyone in the square, the hood

 

falling back from his head to reveal his craggy face with

its rough chaparral of white beard and his eyes as cold

and hard as the storm sky. He said nothing, did nothing,

only stood leaning on his staff, looking down at the mob

in the square.

 

After a long moment of silence, men shifted away from

the doors of the villa. A pathway widened before the

Guards, their convoy, and the wizard.

 

Janus' voice was crisp on the chilly air. "Start unloading.

Get the stuff indoors, under triple guard." But he himself

did not dismount. Other Guards emerged from the villa,

mixed with Alwir's red-liveried private troops and the

warrior-monks of the Church, also in red, the blood-

troops of God. Gil leaned against the shoulder of the

carthorse, feeling the sweat cold on her face, the warmth

of the beast through cloak and jacket and shirt against her

arm, tired and glad it was over. The mob in the square

had fallen back, crowding one another around the bon-

fires, but they watched the moving lines of armed men

stowing the food, and that restless murmuring never ceased.

 

Gil heard someone call out. "My lord Ingold!" Turning,

she saw someone beckoning urgently from the Town Hall

steps. She saw the wizard scan the crowd, judging it, but

few of the people were watching him now; all eyes were

riveted, as by enchantment, on the food. He swung himself

lightly down from the cart, and the crowd rippled back

from where he landed on his feet. They moved, not in

dread or fear, exactly, but in awe of something they did

not and could not comprehend. He did not have to push

his way through them to the steps.

 

If Gil hadn't been watching him, following his path with

her eyes, she would have completely missed what happened

next. A man, cloaked and hooded in red, stood waiting

for him on the steps of the Town Hall, holding a rolled

parchment in one hand, flat and colorless in the deep

shadows thrown by the fires. He handed Ingold the parch-

ment and drew his sword.

 

Gil saw Ingold read what was written there and look

up. She could feel, even at that distance, the fury and in-

dignation that tautened every line of his body, the wrath

that smoked off him. A dozen men in red emerged quietly

from the shadows and surrounded him. They all carried

drawn swords.

 

For one instant, she thought he would fight. And she

thought, Oh, my God, there'll be a riot, and queer, cold

fury put fire-ice into her veins. Several of the red troops

evidently thought so, too, for they flinched back from him.

Gil remembered that, in addition to being a wizard, Ingold

was supposed to be one hell of a swordsman. Then he held

his hands up to show that they were empty, and the men

closed him in. One of them took his staff, another his

sword, and they all vanished into the shadows of the

Town Hall doors.

 

Stunned, Gil turned to see if Janus had witnessed this,

but the Commander's back was to her, his attention held

by the mob. The Guards were still working, carrying grain,

sides of bacon, and sacks of potatoes and corn up the

steps of the villa and through the guarded darkness of the

doors. She doubted anyone besides herself had seen the

arrest. They timed that, she thought suddenly. And they

counted on his going quietly, rather than triggering a riot

by resistance.

 

Rage swept her then, leaving no room for fear. She

looked back at the steps, splotched by shadow and fire-

light. They were empty, as if nothing had happened. The

wizard might simply have disappeared.

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

A dying civilization. A land locked in fear. A world go-

ing down in a welter of hopeless chaos before an enemy

that could not be fought. And, Rudy thought, strolling

down the mossy cobbled streets of Karst through the cool

sunshine of that mellow afternoon, one hell of a lot of

people standing nose-deep in the sewer, with the tide com-

ing in.

 

If it weren't jammed to the ceilings with people, Karst

would be a pretty town, he reflected. That is, if you had

indoor plumbing and some kind of central heating and

streets you weren't likely to break your ankle on. This

lane was relatively uncrowded and quiet, winding away

from the town square to lose itself in the woods; it was

paved in lumpy, fist-size cobbles that were high and dry

along the walls on both sides and heavily upholstered with

bright green moss down the center, through which a

thread of silver water reflected the sky. Rudy had slept—

badly—in a stuffy and flea-infested closet on the third

floor of the Town Hall, and had spent what was left of

the morning and most of the afternoon poking around

Karst, trying to scrounge food and water, scraping acquain-

tance with refugees and Guards and some of the Bishop's

people, and checking out the town. He'd come to the

conclusion that if Alwir didn't get his act together fast,

they'd all be dead in short order.

 

There were simply too many people. Gil and Ingold were

right, whatever the Chancellor liked to say. Contrary to

the assertions of most of his teachers in public school,

 

Rudy was not stupid, merely lacking in appreciation for

 

the public school system. He'd listened to the council last

night—with as little room as there was in the hall, it

would have been hard to help eavesdropping—and had

seen today what was happening in Karst. He'd walked

through the camps in the woods, trashy, filthy, lawless.

He'd witnessed seven fights—three over allegations of

food theft, two over water, and two for no discernible

reason at all. He'd heard the stump preachers and soapbox

orators propounding different solutions to the problem,

from suicide to salvation, and had seen one ugly old man

stoned by a pack of children and several of their elders

because he was supposed to be in league with the Dark—

as if anyone could get anywhere near the Dark Ones to

be in league with them. Mostly Rudy sensed the tension

that underlay the town like a drawn wire and had felt, with

an uneasy shock, that closeness to that line that divided

a land of law from a land without it. He'd seen the handful

of Guards left in town trying to keep some kind of order

among far too many people. Though it was a new sensa-

tion for him to have sympathy for the fuzz, he found he

did. He wouldn't have wanted to play cop to that mad-

house.

 

The smoke of cook fires turned the air into a stage-

three smog alert, wherever he wandered in the town or in

the woods. Now, as he headed back toward the square,

shadows began to move up the rock walls of the little

lane, and the distant clamor of voices in the square was

muffled by the walls, muted to a meaningless murmur like

the far-off sounding of church bells. In spite of hunger,

the crowds, the threat of plague, and the fear of the Dark,

Rudy found himself oddly at peace with the world and

with his own soul.

 

Beyond the wall to his right he heard voices, a woman's

and a girl's. The woman was saying, "And don't you go

let him be putting things in his little mouth."

 

The girl's voice, gentle and demure, replied, "No, ma'am."

 

"And don't you be letting him wander away and hurt

hisself; you keep a sharp eye on him, my girl."

 

Rudy recognized the emblem on the half-open grille of

rusty iron at the gap in the wall, the three black stars that

someone had said belonged to the House of Bes, the

House ruled by Chancellor Alwir. Rudy paused in the

 

gate. If this was Alwir's villa, then the women were probably talking about Tir.

 

Beyond the gap in the wall he could see the sloping

garden, brown with cold and coming frost, and beyond

that the rock wall of a terrace that backed the massive,

gray shape of a splendid mansion. He was right; two

women stood in the huge arched door of the house, spread-

ing out, of all things, a bearskin rug in the last of the

pale golden sun. The fat woman in red was doing this,

with much bustle and huffing, while the slender girl in

white stood, in the classic pose of women everywhere,

with the baby riding her hip.

 

The fat woman continued to scold. "You see he doesn't

get chilled."

 

"Yes, Medda."

 

"And don't you get chilled, neither!" The fat woman's

voice was fierce and commanding. Then she went bustling

back into the dark shadows of the door and was gone.

 

Rudy ducked through the gateway and made his way up

silent paths fringed with sere brown hedges. Overhead,

arthritic yellow leaves trembled in the watery blue of

the air. Even moribund with autumn, the garden was

immaculate. Rudy, pausing in its mazes to orient himself

toward the haughty bulk of the villa, wondered whom they

got to trim the hedges every day.

 

The baby sitter had settled herself down on the corner

of the bearskin next to the Prince. She looked up, startled,

as Rudy swung himself over the balustrade to join them.

"Hello," she said, a little timidly.

 

Rudy gave her his most charming smile. "Hi," he said.

"I'm glad to see you've got him out here—I was afraid

I'd have to ask permission from every Guard in the house

to see how he is."

 

The girl relaxed and returned his smile. "I should be

taking him in before long," she apologized, "but it's prob-

ably one of the last warm days we'll have." She had a

low voice and an air of shyness; Rudy put her age at

somewhere between eighteen and twenty. Her crow-black

hair was braided down past her hips.

 

"Warm?" Like most Californians, Rudy was thin-

blooded. "I've been freezing to death all afternoon. What

do you people consider cold?"

 

Startled, she raised her eyes to his; hers were dark,

 

luminous blue, like Crater Lake on a midsummer afternoon.

"Oh!" She smiled. "You're the companion of Ingold, one

who helped him rescue Tir."

 

And, indeed, Tir was making his way purposefully over

to Rudy across the bearskin, tangling himself in the black

and white silk of his gown. Rudy folded up to sit cross-

legged beside the girl and gathered the child into his lap.

"Well—" he said, a little embarrassed by that awe and

gratitude in her eyes. "I just kind of stumbled into that. I

mean, it was either come with him or die, I guess—we

didn't have much choice."

 

"But still, you had the choice to be with him in the first

place, didn't you?" she reminded him.

 

"Well—yeah," he agreed. "But believe me, if I'd known

what it was all about, I'd still be running."

 

The girl laughed. "Betrayed into heroism," she mocked

his assertion gently.

 

"Honey, you don't even know." Rudy extricated Tir's

exploring hands from his collar and dug in his pocket for

his key ring, which the child, in blissful fascination, pro-

ceeded to try to eat. "You know," he went on after a few

minutes, "what floors me about this whole thing is that

the kid's fine. After all he's been through from the time

Ingold got him out of Gae until we got him back here,

you'd think he'd be in shock. Is he? Hardly! Babies are

so little, you'd think they'd break in your hands, like—

like kittens, or flowers."

 

"They're tough." The girl smiled. "The human race

would have perished long ago if babies were as fragile as

they look. Often they're tougher than their parents." Her

fingers made absent-minded ringlets of the black, downy

hair on Tir's tiny pink neck.

 

Rudy remembered things said in the hall and other talk

throughout the day. "How's his mom?" he asked. "I heard

she—the Queen—was sick. Will she be okay?"

 

The girl hesitated, an expression of—what? Almost

grief—altering the delicate line of her cheek. "They say

the Queen will recover," she answered. him slowly. "But

I don't know. I doubt she will ever be as she was." The

girl shifted her position on the rug and put the long braid

of her hair back over her shoulder. Rudy stopped, another

question unspoken on his lips, wondering suddenly how

 

and under what circumstances this girl had made her own

escape from Gae.

 

"And your friend?" The girl made an effort, and with-

drew her mind from something within her that she would

rather not have looked at. "Ingold's other companion?"

 

"Gil?" Rudy asked. "I guess she went with the Guards to

Gae this morning. That's what they tell me, anyway. You

wouldn't get me within a hundred miles of that place."

 

"You're within ten," the girl said quietly.

 

Rudy shivered. "Well, I can tell you I'll be farther away

before sundown. Food or no food, you'd have to be crazy

to go back there."

 

"I don't know," the girl said, toying with the end of her

braid. "They say the Guards are crazy, that you have to

be crazy, to be a Guard. And I believe that. I would never

go back, not for anything, but the Guards—they're a rare

breed. They're the best, the finest corps in the West of the

World. It's their life, fighting and training to fight. The

Guards say it's like nothing else, and for them there is

nothing else. I don't understand it. But then, nobody does.

Only other Guards."

 

Pro ballplayers would, Rudy thought. Heavy-duty martial

artists would. He remembered some of the karate black

belts he knew back home. Aloud, he said, "God help

anyone or anything that takes on a bunch of people like

that. Ingold's with them, too."

 

"Oh," the girl said quietly.

 

"Do you know Ingold?"

 

"Not—not really. I—I've met him, of course." She

frowned slightly. "I've always been a little bit afraid of

him. He's said to be tricky and dangerous, all the more

so because he appears so—so harmless. And, of course,

wizards—there are those who believe that wizards are

the agents of evil."

 

"Evil? Ingold?" Rudy was startled and a little shocked.

A more harmless old man he could never hope to find.

 

"Well—" She hesitated, twining the end of her braid

through her fingers. Tir, having misplaced or forgotten

the keys, caught at the soft black rope with tiny hands.

"The Church teaches us that the Devil is the Lord of

Illusion, the Prince of Mirrors. Illusion is the wizards'

stock in trade; they trade their souls for the Power, when

they go to that school in Quo. The Council of Wizards

 

owes allegiance to no one. There is no check on what

they might do."

 

So that explained the Bishop, Rudy thought, and her

watchful dark gaze that slid so disapprovingly over the

wizard at that hurried council last night. A witch hunter,

no error.

 

The girl went on. "Of course he was a friend and

counselor of—of the King—"

 

There was something, some catch, in her voice that

made Rudy look over at her quickly, and it occurred to

him to wonder what the late, great King Eldor had had

to do with his son's nanny on the sly. Not that he blamed

Eldor, he thought.

 

"But Ingold had his—purposes," she continued quietly.

"If he saved Tir, it was because of the—the inherited memo-

ries of the Kings of Darwath, the store of knowledge within

him that may one day be used against the Dark. Not be-

cause Tir was only a child, helpless and in danger." Her

eyes were down, considering the bent head of the child

nuzzling around on the bearskin before her. Her voice was

shaky.

 

She really cares for Pugsley, Rudy thought suddenly.

Hell, since Queens—at least in his muzzy democratic

understanding of the matter—don't take care of their own

babies, she probably raised the little rug-rat. She wouldn't

see him as a Prince—or even as King of Darwath, since

Eldor had died—but only as a child she loved, as Rudy

loved his baby brother. It changed her in his eyes.

 

"You really believe that?" he asked softly. She didn't

answer, nor did she look at him. "Hell, when you come

right down to it, it's his job. If he's the resident wizard,

he's got to do stuff like that. But I think you're wrong."

 

For a time she didn't speak, and the silence came over

the garden again, a contented silence, bred of the long

afternoon light and what might be the last golden day of

autumn. The sun had already slipped through a milky film

of cloud on the western peaks; the blue shadow of the villa

marked off the cracks in the terrace pavement like a sun-

dial, creeping steadily up on the bearskin and its three

occupants. Looking out over the austere brown and pewter

patchwork of the frost-rusted garden beds, Rudy felt the

peace of the place stealing over his spirit, an archaic,

heartbreaking beauty, a silence of old stone and sunlight, of

 

something seen long ago and far away, like a lost memory

of what had never been, something as distant as the re-

flections in still water, yet clear, clear as crystal. Every

pale stone of the terrace, every silken grass blade thrust

between them and turned gold now with the year's turn-

ing, contained and preserved that magic light like the final

echo of dying music. It was a world that yesterday he

had never known and, after tomorrow, would never see

again, but the present moment seemed to have been

waiting for him since the day of his birth.

 

"Alde!" A sharp voice cut that silver peace, and the

girl whirled, startled and guilty as a child with her hand

in the cookies. The fat woman in red stood in the door-

way, hands on her broad hips fisted and face lumpy and

red with annoyance. Rudy scrambled to his feet as she

bawled out, "Sitting on the cold pavement! You'll catch

your death! And his Little Majesty, to be sure!" She came

bustling out, clucking and scolding like a mother hen with

one chick. "Take him inside, child, and yourself—the air's

grown nippy ..."

 

But for all that she flustered around him as if he weren't

there, Rudy knew the real problem was that Alde wasn't

supposed to be wasting her time talking with some

stranger instead of watching the baby as she was supposed

to. The girl gave him a helpless, half-amused shrug of her

eyebrows, and Rudy gallantly stooped to gather the bear-

skin in his arms. The thing weighed a ton.

 

"What's she think I'm gonna do, kidnap him?" he asked

in a whisper as the older nurse waddled back into the

house, baby in arms.

 

Alde smiled ruefully. "She worries," she explained un-

necessarily. She bent to retrieve the motorcycle keys, which

had fallen from the folds of the rug. She wiped the slobber

off them with a corner of her skirt and tucked them back

in his pocket for him.

 

"She boss you around like that all the time?" he asked.

"I thought for a minute she was gonna spank you."

 

Alde's smile widened, and she ducked her head. She was

laughing. "Medda just thinks of Tir as her baby. Nobody

can look after him the way she can, not even his own

mother."

 

Rudy had to smile, too. "Yeah, my aunt Felice is like

 

that. To hear her carry on with my mother, you'd never

think Mom had raised seven kids all by herself. But you

just got to let them do it."

 

"Well, you certainly can't change them," Alde agreed.

"Here—I can take that rug. Medda would faint if you

came inside. She knows what's due to the House of Bes ...

No, it's all right, I've got it."

 

They paused, arms mutually entwined in the moth-eaten

red fur. "Your name's Alde?" he asked.

 

She nodded. "Short for Minalde," she explained. "Some-

one told me yours. If ..."

 

"Alde!" Medda's shout came from within the villa.

 

"Take care of yourself," Rudy whispered. "And Pugsley."

 

She smiled at the nickname and ducked her head again

as if to hide the smile. "You also." Then she turned and

hurried through the great doors, the claws of the bearskin

clinking softly on the polished floor.

 

The sky overhead had lost the paleness of day. The sun

was long gone past the mountain's rim, and swift twilight

had come down. All that afternoon's peace and beauty

notwithstanding, Rudy had no intention of spending an-

other night in this world. Besides which, he realized he

was painfully hungry, and food was notoriously hard to

come by. He made his way down the dead garden and

through the rusted gate. He found the lane beyond almost

totally dark, though the sky above still held a little of the

day, like the sky above a canyon. As the shadows moved

up the mountain toward Karst, he began his hunt for the

wizard and the way home.

 

"Rudy!" He turned, startled to see Gil materialize out

of the gloom, striding quickly toward him, followed by

a tall young man with white Viking braids who wore the

already-familiar uniform of the City Guards. He noticed

that Gil had scrounged a cloak from somewhere and wore

a sword belted over her Levi's. The outfit made him grin.

This was a long way from the lady and scholar of yesterday

afternoon ...

 

"Where's Ingold?" he asked as they drew near.

 

Gil answered shortly. "He's been busted."

 

"Busted?" For a minute he couldn't take it in. "You

mean arrested?"

 

"I saw it," Gil said tightly.

 

Close up now, Rudy saw that she looked exhausted,

drawn, those cold gray-blue eyes sunk in purple smudges

in a face that had gotten pointy and white. It didn't do

much for her looks, he thought. But there was a hardness

in her eyes now that he wouldn't have wanted to tangle

with.

 

She went on. "A bunch of troops came and got him on

the Town Hall steps while the Guards were busy unloading

the supplies."

 

   "And he just went with them?" Rudy asked, aghast and

disbelieving.

 

The tall Guard nodded. "He knew that it was go or

fight. The fight would trigger a riot."

 

The light, spare voice was uninflected, unexplaining, but

the scenario sprang to Rudy's mind. The Guards backed

Ingold and would have rushed to help; the people in the

square would go after the food; all the pent-up violence

of the day would condense in rage and fear and terror of

the night. The town would go up like gunpowder. He'd

been in enough small-scale riots at the Shamrock Bar in

Fontana to know how that went. But what was all right

in the safety of a steel-mill town on Friday night would be

death and worse than death on a large scale, played for

keeps out of hunger and fury and frustration. Bitterly, he

remarked, "They sure knew their man. Who nailed him, do

you know?"

 

"Church troops, from Gil's description," the Icefalcon

said. "The Red Monks. The Bishop's men, but they could

have acted on anyone's orders."

 

"Which anyone?" Rudy demanded, his glance shifting

from Gil to the Icefalcon in the dimness of the shadowy

lane. "Alwir? When he couldn't push him out at the coun-

cil last night?"

 

"Alwir always feared Ingold's power over the King,"

the Guard said thoughtfully.

 

"His men wear red, too," Gil added.

 

The Icefalcon shrugged. "And the Bishop certainly

doesn't relish the thought of an agent of Satan that close

to the throne."

 

"A what?" Gil demanded angrily, and Rudy briefed

her on the local Church stand on wizardry. Gil's comment

was neither scholarly nor ladylike.

 

"The Bishop is very strong in her faith," the Icefalcon

said in his soft neutral voice, the tone as colorless as his

eyes. "Or—the Queen could have put out the order for

his arrest. From all accounts she has never trusted Ingold,

either."

 

"Yeah, but the Queen's out on a Section Eight these

days," Rudy said unkindly. "And whoever popped him,

we've got to find where they're keeping him, if we don't

want to end up spending another night here."

 

"Not to mention the next fifty years, if they decide to

wall him up in some dungeon and forget about him," Gil

added, her voice sharp with fear.

 

"Yeah," Rudy agreed. "Though I personally wouldn't

want to be the one in charge of putting that old duffer

out of the way permanently."

 

"Look," the Icefalcon said, "Karst isn't that big a town.

They will have put him in the Town Hall jail, in the vaults

below Alwir's villa, or in the Bishop's summer palace

somewhere. Divided, we can find him within the hour. Then

you can do—whatever you will do."

 

The shift in inflection of that soft, breathless voice made

Rudy's nerves prickle with the sudden premonition of dis-

aster, but the inscrutable frost-white eyes challenged him

to read meaning into the words. Alde had said that the

Guards were all crazy. Crazy enough to jailbreak a wizard

out from under the noses of the Powers That Be? They

were Ingold's—and now, by the look of it, Gil's—allies.

Rudy wondered if he wanted to mess with the whole thing.

 

On the other hand, he realized he didn't have much

choice. It was a jailbreak in the dark or spending the night

and God alone knew how many other nights besides in this

world. Even standing in the quiet of the dark lane, Rudy

had begun to feel nervous. "Okay," he said, with as much

cheerfulness as he could muster under the circumstances.

"Meet you back at the Town Hall in an hour."

 

They parted, Rudy hurrying back toward Alwir's garden

gate, running over in his mind how he'd go about getting

on the right side of Alde and, more importantly, Medda,

in order to get in and search the villa.

 

Gil and the Icefalcon headed in the other direction,

instinctively hugging the wall for protection, guided by

the reddish reflection of the fires in the town square. It

 

was fully dark, a bitter overcast night, and Gil shivered,

feeling the trap of the lane, aware of how restricted it was

on the sides and how open from above. Cloak and sword

tangled around her feet, and she had to hurry her steps to

catch up with the long strides of the young man before her.

 

They were within sight of the firelit crowds in the

square when the Icefalcon stopped and raised his head to

listen like a startled beast. "Do you hear it?" His voice was

a whisper in the darkness, his face and pale hair a blur

edged in the rosy reflection of the bonfires. Gil stopped

also, listening to the cool quiet of the night. Pine-scented

winds blew the sounds from beyond the town, far-off

sounds changed by the darkness, but unmistakable. From

the dark woods that ringed the town, the wind carried up

the sounds of screaming.

 

The Dark Ones had come to Karst!

 

There was no battle at Karst—only a thousand rear-

guard actions fought in the haunted woods by companies

of Guards, of Church troops, and of the private troops of

the households of noble and landchief. Patrols made sorties

from the blazing central fortress of the red-lit town square

and brought in huddled clusters of terrified refugees, the

scattered stragglers who had survived that first onslaught.

 

Gil, who found herself, sword in hand, hunting with the

Icefalcon's company, remembered that first chaotic night-

mare in Gae and wondered that she had thought it

frightening. At least then she had known where the danger

lay; in Gae there had been torchlight and walls and

people. But here the nightmare drifted silently through

wind-touched woods, appearing, killing, and departing with

a kind of hideous leisure. Here there was no warning, only

a vast floating darkness that fell upon the torches between

one eyeblink and the next; soft mouths gaping wide, like

canopies of acid-fringed parachutes; claws reaching to

tear and to hold. Here there were the victims; a pile

of stripped, bloody bones among the sticks of a half-built

campfire or the blood-dewed shrunken mummy of a man

sucked dry while a yard away his wife knelt screaming in

helpless horror at the sight.

 

Naturally coldhearted, Gil was made neither helpless

nor, after the first few victims, sick. Rather, she was filled

 

with a kind of cool and lightheaded rage, like a cat that

kills with neither fear nor remorse.

 

In those first chaotic minutes, she and the Icefalcon

doubled back to the Guards' Court at a run. There they

found a wild confusion of men arming, companies forming,

Janus' deep booming voice cutting through the holocaust

of sound, demanding volunteers. Since she was wearing a

sword, somebody shoved her into a company—they were

halfway out of town, armed with torches and pitifully few

to meet the Dark, when she fought her way up to the

front of the patrol and yelled to the Icefalcon, "But I

don't know how to use a sword!"

 

He gave her a cold stare. "Then you shouldn't wear

one," he retorted.

 

Someone else caught her by the shoulder—the woman

Seya she'd met that morning by the carts—and drew her

back. "Aim at the midline of the body," she instructed Gil

hastily. "Cut straight down, or straight sideways. There's a

snap to the wrists, see? Hilt in both hands—not like that,

you'll break both thumbs. You have to go in close to kill,

if they're bigger than you are, which they will be, outside

like this. Got that? You can pick up the rest later. Stay in

the center of the group and don't take on anything you

can't handle."

 

Watchword for the night, Gil thought wryly. But it was

surprising, the first time those dark, silent bulks material-

ized out of the misty darkness between the trees, how

much of that hasty lesson she could put into practice. And

she learned the first principle of any martial art—that

surviving or not surviving an encounter is the ultimate test

of any system, lesson, or technique.

 

In one sense it was easy, for those nebulous bodies of-

fered little resistance to the razor-sharp metal. Precision

and speed counted rather than strength; for all their soft

bulk, the Dark Ones moved fast. But Seya had not men-

tioned that the Dark Ones stank of rotting blood, nor

had she described the way the cut pieces folded and

trailed and spattered everything with human blood and

blackish liquid as they disintegrated. This Gil found out

in that crimson pandemonium of fire and dark trees, death

and flight and war. And she found out, too, that there was

less fear in the attack than in the defense and that, no

 

matter how little sleep or food you have had in the last

forty-eight hours, you could always fight for your life. She

fought shoulder to shoulder with the black-uniformed

Guards of Gae and ragged volunteers in homespun. She

ran in the wake of the fighters as they moved through the

woods like a wolfpack, gathering lost and terrified fugi-

tives and shepherding them back toward Karst. The cold

electricity of battle-lust filled her like fire and drove out

weariness or fear.

 

In time, the dozen or so warriors of the Icefalcon's com-

pany rounded up some fifty refugees. They circled them

in a loose cordon and gave torches to as many of them

as were capable of carrying such things; most persisted in

holding to possessions, money, and food, and a good thirty

were women carrying children in their arms. For the third

time that night, they started back for Karst. Woods and

sky were utterly black, the dark trees threshing in the

wind. All around them could be heard screaming and

wailing. It was a Dantean scene, lit by the jerky glare of

torches.

 

Someone behind her cried out. Looking up, Gil saw the

Dark materializing in the inky air, with a sudden drop

of slobbering wings and the slash of a thorned wire tail.

She stepped into it, sword whining as she swung, aware of

Seya on her right, someone else on her left. Then she was

engulfed in darkness, wind, and fire, cutting blindly. The

fugitives behind her were packing closer and closer to-

gether like sheep, the children shrieking, the men crying

out. Shredded veils of disintegrating protoplasm slithered

to the ground all around her. She saw the man on her left

buckle awkwardly to his knees, dry and white and dewed

all over with blood as the Dark One rose off him like some

giant, flopping, airborne blob. Wave after wave of dark-

ness came pouring from the woods.

 

The Icefalcon raised his light voice to a harsh rasp.

"This will be the last trip, my sisters and brothers. There

are more now than there were. We'll have to hold the

town."

 

In the momentary lull, as the Dark Ones gathered like

a lightless roof of storm overhead, a Guard's voice cried

bitterly, "Hold that town? That collection of wall-less

chicken-runs?"

 

"It's the only town we have. Now, run!"

 

And they ran, through the black nightmare of alien pur-

suit, with the winds stirring after them like the breath of

some unspeakable abyss. It was a nightmare of woods,

darkness, sinuous half-seen forms, flame, and stumbling

terror. They ran toward the refuge of Karst, and the Dark

Ones followed.

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Hell of a joke on Alwir! Rudy slumped back against the

clustered pilasters framing the open archway from the

villa's main reception-hall out to its entryway and shut his

eyes. But nothing could block out the wild glare of the

torches, the screaming that went through his head like a

hacksaw, and the dizzy sickness of fatigue. That whole

sales pitch about everything being hunky-dory and let's

make Karst capital of the new Realm had gone down the

tubes. And Ingold, whatever the hell they did with him,

was right all along.

 

He opened his eyes again, the sensory burn-out of the

hall stabbing body and brain like crimson knives. It was

like the waiting room of Judgment Day. The hall and

entryway on either side of the fluted arch were mobbed

wall to wall with people, refugees driven in from the woods

and the town square who had taken shelter here when the

defense lines around the town had caved in. People were

weeping, praying, cursing, all at the tops of their lungs;

they were milling like panic-stricken sheep when the wolf

was in the fold. The jackhammer din was like the final set

of a rock concert, so deafening that no single sound was

audible, and the faces illuminated by the bleeding torch-

light seemed to mouth senselessly. The packed heat of the

room was smothering, the air foul with smoke and human

fear. Detachedly, Rudy wondered if he were involved in

one of Gil's nightmares. But he was too hungry to be

asleep for one thing; and for another, it looked as if he'd

started at the wrong end of the dream and couldn't remem-

 

ber going to bed. He wondered if the end of the world was

going to be this noisy. He hoped not.

 

Like Satan in the chaos of the fire, Alwir stood in the

middle of the room, blood from his cut cheek making a

red track in the sweaty slime of his face. One hand rested

on the pommel of his sword, the other gestured, black and

eloquent—he was speaking with Commander Janus and

Bishop Govannin, who stood leaning on her drawn sword,

her robe girded up for fighting. Under the marks of battle,

that thin skull-face of hers was calm. Rudy reflected dryly

to himself that it looked as if everybody in town knew how

to handle a sword except him. Alwir suggested something,

and the Bishop shook her head in somber denial. The angry,

insistent sweep of the Chancellor's gesture took in all the

room. Rudy had a bad feeling that he knew what the prob-

lem was.

 

The villa was indefensible.

 

It was obvious. They'd been driven there when the de-

fenses around the square had crumbled, when darkness like

a fog had sapped the light of the fires. One minute, it

seemed, Rudy had been standing in the line of armed men,

awkwardly gripping the hilt of a sword somebody had

shoved into his hands, backed by the wind-whipped, flaring

blaze of dozens of bonfires and the yammering cries of the

unarmed civilians who were crowding in the square for

protection and watching with uneasy terror the restless

stirrings in the darkness beyond the light. Then the dark-

ness had begun to draw closer, the shifting suggestion of

nebulous bodies growing increasingly clear. Looking be-

hind him, Rudy had seen the bonfires pale and weaken, the

flames robbed of their light. And then he'd been caught in

the blind stampede for walls to hide behind, for any shelter

against that encroaching terror. He'd been one of the lucky

ones. The square and the streets outside were littered with

the unlucky.

 

And the irony of it was, Rudy thought, surveying the

scarlet confusion before him, that this place which they'd

trampled over each other to reach was about as defensible

as a bird cage.

 

It was a summer palace. A man didn't have to study

architecture to guess that one. The whole place was de-

signed to let in light and air and summer breezes. Colon-

nades joined to open galleries; dainty, trefoiled arches

 

opened into long vistas of wide-windowed rooms; and the

long double stairway rising from the entry-hall to his left

terminated in a balcony gallery that communicated with the

rest of the villa by a series of airy, unwalled breezeways.

The whole thing would be as much use as a lace table-

cloth in a hurricane. If he hadn't been half-blind with ex-

haustion and within kissing distance of a horrible death,

Rudy could have laughed.

 

Janus offered some other plan. Alwir shook his head.

Nix on anything that means going outside, Rudy thought.

Blackness seemed to press like a bodiless entity against the

long windows that ran the length of one wall. A few min-

utes ago, the orange reflection of firelight had been visible

through them. Now there was only darkness. The multi-

voiced baying of the fugitives had begun to fade, men and

women making little forays into the murky dimness of the

entry-hall beyond the arch, as if seeking a safer room for

their hiding, but unwilling to leave the main crowd to do

so. Alwir pointed downward, to the floor or, Rudy guessed,

to the cellars of the villa. The Bishop asked him something

that made his eyes flash with anger.

 

But before he could reply, a rending crash sounded from

somewhere in the deeps of the house, the violence of it

shaking the stone walls on their foundations.

 

In the hush that followed, Janus' voice could be heard

to the far corners of the hall. "East gallery," he said briefly.

 

A woman began to scream, a steady, unwavering note.

A few feet from him, Rudy saw a young woman of about

his own age tighten her clutch on a gaggle of smaller chil-

dren who clung to her skirts for courage.. A fat man with

a garden rake for a weapon hopped to his feet and began

to glare around, as if expecting the Dark to come rushing

down from the throbbing air. The mob in the room packed

tighter, as if they could conceal themselves from the Dark

by doing so.

 

Their voices climbed to a crescendo of wild terror

through which Alwir's trained bass battle voice cut like a

cleaver. "With me! We can defend the vaults!"

 

Someone began howling. "Not the vaults! Not under-

ground!"

 

Rudy scrambled to his feet, cursing, narrowly missing

cutting off his own fingers with the sword he still held. He

personally didn't care where they holed up, as long as it

 

had nice thick walls and only one door. People were yell-

ing, swaying, surging after Alwir through the arched door-

way at the far end of the tall. Torches were being pulled

down from the walls, the flailing red light throwing the

room into a maelstrom of jerking shadow.

 

Someone shoved against Rudy in the mob, fighting

against the current to go the other way, and he caught at a

familiar arm.

 

"Where the hell are you going?"

 

Minalde's hair had come unbraided and hung against her

torn and dirty white gown. "Tir's up there," she said fierce-

ly. "I thought Medda had brought him down." Shoulders

jostled them, throwing them close together. In the white-

ness of her face, her eyes were iris-colored in the torchlight.

 

"Well, you can't go up there now!" As she pulled an-

grily at his grip, Rudy added, "Look, if the door's locked

and there's some kind of light in the room, they'll miss him,

he'll be fine. There's a zillion people down here for them

to get."

 

"They know who he is," she whispered desperately. "It's

him they want." With a swift jerk she freed her arm and

plunged toward the stairs, slipping between the crowding

bodies like an eel.

 

"You crazy female, you're gonna get killed!" Rudy

shoved his way after her, his larger size hampering him,

the crowd dragging him inexorably along. He saw Alde

stop by the foot of the stairs and take a torch from its

holder. Elbowing and struggling frantically, he reached the

place moments later, snatched another torch, and dashed

up after her into the darkness. He caught her at the top

and grabbed her arm in a grip that would leave bruises.

 

"You let me go!"

 

"The hell I will!" he yelled back at her. "Now you

listen..."

 

With an inarticulate sob of fury she thrust her torch

into his face. He leaped back, barely catching himself from

going backward down the stairs, and she was gone, a

flicker of white fluttering down the wind-searched gallery,

her torch streaming in her wake like a banner. Rudy fol-

lowed profanely.

 

In spite of the Dark, she left the nursery door open for

him. He stumbled through and slammed it shut behind him,

gasping with exertion and terror and rage.

 

"You're insane, do you know that?" he shouted at her.

"You could get the both of us killed! You didn't even know

if the kid was still alive—"

 

She wasn't listening. She bent over the gilded cradle and

gathered the child in her arms. Tir was awake, but silent,

as he had been in that dilapidated shack in the orange

groves of California, dark-blue eyes wide with under-

standing fear. The girl shook back the waves of hair from

her face and smoothed the child's round cheek with her

fingers. Rudy could see that her hands were shaking.

 

"Here," he said roughly, and pulled a shawl from the

table beside the crib. "Make a sling and tie the kid to you.

You're gonna need your hands free to carry the torches."

She obeyed silently, not meeting his eyes. "I don't know

whether I shouldn't brain you myself. It might knock some

sense into your head."

 

She took her torch from the wall holder where she'd

placed it and turned back to him, her eyes defiant. Rudy

grunted in an unwilling and inarticulate concession to her

courage, if not to her brains. "You're gonna have to tell me

how to find these vaults they're talking about."

 

"Down the stairs, through the arch at the end of the big

hall, down the steps to the right," she said in a small voice.

"It will be the main vault, where they store the wine.

That's the only room large enough."

 

He took up his own torch again and glanced briefly

around that small octagonal room with its dull gold hang-

ings and filigreed ebony fixtures. Then he looked back at

the girl, her face as white as her gown in the flickering

shadows. "Yeah, well, if we get killed . . ." he began to

threaten, then stopped. "Aah," he growled. "I still think

you're crazy." He handed her his torch and edged to the

door of the room, gripping the sword hilt in both hands, as

he had seen Ingold do. Alde stood back from him without

a word.

 

"You ready?"

 

"Yes," she said softly.

 

He muttered, "Here goes nuthin', sweetheart," and took

a step forward. In one quick movement, he kicked the

door open and slashed. The Dark One that dropped

through like an inky storm of protoplasm split itself on the

brightness of the blade, splattering the three of them with

stinking liquid; the second, immediately following the first,

 

withdrew almost instantly on an aimless swirl of wind. No

shapes were visible in the dark corridor stretching before

them—only a restless sense of movement down at the -far

end. He caught Alde by the arm and ran.

 

Fluttering shadows pursued them down the hall, monster

shapes of himself, the girl, and the child. The torchlight

briefly illuminated the open arches to their left; but beyond,

sight failed in an endless abyss of blasphemous night. Rudy

could sense the Dark all around them, watching them with

a queer, horrible intelligence, waiting only for the un-

guarded moment to pounce. From the top of the stairs they

looked down at the chasm of the hall, where a dropped

torch, burning itself out on the floor, revealed a ruin of

filth, torn clothes, discarded shoes, and smashed furniture

trampled in the flight. Around the far archway and dimly

visible in the hall beyond, a straggle of bones and blood-

less, crumpled bodies showed what had happened moments

after he'd followed Alde up the stairs; and beyond that

archway, slipping over the bodies, a gliding shifting dark-

ness seemed to flow.

 

Rudy's breath strangled in his throat. Exposed as they

were at the top of the stairs, nothing could have induced

him to descend to that hall, to try to cross that floor. Be-

side him Alde gasped, and he looked where she pointed.

Four or five things like black snail shells clung to the great

arched ceiling of the room, long tails hanging down, waver-

ing in the moving air. The dim torchlight played over the

chitinous gleam of their shiny backs, and picked out claws

and spines and the glittering drool of acid that ran from

their tucked mouths down the stone ribbing of the wall.

Then, one by one, they released their hold, dropping down

into the air, changing shape—changing size—melting into

the shadows. Though he'd watched them as they let go,

Rudy had no idea where they'd gone.

 

Alde whispered, "There's another way into the vaults.

It's back this way. Hurry!"

 

Needless waste of words, Rudy thought, striding beside

her down the gallery, the soft evil winds stirring in his long

hair. How many of the things did it take to kill the light

of a fire? A dozen? Half a dozen? Four? His T-shirt and

denim jacket were clammy with sweat; his hand ached on

the hilt of the sword. The shadows all around them seemed

to be moving, pressing closer upon them. The torchlight

 

reflected darkly in Tir's watching eyes. A doorway opened

on a corridor, wind-searched and smelling of the Dark.

There was a sense of something that followed, soft-breath-

ing and always out of sight. Alde's breath came like a

swift-breaking series of sobs; his own footsteps seemed

eerily loud. A small black doorway led to the sudden, twist-

ing spiral of a lightless corkscrew stair, down and down,

steep as a ladder and perilously slippery; the amber flicker

of the torches gilded stone walls barely a yard apart.

 

Then they reached the bottom and smelled all around

them the damp, nitrous odor of underground.

 

"Where the hell are we?" Rudy whispered. "The dun-

geons?" Dampness gleamed like phosphorus on the rough

walls and pooled among the lumpy stones of the floor.

 

Alde nodded and pointed down the corridor. "That way."

 

Rudy took one of the torches from her and held it low,

so as not to brush the stone ceiling with the flame. "These

were really the dungeons?"

 

"Oh, yes," the girl said softly. "Well, way back in former

days, of course. Every great House of the Realm kept its

own troops and had law over its own people. The High

Kings, the Kings at Gae, changed all that; any man can

appeal from a landchief's or a lord's court to the King's

now. That's for civil crimes, of course; the Church still

judges its own." She hesitated at a branching of the ways.

The dungeons were a black labyrinth of cramped wet pas-

sageways; Rudy wondered how she could be so confident.

"Down here, I think."

 

They passed along the narrow way, the light of their

torches touching briefly on shut doors, hewn heavy oak

strapped in bronze and iron, sometimes on a level with the

crude flagstones of the passage, sometimes sunk several

moss-slippery steps below it. Most of the doors were bolted,

a few sealed with ribbon and lead. One or two were bricked

up, with a hideous finality of judgment that made Rudy's

palms clammy. It was brought back to him that he was in

another universe, a world totally alien to his own, with its

own society, its own justice, and its own summary ways of

dealing with those who tried to buck the system.

 

Alde stumbled, catching at his arm for support. Stop-

ping to let her steady herself, Rudy felt the shifting, the

movement of the air, the smell that breathed on his face,

 

He could see nothing in the corridor ahead. The close-

 

hemmed walls narrowed to a rectangle of darkness that the

torchlight seemed unable to pierce, a darkness stirred by

wind and filled with a terrible waiting. Wind licked at the

flames of his torch, and he became suddenly aware of the

darkness filling the passage at his unprotected back. It

might have been only the overstretched tension of his

nerves, the strain of keeping his senses at fever-pitch for

endless nightmare hours—but he thought that he could see

movement in the darkness before him.

 

Half-paralyzed, he was surprised he could even whisper.

"We've got no business here, Alde," he murmured. "See if

you can find one of those doors that isn't locked."

 

He never took his eyes from the shadows. By the change

in the torchlight behind him, he knew she was edging

backward, checking door after door. The light of his own

torch seemed pitifully feeble against the pressing weight of

the darkness all around him. Then he heard her whisper,

"This one's bolted, not locked," and he moved back slowly

to join her.

 

The door stood at the bottom of three worn steps, nar-

row and forbidding, its massive bolts imbedded in six inches

of stone. Rudy handed Alde his torch and stepped down to

it, his soul shrinking from the trap of that narrow niche,

and used his sword to cut the ribbons that bound the great

lead seals to the iron. The metal was disused and stiff,

scraping in shrill, rusty protest as he worked back the bolt;

the hinges of the narrow door screaked horribly as he

pushed it ajar.

 

From what he could see in the diffuse glow from Alde's

torches, the place was empty, little more than a round hole

of darkness with a black, empty-eyed niche let into the far

wall and a small pile of moldy straw and bare, dusty bones.

The queer, sterile smell of the air repelled him, and he

stepped inside cautiously, straining his eyes to pierce the

intense gloom.

 

But even half-ready as he was, the rush of darkness

struck too swiftly for him to make a sound. Between one

heartbeat and the next, he was seized by the throat, and a

weight like the arm of death hurled him against the wall,

driving the breath from his body. His head hit the stone,

his yell of warning strangling under the crushing pressure

of a powerful forearm; he felt the sword wrenched from

his hand and the point of it prick his jugular. From the

 

darkness that closed him in, a voice whispered, "Don't

make a sound."

 

He knew that voice. He managed to croak, "Ingold?"

 

The strangling arm lessened its force against his wind-

pipe. He could see nothing in the darkness, but the texture

of the robe that brushed his hand was familiar. He swal-

lowed, trying to get his breath. "What are you doing here,

man?"

 

The wizard snorted. "At the risk of belaboring the ob-

vious, I am breaking jail, as your friends would so vulgarly

put it," the rusty, incisive voice snapped. "Is Gil with

you?"

 

"Gil?" He couldn't remember when he'd last seen Gil.

"No, I—Jesus, Ingold," Rudy whispered, feeling suddenly

very lost and alone.

 

Strengthening light shifted in the dark arch of the door,

shadows fleeing crazily over the uneven stone of the walls.

Minalde stepped through the door and stopped, her eyes

widening with surprise at the sight of the wizard. Then she

lowered her gaze, and a slow flush of shame scalded her

face, turning it pink to the hairline. She wavered, as if she

would flee into the corridor again, though she obviously

could not. In her confusion, she looked about to drop one

or both torches and plunge them all in darkness.

 

Rudy was still recovering from his surprise at this reac-

tion when the old man crossed the room to her and gently

took one of the flares from her hand. "My child," he said

to her softly, "a gentleman never remembers anything a

lady says to him in the heat of anger—or any other passion,

for that matter. Consider it forgotten."

 

This only served to make her blush redder. She tried to

turn away from him, but he caught her arm gently and

brushed aside the black cloak of her hair that half-hid the

silent infant slung at her breast. He touched the child's

head tenderly and looked back into the girl's eyes. There

was no tone of question in his voice when he said, "So they

have come, after all."

 

She nodded, and Ingold's lips tightened under the

scrubby forest of unkempt beard. As if reminded of their

danger, Alde slipped from his grasp, her hand going to the

door to close it.

 

Ingold said sharply, "Don't."

 

Her eyes went from him to Rudy, questioning, seeking

confirmation.

 

Ingold went on. "If you close that door it will disappear,

and we may all be locked in here forever." He gestured

toward the foot of the little wall-niche, where a skull stared

mournfully from the shadows. "There are spells laid on this

cell that even I could not work through."

 

"But the Dark are out there, Ingold," Rudy whispered.

"There must be hundreds of people dead in the villa up-

stairs—thousands in the square, in the woods. They're

everywhere, like ghosts. It's hopeless, we'll never . . ."

 

"There is always hope," the wizard said quietly. "With

the seals on the door of this cell, there was no way I could

have left it—but I knew that someone would come whom

I could overpower, if necessary. And someone did."

 

"Yeah, but that was just a—" Rudy hesitated over the

word. "A coincidence."

 

Ingold's eyes glinted with an echo of their old impish

light. "Don't tell me you still believe in coincidence,

Rudy." He handed back the sword. "You'll find a seal of

some kind hung over the bolts of the door. Remove it

and place it there in the niche for the time being. I'll shut

you in when I leave. Here, at least, in all the town of Karst,

you will be safe until I can return for you or send some-

one to get you out. It's drastic," he went on, seeing Min-

alde's eyes widen with fear, "but at least I can be sure the

Dark will not come here. Will you stay?"

 

Rudy glanced uneasily at Alde and at the skull in the

dark niche. "You mean," he asked warily, "once that door

is shut, we can't get out?"

 

"Precisely. The door is invisible from the inside."

 

Open, the door looked perfectly ordinary; it was the

shadow-haunted darkness of the corridor beyond that wor-

ried Rudy. The dim yellow torchlight edged the massive

iron of its bindings and revealed the roughness of the

ancient smoke-stained oak slabs. Wind stirring down the

corridor made the lead seal hanging from the bolts move,

as if with a restless life of its own. Rudy noticed that,

though Ingold stood close to the door, his torch upraised

in one hand, he would not touch it.

 

"Quickly," the wizard said. "We haven't much time."

 

"Rudy." Alde's voice was timid, her eyes huge in the

torchlight. "If I will be safe here—as safe as anywhere in

 

this town tonight—I would rather you went with Ingold.

In case something—happened—I'd feel better if two peo-

ple knew where we were, instead of only one."

 

Rudy shivered at the implications of that thought. "You

won't be afraid here alone?"

 

"Not any more afraid than I've been."

 

"Get the seal, then," Ingold said, "and let us go."

 

Rudy stepped gingerly to the door, the smoldering yel-

low light from within the cell illuminating the narrow slot

of the opening and no farther. The seal still dangled from

its cut black ribbons, a round plaque of dull lead that

seemed to absorb, rather than reflect, the light. It was

marked on either side with a letter of the Darwath alpha-

bet; as he reached to touch it, he found himself repelled by

a loathing he could put no name to. There was something

deeply frightening about the thing. "Can't we just leave it

here?"

 

"I cannot pass it," Ingold said simply.

 

The horror, the irrational vileness, concentrated in that

small gray bulla were such that Rudy never thought to

question him. He simply lifted the thing by its black rib-

bons and carried it at arm's length to throw deep into the

shadows of the niche. He noticed Alde had stepped back

as he'd passed with it, as if the aura radiated from it was

like the smell of evil.

 

Alde fitted the end of her torch into a crack in the stone-

work of the wall and turned back to him, cradling the child

in both arms.

 

"We'll send someone back for you," Rudy promised

softly. "Don't worry."

 

She shook her head and evaded Ingold's glance; the last

Rudy saw of her was a slender white figure cloaked in her

tangled hair, the child in her arms. The darkness of the

doorway framed them like a gilded votive in a shrine. Then

he shut the door and worked home the rusty iron of the

bolts.

 

"What was that thing?" he whispered, finding himself

unwilling even to touch the bolts where it had hung.

 

"It is the Rune of the Chain," Ingold said quietly, stand-

ing on the top of the worn steps to scan the corridor be-

yond. "The cell itself has Power worked into its walls, so

that no one within may find or open the door. With the

Rune of the Chain spelled against me, even if I could have

 

found the door, I could not have gone through. Presum-

ably I would have been left here until I could be formally

banished—or, just possibly, until I starved."

 

"They—couldn't do that, could they?" Rudy asked

queasily.

 

Ingold shrugged. "Who would have stopped them? Ordi-

narily, the wizards look out for their own, but the Arch-

mage has vanished, and the City of Wizards lies sunk in

the rings of its own enchantments. I am very much on my

own." Seeing the look on Rudy's face, compounded of hor-

ror and shocked proprieties, Ingold smiled, and some of the

grimness left his eyes. "But, as you see, I would have gotten

out, magic or no magic. I am glad that you brought Alde

and the baby with you. It was by far the best thing you

could have done. Here, at least, they will be safe from the

Dark."

 

He raised his torch, the sickly glow of it barely penetrat-

ing the obscurity of the passage. "This way," he decided,

indicating the direction in which Rudy and Alde had been

headed before.

 

"Hey," Rudy said softly as they started down that dark

and wind-stirred corridor. The wizard glanced back over

his shoulder. "What was that all about with her?"

 

Ingold shrugged. "At our last meeting the young lady

threatened to kill me—the reason isn't important. She may

repent the sentiments or merely the social gaffe. If one is

going to ..."

 

And then a sound rocked the vaults, a deep, hollow

booming, like the blow of a monster fist, and the shock of

it shivered in the very walls. Ingold paused in his stride, his

eyes narrowing to a burning glitter of concentration as he

listened; then he was striding down the corridor, Rudy fol-

lowing behind with drawn sword. As they turned the corner,

Rudy saw the wizard shift the torch in his hands, and the

rough wood seemed to elongate into a six-foot staff, the fire

at its tip swelling and whitening to the diamond brilliance

of a magnesium torch, searing like a crystal vibration into

every crack of those stained and ancient walls. Holding

the blazing staff half like a lamp, half like a weapon, the

wizard moved ahead of him, shabby cloak billowing in his

wake like wings. Rudy hurried after, the darkness falling

back all around them and closing in behind.

 

Somewhere very close to them, a second blow resounded,

 

shaking the stone under their feet like the smash of a piston

driven by an insanely giant machine. Cold and hollow with

hunger and fatigue, Rudy wondered shakily if they'd be

killed, but the thought of it was strangely impersonal. Cor-

ridors converged, widening the darkness where they trod;

he could now smell water and mold, and all around them

the stone-acid stink of the dark. Somewhere, all that was

left of the mob who had taken refuge in Alwir's villa—the

handful of Guards and the scarlet Church troops, the fat

man with his garden rake and the young woman with her

attendant mob of children, and all the other faces that had

swum in the glaring maelstrom abovestairs—were cowering

in the dark, jumping shadows of the vaults, watching with

horrified eyes the might of the Dark Ones hammering the

barred iron doors, the only line of defense, from their mas-

sive hinges.

 

The might of the Dark! Rudy felt it, like a blow in the

face, as the third explosion rocked the foundations of the

villa; he felt the contraction of the air, and the evil intel-

ligence watching them as they passed. The winds had begun

to whip through the passageways like the rising forerun-

ners of a gale, fluttering in Ingold's mantle and twisting at

his own long hair. The light from the staff in the wizard's

hand broadened to a blaze like hot noon, scorching out the

secrets of the darkness, and in its blinding glare they turned

a corner into a major thoroughfare and saw through the

heavy shadows that blotted the air like smoke the great

doors that lay at the end.

 

Though Rudy could see no single form, no shape in the

darkness, he sensed the malevolence that beat the air with

the movement of a thousand threshing wings. Their power

seemed to stretch across the corridor like a wall; beyond it,

barely visible in the clotted shadows, he could see the broad

line of torchlight under the barred doors. There were no

sounds from the people behind those doors. Those who

had made it to that last covert in the vaults faced the Dark

in silence.

 

He felt the change in the Dark, the sudden surge of that

terrible alien power, and the thunder of that explosive

sound roared in his ears as he saw the doors buckle and

collapse, breaking inward in a flying hurricane of splinter-

ing wood. Sickly failing torchlight showed him faces beyond

 

the broken doors and silhouetted smoky forms taking sud-

den shape in the darkness.

 

Into that darkness Ingold flung himself without so much

as breaking stride, the cold light hurling around him like

the explosion of a bursting star. Rudy followed, clinging to

the light as to a mantle, and for one brief, terrible instant

it seemed that the darkness streamed back on them, cover-

ing and smothering that brilliant burning light.

 

Whether it was exhaustion playing tricks on his mind or

some magic of the Dark, Rudy did not know. He did not

think he had shifted or closed his eyes and knew he hadn't

looked away. But for one instant, there was the darkness,

pouring down over the light. And the next moment, there

was only light, white and chill, surrounding the strong,

shabby form of the old man who stalked down that empty

corridor. Streaming through the broken doors, the white

light fell on waxy, pinched faces, was reflected from terri-

fied eyes, and edged the steel in the hands of the thin line

of troops stretched between the packed mob of surviving

refugees and the doors. Then the light faded, shrinking

naturally from the blinding glow to the yellow splotch of

simple torch flame.

 

Rudy knew that the Dark were gone. He sensed it in

some way he could not be sure of. There were none in the

vaults, none left in the villa over their heads. Following

Ingold down toward the doors, their footfalls echoing hol-

lowly in the empty shadows of the corridor, he could feel

the emptiness stretching around and behind him into the

darkness. Whether the Dark had drawn off before the wiz-

ard's wrath or simply faded away, sated with their night's

kill, he didn't know. In a way it didn't matter. All that

mattered was that they were gone. He was safe. He had

survived the night.

 

At the realization of it, a weariness came over him, as

if all strength had been suddenly drained from his body.

He stumbled and caught the wall for support. Ingold moved

on to the broken threshold, where three figures had de-

tached themselves from the line of Guards and stood

framed in the ruin of wood and iron. Under the filth and

slime of battle, Rudy recognized Alwir, Janus, and Bishop

Govannin.

 

Without a word, the Commander of the Guards of Gae

stepped forward, dropped to one knee before the wizard,

 

and kissed his scarred hand. At this gesture of fealty the

Chancellor and the Bishop exchanged a glance of enig-

matic distrust and disapproval over the Guard's bowed

back. The echoes of the empty corridor murmured back

the Commander's words: "We thought you'd gone."

 

Ingold touched the man's bent red head, then raised

him, his eyes on Alwir's. "I swore I would see Tir to a

place of safety," he replied calmly, "and so I will No, I

had not gone. I was merely—imprisoned."

 

"Imprisoned?" Janus' thick brows met over russet, an-

imal eyes. "On whose orders?"

 

"The detention order was unsigned," the wizard said in

his mildest voice. "Merely sealed with the King's mark.

Anyone who had access to it could have done so." The light

of the guttered torch in his hand flared in the hollows of

exhaustion-shadowed eyes. "The cell was sealed with the

Rune of the Chain."

 

"The use of such things is illegal," Govannin com-

mented, folding thin arms like a skeleton's, her black, lizard

eyes expressionless. "And it would have been a fool's act

to order such a thing at such a time."

 

Alwir shook his head. "I certainly sealed no such order,"

he said in a puzzled voice. "As for the Rune— There was

said to be one somewhere in the treasuries of the Palace at

Gae, but I always thought it merely a legend. I am only

thankful that you seem to have effected your escape in

time to come to our aid. Your arrest was obviously a mis-

take on someone's part."

 

The wizard's gaze went from the Chancellor's face to

the Bishop's, but all he said was, "Obviously."

 

Much later in the morning, Rudy backtracked their steps

to the doorless cell, empty now and standing open, with

the intention of taking that dark seal and dropping it quietly

down a well. But, though he found the place all right, and

searched through the dusty bones of the niche, someone

else had clearly been there before him, for he could find

no trace of it anywhere.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

"Will she be all right?"

 

"If the arm doesn't fester."

 

The voices came distinctly to Gil, like something heard

in a dream; as in a dream, she could identify them without

being clearly able to say why. As if she lay at the bottom

of a well, she could look up and see, a long way away, the

tall shape of Alwir, blotting the sun like a cloud; beside

him was the Icefalcon, light and cool as wind. But the water

of the well she lay in was pain; crystal-clear, shimmering,

acid pain.

 

Alwir's melodious voice went on. "If it festers she'll lose

it."

 

And the Icefalcon asked, "Where's Ingold?"

 

"Who knows? His talent is for timely disappearances."

 

Curse him, Gil thought blindly. Curse him, curse him,

curse him . . . Alwir moved away, and a bar of sunlight

fell on her eyes, like the stab of a knife. She twisted her

head convulsively aside, and the movement wrenched at

the sodden mass of pain wrapped around the bones of her

left arm. She wept in agony and despair.

 

In her delirium she dreamed, and in her dream she saw

him. From the dark place where she stood, she could look

into her lighted kitchen, back in the apartment on Clarke

Street; a stale litter of old coffee cups and papers was on

the table, and the half-finished research was strewn about

the room like blown leaves in autumn. It seemed as if she

had only to step down to reach it, as if a few strides would

take her from this place to home, to the university, to the

 

quiet life of scholarship and the friends and security of

her own time and place. Dimly she heard the phone ring-

ing there and knew it was one of her women friends call-

ing, as they had been calling for two days now. They would

be worried—soon they would begin to search. The thought

of their pain and fear for her hurt Gil almost as much as

her injured arm, and she tried to go into the kitchen to

answer the phone, but she found that Ingold stood in her

way. Hooded, his sword gleaming like foxfire, he rose be-

fore her, a dark shape blown and wavering on the wind.

No matter how she turned and shifted, he was always in

her way, always turning her back. She began to cry, "Let

me go! Let me go!" in helpless fury. Then wind caught at

him, swirling his brown mantle into a black cloud of shad-

ow, and in his place a Dark One rode the twisting air. She

tried to run, and it was upon her; she tried to fight with the

sword she suddenly found in her hands, but as she cut at

it, its huge, slobbering mouth snatched at her, leaving a

trail of acid down her arm that seared into the flesh until

she cried out in pain.

 

She saw her arm, bone and torn flesh, then. She saw the

hand that touched it, molding and kneading at the ripped

ruin of muscle. In her dreaming, she was reminded of a

man molding putty or seaming together colored clays. It

was Ingold's hand, nicked and marked with old scars, and

calloused from the grip of a sword—and there he was, tired

and shabby, eyes bright in circles of black exhaustion. She

struck at him with her good hand, sobbing weak obscen-

ities at him because he wouldn't let her go back, because

he had trapped her here, cursing him and fighting against

his strong, sure touch. Then that part of the dream faded

also, and utter darkness took her.

 

From the Town Hall steps, Rudy watched what re-

mained of the powers in the Realm coming to council. It

was early afternoon now, and bleak clouds had begun to

gray the light of the day, piling heavily over the moun-

tains like the threat of doom. He had eaten, slept, and

helped the Guards and those survivors of last night's hor-

rors who were still capable of directed action in the grue-

some task of cleaning the bloodless corpses and stripped

bones out of the gory mud of the square. Now he was cold,

weary, and sickened in his soul. Even with the worst of the

 

mess—the hopeless, twisted wrecks that had once been

living people—out of the way, the square wore a look of

absolute desolation. Strewn and trampled in the mud were

the pitiful remains of flight—clothes, cook pots, books torn

and sodden with mud, salvage from Gae whose owners

would have no further use for it. During burial detail that

morning, Rudy had found what he judged to be a small

fortune in jewels, mixed with the churned slush in the

square—precious things dropped unheeded in last night's

desperate, futile scramble for refuge.

 

Karst was a town of the dead. People moved about its

streets blindly, stumbling with weariness or shock or grief.

Half-heard through the town, the muffled wailing of sobs

was as prevalent today as the woodsmoke and stench had

been yesterday. The places that had been so crowded were

three-quarters empty. People passed in the streets on their

blind errands and looked at one another, but did not ask,

because they did not dare, What now?

 

Good question, Rudy thought dryly.

 

What now, when the Dark Ones were everywhere, when

he was an exile in an alien universe, hiding and dodging

until something—the Dark, the cold, starvation, the plague,

or whatever—got him before he could make it back to the

safety of his own? And who knew how long that was going

to be? Maybe even Ingold didn't. Anyway, what if some-

body jailed Ingold again, and this time nobody came? Or

what if somebody jailed him? It was possible—he was a

stranger, unfamiliar with the customs, ignorant of the laws

that could get him dumped into one of those bricked-up

slammers he'd passed last night. Hell, he didn't even know

the language, if anyone wanted to get technical about it.

 

Rudy was well aware that he hadn't spoken a word of

English since he'd been here. How he understood, let alone

spoke, the Wathe, the common tongue of the Realm, he

wasn't even prepared to guess. But Ingold had said some-

thing about arranging it, back in California when he'd still

regarded the old man as a harmless lunatic. Rudy guessed

that was damn big medicine for somebody Alwir talked

about as a kind of conjuring tramp.

 

He saw Ingold and Alwir crossing the square together,

an uneasy partnership for sure. The Chancellor was strid-

ing amid the swirl of his flame-cut crimson cloak, rubies

glittering like blood on the doeskin of his gloves; Ingold

 

walked beside him, leaning on his staff like a tired old

man. God knew how, but the wizard had reacquired both

staff and sword.

 

His voice, strong and raspy with that characteristic

velvet break in its tone, drifted to Rudy as the two men

mounted the steps. ". . . staring us in the face, all of us.

Our way of life, our entire world, is changed, and we

would be fools to deny it. All the structures of power

are altered, and by no kind of machinations, magic, might,

or faith can we keep what we have held."

 

Alwir's deep, mellow tones replied. "And you, my friend.

Wizardry has failed, too. Where is your Archmage now?

And the Council of Quo? That boasted magic . . ."

 

They passed within, the crimson shape and the brown.

He's got a point there, Rudy thought tiredly. I may be

ignorant, but I'm not dumb. As a refugee camp or a rally-

ing-point for civilization, this burg has had it. He surveyed

the silent square. Yesterday real estate could have been

sold here at fifty dollars a square foot. It was a bust mar-

ket now, the mud compounded of earth, rain and spent

blood.

 

He recognized some of the others coming across the

square, making for the council meeting. They were the

nobles or notables of the Realm whom people had pointed

out to him—Christ, was it only yesterday?—as he'd

bummed around Karst, not a care in the world, checking

out the lay of the land. He recognized a couple of the

landchiefs of the Realm who'd ridden up to Gae to aid

the late King and subsequently refugeed to Karst—a

young blond surfer-type and a big, scarred old buffer who

looked like John Wayne playing the Sheriff of Notting-

ham—Janus of the Guards, in a clean black uniform but

beat-up as an Irish cop after a Friday night donnybrook,

with a black eye and a red welt down the side of his face;

the Bishop Govannin, leaning on the arm of an attendant

priest; and a couple of depressed-looking local merchants

who'd been trading off a black market in food and water

while there was still a shortage to kick up the prices.

 

Rudy glanced at the angle of the shadow cast by the

fountain. The council could last most of the afternoon—

they had to figure out their next course of action before

night fell again. Rudy wondered if he could catch up with

Ingold after it was over, maybe see if there were some way

 

he could get back without letting all the Dark Ones in

 

the world through the Void after him. Maybe the Arch-

mage, Lohiro of Quo, would have some ideas on that—

he was, after all, Ingold's superior—if they could find the

guy, that is.

 

But then he caught sight of a familiar face across the

square, and the thought dropped from his mind. She wore

black velvet now instead of the plain white gown of yester-

day; with her hair braided and coiled in elaborate gleam-

ing loops, she looked a few years older. She reminded him

of a young apple tree in its first blossom, delicate and

poised and graceful as a dancer.

 

He got to his feet and came down the steps to her. "I

see you're all right," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't come

back for you myself, but at that point all I wanted to do

was find some quiet corner and fall asleep in it."

 

She smiled shyly at him. "It's all right. The men Alwir

sent had no trouble finding the place. And after all you'd

done last night, I think I would have been ashamed of

myself if you'd lost sleep to come after me and make sure

I didn't get into any more trouble." She looked tired and

strained, more fragile than she had last night; Rudy felt

he could have picked her up in one hand. She went on.

"I owe you my life, and Tir's twice over."

 

"Yeah, well, I still say it was a crazy stunt to pull in

the first place. I ought to have my head examined for

going after you."

 

"I said once before you were brave." She smiled, teasing.

"You can't deny it now."

 

"Like hell." Rudy grinned.

 

The corners of the girl's blue-violet eyes crinkled with

laughing skepticism. "Even when you followed me up the

stairs?"

 

"Oh, hell, I couldn't let you go by yourself." He looked

down at her gravely for a moment, remembering the terror

of that wind-searched open gallery and the stygian mazes

of the vaults. "You must care a lot for the kid, to go back

for him that way."

 

She took his hand, her fingers slim and warm in the

brief touch. "I do," she said simply. "Tir is my son. If I

alone had died last night, it might have made no difference

to anyone, anymore. But I shall always thank you for sav-

ing him."

 

She turned and mounted the steps, moving with a

dancer's quicksilver lightness. The Guards at the door

bowed to her in an elaborate salute as she passed between

them, and she vanished into the shadows of the great doors,

leaving Rudy standing open-mouthed with astonishment

in the mud of the square.

 

The Guards' Court at the back of the town had once

been the stableyard of some great villa. To Gil's trained

eye, the overly intricate coats of arms over gatehouse and

window-embrasure whispered of new money and the vast

inferiority complex of the parvenu. In the cold afternoon

light, most of the court was visible from where she lay on

a scratchy bed of hay and borrowed cloaks, aching with

weariness and the aftermath of pain, looking out from

the dim blue shadows of the makeshift barracks.

 

Daylight wasn't kind to the place. The lean-to that ran

around three sides of the stone courtyard wall had been

roughly converted into barracks, and the mail, weapons,

and bedrolls of some seventy Guards were heaped hap-

hazardly among the bales of. fodder. The mud in the

center of the court was slippery and rank. In a corner

by a fountain, someone was cooking oatmeal, and the drift

of smoke on the wind cut at Gil's eyes. In the mucky

space of open ground, thirty or so Guards were engaged

in practice, muddy to the eyebrows.

 

But they were good. Even to Gil's inexperienced eye,

their quickness and balance were obvious; they were pro-

fessional warriors, an elite corps. Lying here, as she had

lain most of the day, she had seen them come in from

duty; she knew that all of them had fought last night and,

like her, bore the wounds of it. She had noticed in the

confusion of last night that very few of the dead were

Guards, and now she saw why; the speed, stamina, and

unthinking reactions were trained into them until the

downward slash-duck-parry motion of attack and defense

was as automatic as jerking a burned finger from flame.

They trained with split wood blades like the Japanese

shinai, weapons that would neither cut nor maim but

which left appalling bruises—nobody was armored and

there wasn't a shield in the place. Gil watched them with an

awe that came from the glimmerings of understanding.

 

"What do you think?" a cool voice asked. Looking up,

 

she saw the Icefalcon standing beside her, indistinct in the

 

murky shade.

 

"About that?" She gestured toward the moving figures

and the distant clacking of wooden blade on blade. He

nodded, pale eyes aloof. "You need it, don't you, to be

perfect," she said, watching the quick grace of the warriors

that was almost a dance. "And that's what it is. Perfect."

 

The Icefalcon shrugged, but his eyes had a speculative

gleam in their silvery depths. "If you have only one blow,"

he remarked, "it had better be perfect. How's your arm?"

 

She shook her head wearily, not wanting to think about

the pain. "It was stupid," she said. The bandages showed

a kind of grubby brown through the torn, ruined sleeve

of the shirt that had been part of a corpse's gown. "I was

tired; it shouldn't have happened."

 

The tall young man leaned against the wall and hooked

his thumbs in his swordbelt in a gesture common to the

Guards. "You didn't do badly," he told her. "You have

a knack, a talent that way. I personally didn't think you'd

make it past the first fight. Novices don't. You have the

instinct to kill."

 

"What?" she exclaimed, more startled than horrified,

though on reflection she supposed she should have been

more horrified than she was.

 

"I mean it," the Icefalcon said in that colorless, breathy

voice. "Among my people that is a compliment. To kill

is to survive the fight. To kill is to want very much to live."

He glanced out into the gray afternoon, his long, thin

hands folding over his propped knee. "In the Realm they

consider that such ideas are crazy. Perhaps your people do,

too. So they say that the Guards are crazy; and by their

lights, perhaps they are right."

 

Perhaps, Gil thought. Perhaps.

 

It would look that way from the outside, certainly. That

striving, that need, was seldom understood, any more than

Rudy had understood why she would turn away from her

home and family for the sake of the terrible and abstract

joys of scholarship. In its way, it was the same kind of

craziness.

 

A little, bald-headed man was moving through the mazes

of the combatants, watching everything with beady, elf-

bright brown eyes. He stopped just behind Seya, scratching

his close-clipped brown beard and observing her efforts

 

against another Guard of about her size and weight. She

cut and parried; as she moved forward for another blow,

he stepped in lightly and hooked both her legs from

under her, dumping her unceremoniously in the mud.

"Stronger stance," he cautioned her, then turned and

walked away. Seya climbed slowly to her feet, wiped the

goop from her face, and went back to her bout.

 

"There are very few," the Icefalcon's soft voice went on,

"who understand this. Very few who have this instinct for

life, this understanding for the fire of perfection. Perhaps

that is why there have always been very few Guards." He

glanced down at her, the light shifting across the narrow

bones of his face. "Would you be a Guard?"

 

Gil felt the slow flush of blood rise to her face and the

quickening of her pulse. She waited a long time before

she answered him. "You mean, stay here and be a Guard?"

 

"We are very short of Guards."

 

She was silent again, though a kind of eager tension

wired its way into her muscles and a confusion into her

heart. She watched the little, bearded, bald man in the

square step unconcernedly between swinging blades to

double up a tall Guard with a blow in mid-stroke, step

lightly back with almost preternatural timing, and go on

to correct his next victim. Finally she said, "I can't."

 

"Indeed," was all the Icefalcon said.

 

"I'm going back. To my own land."

 

He looked down at her and raised one colorless brow.

 

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

 

"Gnift will also be sorry, to hear that," the Icefalcon

said.

 

"Gnift?"

 

He gestured toward the bald man in the square. "He is

the instructor of the Guards. He watched you in the

vaults at Gae and last night. He says you could be good."

 

She shook her head. "If I stayed," she said, "it would

only be a matter of time until I died."

 

"It is always," the Icefalcon remarked, "only a matter

of time. But you are right." He looked up as another

shadow loomed beneath the low, shingled roof.

 

"Hey, Gil." Rudy took a seat on the hay bale beside

her. "They said you were hurt. Are you okay?"

 

She shrugged, the movement making her wince in spite

of herself. "I'll live." In the dimness Rudy looked shabby

 

and seedy, his painted jacket a ruin of mud and charred

 

slime, his long hair grubby with sweat, though he'd man-

aged to come up with a razor from someplace and was no

longer as unshaven as he'd been yesterday. Still, she re-

flected, she couldn't look much better.

 

"Their council meeting's broken up," he informed her,

scanning the wet, dreary court before him with interested

eyes. "I figure Ingold should be around someplace, and

it's high time we talked to him about going back."

 

Across the court a small group emerged from the shad-

ows of the tall gatehouse. Alwir, Govannin of Gae, Janus

of the Guards, and the big, scarred landchief someone

had said was Tomec Tirkenson, landchief of Gettlesand in

the southwest. The Chancellor's cloak made a great bloody

smear of crimson against the grayness of the murky day,

and his rich voice carried clearly to the three in the shad-

ows of the barracks: ". . . woman will believe anything,

rather than that she left her own child to die. I am not say-

ing that he did substitute another child for the Prince, if

the Prince were killed by the Dark—only that he could

have done so easily."

 

"To what end?" the Bishop asked, in that voice like the

bones of some animal, bleached by desert sun. Under the

white of the bandage, Janus' face reddened. Even at that

distance, Gil could catch the dangerous gleam in that

rufous bear-man's eyes.

 

Alwir shrugged. "What end indeed?" he said casually.

"But the man who saved the Prince would have far

greater prestige than the man who failed to save him,

especially since it is becoming obvious that his magic has

little effect upon the Dark. A Queen's gratitude can go

far in establishing a man's position in a new government.

Counselor of the Realm is quite a step for a man who

started life as a slave in Alketch."

 

Anger flaring clearly in his face, Janus began to speak,

but at that instant the Icefalcon, who had detached himself

from the shed and made his way unhurriedly over to the

group, touched the Commander's sleeve and turned his

attention from what could have been a dangerous moment.

They spoke quietly, Alwir and Govannin listening with

mild curiosity. Gil saw the Icefalcon's long, thin hand

move in her direction.

 

Alwir raised graceful eyebrows. "Going back?" he asked,

 

surprised, his deep, melodious voice carrying clearly across

the open court. "This is not what I have been told."

 

There was no need to ask of whom they spoke. Gil felt

herself grow cold with shock. She threw off the cloaks

under which she lay and got to her feet, crossing the court

to them stiffly, her arm throbbing at every step. Alwir saw

her and waited, a look of thoughtful calculation in the

cornflower depths of his eyes.

 

"What have you been told?" Gil asked.

 

The eyebrows lifted again, and the cool gaze took her in,

shabby and dirty and bedraggled beside his immaculate

height, wordlessly expressing regret at the type of people

Ingold chose as friends. "That Ingold cannot, or will not,

let you return to your own land. Surely he spoke to you of

it."

 

"Why not?" Rudy demanded. He had come hurrying,

unnoticed, in Gil's wake.

 

Alwir shrugged. "Ask him. If he is still in Karst, that

is—sudden arrivals and departures are his specialty. I have

seen nothing of him since he left the meeting, quite some

tune ago."

 

"Where is he?" Gil asked quietly. It was the first time

she had spoken with Alwir, the first time, in fact, that

she could remember the tall Chancellor taking even a pass-

ing notice of her, though there was an uneasiness in her

mind associated with him, quite apart from her suspicions

about who had ordered Ingold's arrest.

 

"My child, I haven't the slightest idea."

 

"He's been staying in the gatehouse," landchief Tirken-

son grunted, his big, grimy hand gesturing toward the

narrow fortification that overspanned the court gate. "I

haven't heard he's left town yet."

 

Gil turned on her heel, making for the tiny door of the

gatehouse stair without a word.

 

"Gil-shalos!" Alwir's voice called her back. In spite of

herself, she stopped, compelled by the command in his

tone. She found she was breathing fast, as if she had been

running. Wind stirred the tall man's cloak, and the blood

rubies glittered on his hands. "No doubt he will have good

reasons for what he does—he always does, my child. But

beware of him. What he does, he does for his own pur-

poses."

 

Gil met Alwir's eyes for the first time, as if she had never

 

before seen his face clearly, studying the proud, sensual

features as if she would memorize them, the droop of the

carved lips that showed his disdain for those beneath him,

the arrogance in the set of the jaw, and the ruthless selfish-

ness in the glint of the eyes. She found herself shivering

with a pent-up rage, and her hands remembered their grip

on the hilt of a sword. "All men have their purposes, my

lord Alwir," she said quietly. She swung about and left

him, with Rudy following.

 

Alwir watched them go, vanishing into the black slit

of the gatehouse door. He recognized Gil's hatred for what

it was, but he was used to the hatred of his inferiors. He

shook his head sadly and dismissed her from his mind.

 

Neither Gil nor Rudy spoke as they climbed the black,

twisting stair. It led them to a room, hardly wider than a

hallway, situated over the gate itself; warped windows of

bull's-eye glass admitted only the cool whiteness of the

light and blurred swimming impressions of color and shape.

The place had been built as the quarters for the gate

porter, but was now used for the storage of the Guards'

food. Sacks of flour and oatmeal lined the walls like sand-

bags on a levee, alternating with wax-covered wheels of

scarlet cheese. Over a low pile of such provisions at the

far end of the room a blanket and a fur rug had been

thrown; a small bundle of oddments, including a clean

robe, a book, and a pair of knitted blue mittens, was rolled

up at the foot of this crude bed. Ingold sat in the room's

single chair next to the south window, as unmoving as

stone. The cold white windowlight made him look like a

black and white photograph, etched mercilessly the deep

lines of age and wear that ran back from the corners of

his heavy-lidded eyes to his shaggy temples, and marked

with little nicks of shadow the scars on his hands.

 

Gil started to speak, then saw that he was looking into

a jewel that he had set down on the windowsill, staring

into the gem's central facet as if seeking some image in

the heart of the crystal.

 

He looked up at them and smiled. "Come in," he invited.

 

They picked their way cautiously through the clutter of

the room to the small patch of clear floor space by the

wizard's bed. They found seats on sacks and firkins.

 

Gil said, "Alwir tells me you're not sending us back."

 

Ingold sighed but did not look away from the bitter

 

challenge in her face. "I'm afraid he's right."

 

She drew in a deep breath, pain, fear, and dread twisting

together within her. Crushing emotion under an inner

silence that she could not afford to break, she asked quietly,

"Ever?"

 

"Not for some months," the wizard said.

 

Her breath leaked out again, the slow release of it

easing nothing. "Okay." She rose to go.

 

His hand closed over her wrist like a snake striking.

"Sit down," he said softly. She tried to pull her arm away,

without replying, but his hand was very strong. "Please."

She turned back, cold and angry; then looking down she

saw something in his blue eyes that she'd never expected to

see—that he was hurt by her anger. It shook her to the

heart. "Please, Gil."

 

She stood apart from him for a moment, drawn back

to the length of her arm. His fingers were locked around

her wrist as if he feared that if he released her, he might

never see her again. And maybe, Gil thought, he'd be

right. She saw again the vision of her delirium: warm,

bright images of some other life, another world, friends

and the scholarship she had hoped to make her life, dis-

tant from her and guarded by some dark, terrible form that

might have been the Dark and might have been Ingold; she

saw projects, plans, research, and relationships falling into

a chasm of absence, beyond her power to repair. Rage filled

her like dry, silent heat.

 

Behind her, Rudy said uneasily, "Months is a long time

to play tag with the Dark, man."

 

"I'm sorry," Ingold said, but his eyes were on Gil.

 

Trembling with the effort, she let go of the rage. With-

out it to sustain her, all the tension left her body. In-

gold drew her gently to sit on the bed beside him. She did

not resist.

 

"I should have spoken to you before the council," In-

gold said quietly. "I was afraid that this would happen."

 

Gil still could say nothing, but Rudy ventured, "You

said something about that yesterday morning, when you

were taking off for Gae with the Guards. About how, if

the Dark showed up, we maybe couldn't get back."

 

"I did," Ingold said. "I feared this all along. I told

you once before, Gil, that our worlds lie very close. Close-

 

enough for a dreamer to step inadvertently across the line,

as you did. Close enough for me to step quickly from one

world to the next, like a man stepping behind the folds

of a curtain. In time this closeness will become less, as

the conjunction between worlds comes to its end. At that

tune, Dark or no Dark, it will be safe enough for me to

send you back through.

 

"I am aware of the Void, always and subliminally, as I

am aware of the weather. The first time I crossed it, to

speak to you in your apartment, I was aware of a weaken-

ing all through its fabric in the vicinity of the gate, that

I had made. Even then, I began to fear. The Dark Ones do

not understand the Void, but I think then they were first

aware that it exists. And after that, they watched. The

second time I crossed, escaping the battle in the Palace at

Gae, I felt the single Dark One follow me across. The

opening that I made caused a whole series of breaks in the

Void. Most of them would not have admitted a human, but

the Dark, with their different material being, were able

to use at least one. That was why I tried to get you away

from the cabin, Gil. But naturally, you were both too

stubborn to go."

 

"I was stubborn?" Gil began indignantly. "You were the

one who was stubborn ..."

 

"Hey, if you'd told me the truth, man . . ."

 

"I did tell you the truth," the wizard said to Rudy. "You

simply didn't believe me."

 

"Yeah, well. . ." His grumbles trailed off into silence.

 

Ingold went on. "I felt that sending you back yesterday

would be marginally safe, with the Dark Ones fifteen miles

off in Gae. But now it's out of the question. The single

Dark One who crossed with me increased their awareness

of the Void. And they know, now, that humans exist in the

world on the other side."

 

"How do you figure that?" The barrel staves creaked as

Rudy changed position, bringing his feet up to sit cross-

legged, leaning acid-stained elbows on his knees. "The

one that followed you got fried on the other side. He never

made it back to report."

 

"He didn't have to." Ingold turned to Gil. "You saw

last night how the Dark Ones fight, the speed with which

their bodies maneuver and change position. How the com-

munication between them works I'm not sure, but what

 

one learns, I believe, they all then know. If we weaken the

fabric of the Void, so that several of them pass through

behind you and Rudy—if, as I suspect it may be, their

knowledge of events is simultaneous rather than cumula-

tive—it would be only a matter of time before they learned

to operate the gates through the Void themselves.

 

"As Guardian of the Void, I am responsible. At this

time, I cannot endanger your world by sending you back."

 

In the silence that followed his words, the drift of

Janus' voice from the court below was faintly audible,

along with the clear metallic tap of hooves on cobbles.

Somewhere a dog barked. The light in the room faded as

twilight drew down on the stricken town.

 

Rudy asked, "So what can we do?"

 

"Wait," Ingold said. "Wait until the turn of the winter,

when our worlds will have drawn apart far enough to per-

mit safe crossing. Or wait until I can speak with the Arch-

mage Lohiro."

 

Gil looked up. "You've talked about him before."

 

The wizard nodded. "He is the Master of the Council of

Quo, the leader of all the world's wizardry. His under-

standing is different from mine and his power greater.

If anyone can help us, he can.

 

"Before the Dark Ones broke forth at Gae, before the

night I spoke with you, Gil, I spoke with Lohiro. He told

me that the Council of Wizards, and indeed all the mages

of the West of the World, were coming together at Quo.

Wizardry is knowledge. Piecing together all wizardry, all

knowledge, all power, we might come to a way to defeat

the Dark. And until that time, he said, 'I shall ring Quo

in the walls of air, and make of it a fortress that no dark-

ness can pierce. Here we shall be safe, and from this

fortress, my friend, we shall come in light.' " As he quoted

these words, Ingold's eyes lost some of their sharpness, and

his voice shifted, picking up the inflection and tone of

another man's voice.

 

"And since that tune, my children, I have heard noth-

ing. I have sought . . ." He touched the crystal that lay

on the sill next to his elbow, and its facets flashed dimly

in the light. "At times I think I can make out the shape

of the hills above the town, or the outlines of Forn's Tower

rising through the mists. But I have had no word, not from

Lohiro nor from any of the wizards. They are surrounded

 

in spells, ringed in illusion. And so they must be sought—

 

and only a wizard can seek them."

 

Gil said softly, "Then you'll be leaving us?"

 

Ingold's eyes flickered back to her, growing brighter

and more present again. "Not at once," he said. "But we

will be leaving Karst. At dawn tomorrow, Alwir is leading

the people south to the old Keep of Dare at Renweth on

Sarda Pass. You may have heard us speak of it in council—

it was the old fortress-hold built against the Dark by the

men of the Old Realms, many thousands of years ago, at

the time of the Dark's first rising. It will be a long trek,

and a hard one. But at Renweth you will be safe, as safe

as you would be anywhere in this world.

 

"I shall be going with the train to Renweth. Though I

am no longer considered a member of the Regents, I am

still held to the vow I made Eldor before his death. I prom-

ised to see Prince Tir to a place of safety and that I will

and must do, whether Alwir wishes me to or not. I am

afraid, my children, that you have leagued yourselves with

an outcast."

 

"Alwir can go to hell," Gil said shortly.

 

Ingold shook his head. "The man has his uses," he

said. "But he finds me—unbiddable. On the road to Ren-

weth, Tir will be in constant danger from the Dark. I

cannot leave him. But Renweth will be, for me, only a

stopping place, the first stage of a greater journey."

 

"Well, look," Rudy said after a moment's thought. "If

we went with you to Quo, couldn't you send us back from

there? If it's so safe, it would be the one place where the

Dark Ones couldn't get through."

 

"True," Ingold agreed. "If you made it to Quo. I wouldn't

recommend the trip. In the height of the Realm's power,

few people would venture to cross the plain and the desert

in winter. It's close to two thousand miles, through desolate

lands. In addition to the Dark, we would be in danger from

the White Raiders, the barbarian tribesmen who have

waged bloody war on the outposts of the Realm for cen-

turies."

 

"But you're going," Rudy pointed out.

 

Ingold's blunt, scarred fingers toyed with the crystal on

the windowsill. "And you might be safe, traveling with me.

But believe me, your chances of seeing your own world

again are far greater if you remain in the Keep of Dare."

 

Gil was silent, her bony hands folded on her knee,

staring into the murky gloom of the gatehouse. She tried

to picture that fortress among the mountains, tried to pic-

ture weeks and months there alone, knowing no one,

isolated as she had always been isolated. Her jaw tightened.

"You will come back for us, though, won't you?"

 

"I brought you into this world against your will," Ingold

said quietly. He laid his hands over hers, the warmth of

his touch going through her, warming her, as it always did,

by its vitality. "If for no other reason than that, I am

responsible for you. Lohiro may have a better answer than

I can give you. It may even be that he will be able to re-

turn with me to the Keep."

 

"Yeah," Rudy said dubiously. "But what if you can't

find the wizards? What if they're locked up so tight even

you can't get in? What if— Suppose the Archmage is

dead?" He hadn't wanted to say it, since Ingold seemed to

be operating on the assumption that Lohiro was alive, but

Ingold's frown was one of consideration rather than of

anxiety or annoyance.

 

"It's a possibility," Ingold said slowly. "I had thought

of it, yes, but—I would know if Lohiro were dead." The

last of the twilight glinted on his bristling white eyebrows

as they drew down over his nose. 'The spells that surround

Quo might mask it—but I think I would know. I know I

would."

 

"How?" Rudy asked curiously.

 

"I just would. Because he is the Archmage, and I am a

wizard."

 

"Is that why Alwir kicked you out of the council?" Gil

asked, remembering the cold eyes of the Bishop and the

way Alwir had spoken of Ingold at the gate below. "Be-

cause you're a wizard?"

 

Ingold smiled and shook his head. "No," he said. "Alwir

and I are enemies of long standing. He never approved of

my friendship with Eldor. And I fear he will never forgive

me for being right about the dangers of coming to Karst.

Alwir, as you may have guessed, has never thought much

of the idea of retreating to the Keeps. The Keeps are

fortresses, safe for the most part from the Dark, but lim-

ited in scope. To retreat into them will fracture the Realm

beyond hope of repair and destroy thousands of years of

human civilization. Such a fate is inevitable, in an isolated so-

 

ciety, where transportation and communication are limited

to the duration of the daylight; culture will wane, narrow-

mindedness set in; the human outlook will shrink from

urbane tolerance of all human needs to a kind of petty

parochialism that cannot see beyond the bounds of its

own fields. As you know from your own studies, Gil,

private law begets a host of its own abuses. Decentralized,

the Church will degenerate, its priests and theologians de-

graded into sanctified scribes and passers-out of the sacra-

ments to a squabbling, superstitious peasantry. I fear that

wizardry, too, will suffer, becoming more and more pol-

luted with little magics, losing sight of the mainstream of

its teachings. Anything that requires an organized body of

knowledge will vanish—the universities, medicine, train-

ing in any form of the arts.

 

"Eldor was a scholar, and saw this; he knew what had

happened before, through his own memories of the long

years of superstition and darkness and the mean-minded

fears of men to whom the unknown was always threaten-

ing. Alwir and Govannin see it coming, and know that

once they let their hold on centralized power slip, nothing

can get it back.

 

"And so, Quo could be our only hope."

 

Rudy cocked his head curiously. "Didn't Alwir talk

about some plan—about getting allies to invade the Nests

of the Dark? Is that still coming off?"

 

"It is," Ingold said thinly. "He has sent south, to the

great Empire of Alketch, for help in this endeavor, and I

do not doubt he shall get it."

 

The flat, repressive note in his voice startled Rudy, who

looked up from idly turning the crystal in his fingers, an-

gling it to what remained of the waning light. "Sounds like

not a bad idea," he admitted.

 

Ingold shrugged. "It would not be," he said, "but for

two things. The first is that, deny it though we might, our

civilization is all but broken. Even if we drive back the

Dark, to what new world of Light will we come? I have

seen in the crystal, and by other means, that the depreda-

tions of the Dark are far lighter in the south than they are

here. The Empire of Alketch is a strong realm still. They

can help us in Alwir's invasion; and then, when the remains

of the forces of the Realm have taken the brunt of the

casualties, they will be on the spot, ready to take the land

 

left depopulated and defenseless in the aftermath. Alwir

 

will have exchanged death for slavery—and there are vary-

ing opinions on which is the worse fate."

 

The blue eyes glittered under the heavy brows. "I know

Alketch, you see," the wizard went on quietly. "The south-

ern Empire has long coveted these northern lands. I know

Alketch—and I know the Dark.

 

"Alwir finds a great deal to say about the number of

things for which mine is the only word. He is right. About

the Dark, mine is the only word, now that Eldor is gone

and the sole male heir of the House of Dare is too young to

speak. And I know that an invasionary force to the Nests

will surely fail.

 

"I have been to a Nest. I have seen the Dark in their

cities beneath the ground."

 

The wizard leaned back against the wall behind him. The

room was sinking in shadow all around. His voice was

quiet, distant, leading his listeners to another place and

time.

 

"A long time ago I was the local spell-weaver for a vil-

lage, oh, way over in Gettlesand. It was a good-sized village,

but not so large that the Lord of Gettlesand would think

to look for me there. I was, in fact, hiding out, but that is

part of another tale.

 

"The dooic run wild in tribes in that part of the country.

They prefer the empty plains, but they do hide in the hills,

and they have sometimes been known to carry off small

children. One of the children of the mayor of my village

had vanished, and I tracked her and her tribe of kidnap-

pers for a night and a day, back into the hills. It was in a

cave, in a ridge of foothills beneath a desert mountain

range, that I first saw one of the Dark Ones. It was night.

The creature dropped from the ceiling of the cave where it

had been clinging and devoured an old male dooic which

had taken shelter there. It was not aware of my presence.

 

"Now I had learned about Dark Ones in old books that

I had read, and from the ancient legends handed down to

me, like this jewel, from my master Rath. I realized this

must be a surviving Dark One, and it occurred to me that

isolated groups of these creatures, which had once over-

whelmed mankind and then vanished from the face of the

earth, might still be hiding in the fastnesses of mountain

and desert. And because I am, and always have been, in-

 

curably inquisitive, I followed it back through the darkness,

down tunnels so steep I had to cling to the walls and floor

to keep myself from sliding headlong into the blackness. I

remember thinking to myself at the time that the numbers

of the Dark Ones had shrunk so badly that they lived thus

for their own protection; a wretched remnant of a force

that had once dominated the face of the world and changed

the courses of civilization.

 

"I followed the little Dark One—for it was crawling

along the floor, and only about so big—" He gestured with

his hands. "—deeper and deeper into the heart of the earth,

crawling and climbing and scrambling to keep up with it.

And do you know, at that point I was almost sorry for the

vanished Dark Ones in what I supposed to be their exile.

Then I saw the tunnel widen ahead of me and I looked out

into their—city."

 

The quality of the old man's voice was hypnotic, and his

eyes had the faraway look of seeing nothing in that small

twilit room. "It was completely dark, of course," he went

on. "I do see clearly in the dark. The cavern below me

must have run on for almost a mile, stretching downward

and back and farther down into the earth. The tunnel in

which I lay overlooked it, and I could scarcely see the other

end of the cave, lost as it was in shadows. The stalactites

of the ceiling, as far back as I could see, were crawling with

the Dark, covered with them, black with their bodies; the

rattle of their claws on the limestone was like the sound of

hail. And down the wall to my right, at floor level, there

was an entrance to another passageway, about as high as a

man could walk through. There was a stream of them,

coming and going from deeper underground. I knew that

under that cavern there was another one, as large or larger;

and below that, possibly another. That was only one city,

situated miles from anywhere, in the midst of the deserts,

probably not even their largest city." Memory of the horror

deepened the lines that age and hard living had scrawled in

his face; he looked like some Old Testament prophet, gifted

with the sure knowledge of civilization's downfall and help-

less to prevent it. Rudy knew that he saw, not them, not

this room, but the endless cavern of darkness, and felt

afresh the impact of that first realization that unguessably

vast hordes of the Dark Ones still lived beneath the surface

 

of the earth—not in exile, not out of necessity, hut because

it was their chosen habitat. And there was nothing to pre-

vent them from rising, as they had risen once before.

 

Rudy's voice broke the quiet that had followed the

wizard's account. "You say they were all across the ceiling

of the place," he said. "What was on the floor?"

 

Ingold's eyes met his, darkened with the memory and

almost angry that Rudy should have asked—angry that he'd

already half-guessed. "They have their—flocks and herds,"

he said unwillingly, and would have left it at that, but the

young man's eyes challenged him to say it. "Mutated,

adapted, inbred after countless generations of living in the

dark. I knew then, you see, that human beings were their

natural prey."

 

"That's why the stairways," Rudy said thoughtfully.

The Dark don't need stairs—they haven't got any feet.

They could drive dooic . .."

 

"These weren't dooic," Ingold said. "They were human

—of a sort." He shuddered, repelled by the memory. "But

you see, my children, all the armies in the world would be

hardly enough for what Alwir proposes. All that an inva-

sion will do is cripple the existing fighting force of the

Realm and leave too few men to guard the doors of their

homes against the Empire of Alketch—or against the Dark.

 

"The alternative, retreating to the Keeps and letting

civilization die around us in the hopes that one day the

Dark will pass, is hardly a more appealing proposition; but

at this point I literally cannot see a third course. Even

Alwir has been forced to recognize that we cannot simply

flee them, and it is not likely that the Dark Ones will spon-

taneously become vegetarians.

 

"So you see," he concluded quietly, "I must find Lohiro

and find him quickly. If I do not, we are faced with a

choice of disasters. Wizardry has long garnered its knowl-

edge in an isolated tower on the shores of the Western

Ocean, apart from the world, teaching, experimenting, bal-

ancing itself in the still center of the moving cosmos—

power working for the perfection of power, knowledge for

the perfection of knowledge. Nothing is fortuitous—there

are no random events. It may be that the whole history of

wizardry from Forn on was for this end only: to save us

from the Dark."

 

"If it can," Rudy said softly, and handed him back his

jewel.

 

"If it can," Ingold agreed.

 

Darkness had fallen. Thin gray rain slanted down on the

wreckage of the town of Karst, flurrying the dark slickness

of the puddles in the soupy mud of the court, staining the

timber and thatch of the lean-to sheds. Bitter winds blew

down off the mountains, whipping Gil's wet cloak around

her ankles as she and Rudy crossed the court.

 

"Three months," Rudy murmured, raising his head un-

der the downpour to survey the ruin of the town, the ruin

of the civilization that had built it. "Christ, if the Dark

don't get us, we'll freeze to death in that time."

 

Distant thunder boomed, like far-off artillery. Gil sought

shelter from the rain in the darkness of the lean-to bar-

racks, watching Rudy as he crossed the court to where the

glow of a sheltered fire marked the common pot. Guards

were moving around it, dark ghostly shapes, the brother-

hood of the sword, their stained black tunics marked with

the white quatrefoil emblem of their company. The sounds

of men talking drifted through the sodden drumming of

the rain.

 

Strong hands slipped over her shoulders from behind. A

colorless voice purred, "Gil-shalos?" She glanced at the

hands, close by her cheek; long and thin, the fingers cal-

loused and knotted from the discipline of the sword. Past

the black shape of a tunic and the tasseled ends of white

braids, she saw a thin face and cool, disinterested eyes. In

a flanking maneuver, two other forms appeared and made

themselves at home on either side of her.

 

The swordmaster Gnift took her hand and pressed it to

his breast in a good imitation of passion. "O Pearl of my

Heart," he greeted her, and she laughed and pulled her

hand away. She had never spoken to the instructor, and

indeed had been rather awed, watching him coach the

Guards. But his teasing took away her shyness and eased

the bitterness in her heart. On her other side, Seya was

silent, but the woman's thin, lined face smiled. She was

evidently long familiar with Gnift's mock flirtations.

 

"What do you want?" Gil asked, still grinning, shy with

them and yet feeling strangely at home. In the brief time

she had known them, Seya and the Icefalcon—and now,

 

evidently, Gnift as well—had accepted her for what she

was. She had rarely felt so comfortable, even among the

other scholars at the university.

 

Distant firelight reddened the smooth dome of Gnift's

head—his baldness was like a tonsure, the hair around the

sides growing thickly down almost to his collar. Under the

overhanging jut of his brows, his brown eyes were bright,

quick, very alive. He said quietly in answer, "You."

 

And with a flourish he produced the bundle he'd been

half-hiding at his side. Unwrapping it, Gil found a faded

black tunic, homespun shirt and breeches, a surcoat, and a

belt with a dagger. All were marked with the white quatre-

foil sign of the Guards.

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

Though members of the various military companies

mounted guard in the town throughout the night, no sound

battered the outer walls but the steady drumming of rain.

After a rationed supper of porridge and cheese, Gil took

her position with the Guards of the first watch in the Town

Hall. The refugees huddled in the shelter of that great,

half-empty cavern bowed to her in respect, as they did to

all the Guards.

 

Rudy saw the change in her when he himself strolled

into the smoky dimness of the hall later; it puzzled him,

for his experience with women, though extensive, had been

within a very narrow range. "Talk about hiding out on the

front lines," he remarked.

 

Gil grinned. She was finding that Rudy's opinion of her

mattered much less than it had earlier. "We're all on the

front lines," she replied equably. "If I'm out there, at least

it will be with a weapon in my hands."

 

"Have you seen the way they train?" He shuddered deli-

cately.

 

"The insurance is cheap at the price."

 

But they both knew that this was not the reason she had

accepted Gnift's offer of inclusion in that elite corps,

though neither Gil nor Rudy was quite clear about the true

reason.

 

In the early part of the evening the great hall was wake-

ful, though without the boisterous quarrelsomeness that

had characterized the previous days. The massacre at Karst

had broken the spirits of those who had survived it, had

 

brought home to them, as well as to their rulers, that there

 

was no escape and nowhere to hide.

 

Still, Rudy was surprised to see how many had survived.

Some of them he even recognized: that was the fat man

with the garden rake of last night, and the pair of tough old

broads he'd talked to in the woods yesterday; over in the

corner he could see the little gang of tow-headed kids,

keeping watch over the sleeping woman they seemed to

have taken for their guardian. Stragglers who had hidden

in the woods all day came into the hall by ones and twos,

as well as people lost from their families who had taken

refuge in other buildings in the town. From Gil's post by

the doors, Gil and Rudy saw them enter the hall, all ages,

from young teen-agers to creeping oldsters; they would

enter and move slowly through the little groups engaged in

bundling up their miserable belongings, searching the

faces of the people. Sometimes, rarely, the searcher would

find the one he sought, and there would be tears and anx-

ious words, some questions and usually more tears. More

often the seeker would leave again. One stout man in his

forties, in the muddy remains of a respectable black broad-

cloth tunic and hose, hunted through the hall for the better

part of two hours, then sat on one of the piles of smashed

and discarded utensils and rags by the door and cried as if

his heart would break.

 

Rudy was thoroughly cold and depressed by the time the

gray-haired Guard, Seya, came over to them from the

shadows of the great stairway, her face drawn and grim.

"Do either of you know where Ingold might be found?" she

asked them quietly. "There's a man sick upstairs—we need

his advice."

 

"He should still be at the gatehouse," Gil surmised.

 

Rudy said, "I'll see." He crossed the main square where

the torchlight fitfully gilded the rain-pocked mud. The old

fountain brimmed with water, slopping in ebony wavelets

over its leeward edge. Icy wind bit into his legs below the

wet, flapping hem of the cloak he'd scrounged. Not even

the Dark Ones, he decided, would be abroad in a down-

pour like this.

 

A gleam of gold led him toward the gate into the Guards'

Court. Someone sheltering in the old stables was playing a

stringed instrument and singing:

 

"My love is like a morn in spring,

 

A falcon fleet when he takes to wing;

And I, a dove, behind will fly,

To ride the roads of the summer sky..."

 

It was a simple love song, with words of hope and bright-

ness, but the tune was filled with melancholy and an aching

grief, the singer's voice all but drowned in the pounding

of the rain. Rudy entered the dark slit of the doorway and

groped his way up the treacherous stair, guided by the faint

light that came down from above. He found Ingold alone

in the narrow room. A dim, bluish glow of ball lightning

hung over his head, touching the angles of brow and nose

and flattened triangular cheekbone with light, and plunging

all the rest into shadow. Before him the crystal lay on the

windowsill, its colored refractions encircling it in a ring of

fire.

 

Silence and peace coalesced in that room. For a moment

Rudy hesitated on the threshold, unwilling to break into

Ingold's meditations. He saw the wizard's eyes and knew

that the old man saw something in the heart of the crystal,

bright and clear as tiny flame; he knew that his own voice,

his own intrusion, would shatter the deep, welling silence

that made that concentration possible. So he waited, and

the silence of the room seeped into his heart, like the deep

peace of sleep.

 

After a time Ingold raised his head. "Did you want me?"

The light above his face grew stronger, brightening to silver

the shaggy hair and the beard where it surged over the

angle of his jutting chin; it broadened to take in the obscure

shapes of sacks and firkins, of scattered rushes and sawdust

on the floor, and the random pattern of the stone ceiling's

cracks and shadows, like incomprehensible runes overhead.

 

Rudy nodded, releasing the room's silence with regret.

"There's sickness over at the hall," he said quietly. "Bad, I

think."

 

Ingold sighed and rose, shaking his voluminous robes out

around him. "I feared that," he said. He collected the

crystal and stowed it somewhere about his person, shrugged

into his dark mantle, drew the hood up over his head, and

started for the door, the light drifting after him.

 

"Ingold?"

 

The wizard raised his brows inquiringly.

 

Rudy hesitated, feeling the question to be foolish, but

 

driven nevertheless to ask it. "How do you do that?" He

gestured toward the slim feather of light. "How do you call

light?"

 

The old man held out his open hand; slowly the glow of

light grew up from his palm. "You know what it is, and

summon it," he replied, his voice low and clear and

scratchy in the room. The brightness in his hand intensified,

white and pure, stronger and stronger, until Rudy could no

longer look at it and had to turn his eyes away. Even then

he saw his own shadow cast huge and black against the

stonework of the wall. "You know its true name and what

it is," the wizard went on, "and by its true name you call

it. It is as simple as picking a flower that grows on the other

side of a fence." Against the white brilliance, shadows

shifted, and Rudy looked back, to see the old man's strong

fingers close over the light. For an instant its beams stabbed

out from between his knuckles; then the brightness of it

dimmed and was gone.

 

The vagrant glowworm of the witchlight that had been

over Ingold's head wandered before them down the inky

stairwell, to illuminate their feet. "No dice with Quo?"

Rudy asked after a moment.

 

Ingold smiled at his words. "As you say, no dice."

 

Rudy, looking back at the sturdy, white-haired old wiz-

ard, remembered that it was this man who had worked

that subtle enchantment of the languages; he saw Ingold

again going against the Dark in the vaults, unarmed but for

the noonday blaze of his power. "Are they all like you?" he

asked suddenly. "The wizards? Other wizards?"

 

Ingold looked like an overage imp when he smiled like

that. "No, thank God. No. Wizards are really a very indi-

vidualistic crew. We are formed by what we are, like

warriors or bards or farmers—but we're hardly alike."

 

"What's Lohiro like?" The Archmage, Master of the

Council of Quo—Rudy found it difficult to picture a man

whom Ingold would call master. He wondered just how this

tough old maverick got along with the leader of the world's

wizardry.

 

"Ah." Ingold smiled. "That's a good question. No two

people who have known him have the same answer. They

say he is like a dragon, in that he is the boldest and most

guileful, the bravest and the most calculating—and that,

 

like a dragon, he seems to those who meet him to be made

of light and fire. I hope one day that you will have the

opportunity to judge for yourself."

 

They paused in the doorway. Beyond them lay the court

of the Guards, drowned under the drenching rain; to their

left, the shadow of the gateway, and the broken street be-

yond. The gutter down its center was roaring like a mill-

race. The ground in the square would be nothing but suck-

ing ooze. Rudy asked, "Do you like him?"

 

"I would trust him with my life " Ingold said quietly.

"I love him as if he were my son." Then he turned away

and vanished into the shadows of the street, a stooped,

weary form in his hooded robe. Rudy watched him disap-

pear into the sodden darkness, and it occurred to him that

this was the first time Ingold had come out with a straight

answer about his personal feelings. Shining wetness picked

out the peak of the old man's hood as he passed under the

glow of a lighted window far down the lane. The light was

dim, the soft glow of a single candle or a shaded lamp.

Rudy's eyes were drawn to the window, and he saw a

wavering shadow pass across the mullioned panes within.

 

He knew that window.

 

After a moment he thought, What the hell? Why not?

 

He stepped from the shelter of the gate and hurried

down the black lane in the rain.

 

Alde looked up, startled, as he tapped at her open cham-

ber door. Then she recognized him, and her violet eyes

darkened with pleasure. "Hello."

 

"Hi." He stepped hesitantly into the room, made uneasy

by the dead stillness of the house below. The room itself

was in wild disorder, curtained in shadow; bed, chairs, and

floor were strewn with clothes, books, and miscellaneous

equipment; dusky blood-rubies glittered on a pair of combs

in the shadow, and white gauntlets lay nearby, like wrin-

kled upturned hands. Minalde herself was wearing the

white gown in which he'd first met her; it was evidently a

favorite, like an old pair of jeans. Her black hair, un-

braided, lay in great crinkled swatches over her slim shoul-

ders. "I came to see if you might like a hand with your

packing."

 

"That was kind of you." She smiled. "I don't need a

hand so much as an extra brain, I'm afraid. This—

 

chaos . . ." She gestured eloquently at the confusion all

around her.

 

There was a clicking tap of hard-heeled shoes in the hall

behind him, and the short, stout woman Rudy remembered

from the terrace—Christ, was that only yesterday evening?

—came bustling in, dragging a small chest behind her and

carrying a pile of empty sacks thrown over her arm. She

bestowed a glance of withering contempt upon him, but

didn't deign to speak. To Alde she said, "This was all I

could find, your Majesty, and bless me if I don't think it's

all we'll have room for in the cart. That and the great

chest of my lord Alwir's."

 

"That's fine, Medda." Alde smiled, taking the sacks from

her. "It's a miracle you could come up with this, in all this

confusion. Thank you."

 

The older woman looked mollified. "Well, it's truth that

the house is like a shambles, and I could barely find this.

What you're coming to, your Majesty, I don't know—

forced to ride in a cart, and hardly the clothes on your

back and all. How we'll reach Renweth alive I'm sure I

can't think."

 

"We'll make it," the girl said. "Alwir will get us there."

 

Without a word or a second glance for Rudy, Medda

scurried to the corner of the room, where she began fold-

ing blankets and sheets, packing them firmly into one of

the sacks. Alde returned to her own packing, folding the

great mass of flame-cut crimson velvet that Rudy recog-

nized as the cloak Alwir had worn that afternoon. "Most

of this is Alwir's," she said to Rudy, nodding to the tumble

of cloaks, tunics, and robes that half-covered the big bed.

"He asked me to sort bis things for him. It's hard to know

what to take and what to leave behind." She packed away

the cloak and picked up a quilt of star-embroidered silk,

the colors of it changing and rippling as it moved. Rudy

came over to give her a hand with it, being well-versed in

the ways of laundromats, and she smiled her thanks.

 

"Well, packing was an easy one for me," he said. "All

I've got is a blanket and a spoon and what I've got on. For

a Queen, you're traveling awfully light."

 

She smiled at him and shook back the dark hair from

her face. "Have you seen the cart I'm going to be riding

in? It's about the size of that bed. I'm not usually this un-

encumbered; anywhere I go I always seem to end up taking

 

carts and carts of things, books and clothes and spare

cloaks and tennis rackets and a chess game. My maid

takes—" Her voice caught suddenly on the words, as if

she had physically stumbled in a swift run. It was thin and

shaky when she finished the sentence. "My maid used to

take more than this." Then, with a forced lightness, she

continued. "On longer trips I'd have furniture and bedding

and dinner service and windows..."

 

"Windows?"

 

"Of course." She looked at him in genuine surprise, for-

getting momentarily, as the Icefalcon forgot when speaking

to Gil, that he was an outworlder and a stranger in the

land. "Have you any idea how much glass costs? Even we

quality folks have to bring our own windows with us when

we travel. One could never afford to glaze all the windows

in all of one's houses." She smiled at his expression of

dawning comprehension. A little ruefully, she went on.

"But I don't think we'll need the windows in the Keep of

Dare."

 

"What's it like?" Rudy asked. "The Keep, I mean."

 

She shook her head. "I really don't know. I've never

been there. The Kings of the Realm abandoned Renweth

so long ago; there was never even a hunting lodge there.

Until—Eldor—" Again there was that hesitation, almost

an unwillingness to speak his name. "Until the King went

there some years ago, to have it regarrisoned, I don't think

a King of Darwath had visited it in generations. But he

remembered it. My grandfather remembered it, too."

 

"Your grandfather?"

 

"Oh, yes. Our House, the House of Bes, is descended

from Dare of Renweth, a side descent. Now and then the

memories show up in our people, sometimes hundreds of

years apart. Grandfather said he remembered mostly the

darkness inside the Keep and the smoke and the smell. He

said he had memories of twisting passageways lit by grease

lamps, and rickety old makeshift stairways going up and

down into darkness. He remembered himself—or Dare, or

some ancestor—walking through the corridors of the Keep

and not knowing whether it was day or night, summer or

winter, because it was always lamplight there. When he'd

speak of it," she went on, her hands pausing, still and white

against the colors of the gown she was holding, "I could

almost see it, it was so close to him. I could see the stairs,

 

going up like scaffolding, and the fitful gleam of the lamps

on the stone. I could smell it, damp and murky like old

blankets and dirty clothes, and could feel the darkness sur-

rounding me. It will be hard to live always by torchlight."

 

"Always is a long time," Rudy said, and Minalde looked

away.

 

They talked a while longer of the Keep, of the Palace

at Gae, of the small doings that had made up the life of

the Queen of the Realm of Darwath. The fire sank in the

open brazier that warmed the room, the flames playing in

a small, steady amber glow over writhing scarlet coals; the

soft smells of camphorwood and lemon sachet drifted from

the folded clothes. "A lot of this will have to be left, I'm

afraid," Alde sighed. "We have only three carts, and one

of those has to be for the records, the archives of the

Realm." She was sitting on the floor now, turning over in

her hands book after book from the small pile beside her.

The firelight sparkled off their jeweled bindings and spread

gold, like a warm suntan, on the soft flesh of her chin and

throat. "I'd wanted to take all of these, but some of them

are terribly frivolous. Books are so heavy, and the ones we

take really ought to be serious, philosophy and theology.

These may very well be the only books they'll have in the

Keep for years."

 

Behind the gentle run of her voice Rudy heard the echo

of another voice, Gil's voice, saying, Do you realize how

many of the great works of ancient literature didn't sur-

vive? All because some Christian monk didn't think they

were important enough to preserve? He'd forgotten the

context and the conversation, but the words came back to

him, and he ventured, "Probably a lot of people are going

to hang onto the philosophy and theology." And, God

knows, I wouldn't want to be shut up for years with nothing

to read but the Bible:

 

"That's true," she mused, weighing the two books in her

hands, as if measuring pleasure and emotional truths against

fine-spun scholastic hairsplitting. Then she turned her head,

the dark sheet of her hair brushing his knee where he sat

on the edge of the bed behind her. "Medda?"

 

The stout servant, who all this time had worked in silent

disapproval in the darker corners of the room, came for-

ward now, and her manner softened imperceptibly. "Yes,

my lady?"

 

"Could you go up to the box room and see if you can

 

locate another trunk? A small one?"

 

The woman bobbed a curtsy. "Yes, my lady." Her heavy

tread with its clicking heels diminished down the dark hall.

Rudy thought to himself, Score one for Gil and ancient lit.

 

Alde smiled at him across the gemmed fire-glint of the

gilded bindings. "She doesn't approve of you. Or of any-

body, really, who isn't sufficiently impressed by my being

Queen. She was my nurse when I was small and she puts a

lot of store in being the Queen's Nurse. She isn't like that

when we're alone. Don't let her worry you."

 

Rudy grinned back at her. "I know. The first time I saw

the two of you together, I thought you were some kind of

junior servant, the way she bossed you around."

 

The fine, dark eyebrows raised, and there was a teasing

light in her eyes. "If you'd known I was the Queen of Dar-

wath, would you have spoken to me?"

 

"Sure. Well, I mean—" Rudy hesitated, wondering. "Uh

 

—I don't know. If somebody had said, 'Look, that's the

 

Queen,' maybe I wouldn't even have seen you, wouldn't

 

really have looked at you." He shrugged. "We don't have

 

kings and queens where I come from."

 

"Truly?" She frowned, puzzled at the incomprehensible

thought. "Who rules you, then? Whom can your people

love and honor? And who will love and guard the honor of

your people?"

 

To Rudy, this question was equally incomprehensible,

and since his major area of success in school had been

evasion of classes, he had only a sketchy notion of how the

United States Government worked. But he gave her his

perceptions of it, perhaps more informative than political

theory, and Alde listened gravely, her arms wrapped

around her drawn-up knees. Finally she said, "I don't think

I could stand it. Not because I'm Queen—but it all sounds

so impersonal. And I'm not really a Queen anymore."

 

She leaned her back against the carved post of the bed

frame, her head close by his knee. Profiled against the am-

ber glow of the fire, her face seemed very young, though

worn and fragile and tired. "Oh—they honor me, they bow

to me. It's all in my name. And Tir's. But—it's all gone.

There's nothing of it left." Her voice was small and tight

suddenly, as if struggling to be calm against some sup-

 

pressed emotion. He saw the quick shine of tears in her

violet eyes.

 

"And it all happened so suddenly. It's not the honor,

Rudy, not having servants who wait on me. It's the people.

I don't care about having to pack my own things, when all

my life servants have done it for me. But those servants,

the household at the Palace—they'd been around me for

years. Some of them were from our House, from when I

was a girl; they'd been with me since I was born. People

like the Guards who stood outside my bedroom door—I

didn't know them well, but they were like part of my life,

a part I never really thought about. And they're all dead

now."

 

Her voice flinched from it, then steadied. "You know,

there was one old dooic slave who scrubbed the floors in

the hall at the Palace. Probably he'd done so for his whole

life, and he must have been twenty years old, which is very

old for them. He knew me. He'd grunt and sort of smile at

me when I went past. In the last battle in the Throne Hall

at Gae, he grabbed up a torch and went with it against the

Dark Ones, swinging it like the men swinging their swords.

I saw him die. I saw so many people I knew die." One tear

slid down the curve of her cheek, those lobelia-dark eyes

turning to meet his, seeking in them some comfort, some

bulwark against the fear and grief she'd locked in.

 

"It wasn't being Queen or not being Queen," she went

on, wiping at her cheek with fingers that shook. "It's the

whole life, everything. Tir is all I have left. And in the

last fight, I left him, too. We locked him in a little room

behind the throne, my maid and I. They needed every

sword in the hall, though neither of us had ever handled

one before. It was like a nightmare, some—some insane

dream, all fire and darkness, I think I must have been half-

crazy. I thought I was going to die, and that didn't matter,

really, but I was terrified they'd get Tir. And I left him

alone." She repeated the words in a kind of despairing

wonder. "I left him alone. I—I told Ingold I'd kill him if

he didn't take Tir and go. He was going to stay and fight to

the last. I had a sword. I told him I'd kill him . . ." For a

moment her eyes seemed to see nothing of the shadowy

golden warmth of the curtained chamber, reflecting only

relived horror.

 

Rudy said gently, "Well, he probably didn't believe you,"

 

and was rewarded to his joy with a tiny smile of self-

mockery and the return to the present of those haunted

eyes. "And anyhow, I don't think you could have hurt him."

 

"No." She laughed softly, shakily, as people do when

they remember any desperate passion which has lost its

importance. "But how embarrassing to meet him after-

ward." And whether, as Ingold had said, it was the senti-

ments or the social gaffe that made her smile, it was enough

to break the grip of the horror and let its raw memory fade.

 

The rain had almost ceased, its persistent drumming

dimmed to a soft pattering rustle on the heavy glass of the

window. Coals settled in the brazier, the glow of them like

the last heart of a dying sunset. Minalde stood and moved

through the dimness of the room to kindle a taper from

the embers and transfer the flame to the trio of candles in

the silver holder on the table. She blew out the touchlight,

and smoke folded around her face as she laid it aside.

 

"That was what I couldn't endure," she went on, her

voice quiet, as if she spoke now of someone other than

herself. "That I'd left my child to die. Until Ingold came to

me, the night before last—until he brought Tir back to me

—I never even knew if they'd survived or not. All the rest

of it, the Dark Ones surging down on us over the torches,

the—the touch of it, the grip of it, like an iron rope—the

Icefalcon's face when he picked me up off the floor of the

vaults—it doesn't even seem real. Only that I'd left my

child, the one person, the one thing that remained out of

everything else in my life . .."

 

Her hands and her voice had begun to shake again.

Rudy came over to her in the halo of the candles, took her

hands to still them, and felt the fragile bones in his own

rough grip. His touch seemed to bring her back, for she

smiled, half-apologetically, and looked down, away from

his face.

 

"Alwir tells me I was delirious with shock," she said

softly. "I'm glad I don't remember leaving Gae. They tell

me the city was ruined. Now I'll always remember it in its

beauty." She looked up at him again, that soft little smile

of self-mockery reappearing in one corner of her sensitive

mouth. "That's why most of the things here are Alwir's and

not mine. They're not the things I would have brought

with me if I'd left Gae under my own power."

 

"Don't worry about it."

 

"But last night," Alde went on, "I think I would have

killed you if you'd tried to stop me from going back for

Tir. I wasn't going to leave him again. I'll always thank

you for going with me, for staying with me through the

vaults, for keeping us both safe. But I think I would have

gone alone."

 

"I still think you were crazy," Rudy said gently.

 

She smiled. "I never said I wasn't."

 

Outside, the rain had ceased entirely. Beside them the

smooth, waxy glow of the candles lengthened into slim

columns of yellow and white, the light growing stronger in

the still deep silence. For a time the peace of the room

surrounded them, bringing them a curious, isolated mo-

ment of happiness in the confusion and wreckage of all the

world. Rudy was conscious, as he had seldom been so

acutely conscious of anything in his life, of her fingers rest-

ing lightly in his. The smell of her hair came to him, a

scent of sweetgrass and bay, and with it the soft tallow

smell of the candles and the richness of cedar and lavender.

Enclosed in the heart of a jewel-box of time they were

alone and at rest with each other, her eyes gazing up at

him, almost black in the shadows. Looking into them, Rudy

knew—and knew then that she knew—what was inevitably

going to be. The knowledge went through him like a bolt

of lightning, but it was without any real surprise. It was as

if he had always known.

 

They stood thus for an endless single moment of time,

consumed by that shared knowledge. The only sound in the

room was the soft swiftness of their breath. Then an open-

ing door downstairs stirred the air, and the flame of the

candles dipped, making the shadows bow and tremble. On

that incoming cold draft, Alwir's voice echoed mellowly in

the unnaturally servantless hall. ". . . ponies around to the

courtyard. It will take most of the night to load them.

Your things will go in the third cart." And though no

words were audible, they heard Bektis' light voice replying,

a querulous interrogation from Medda, and the sharp, sud-

den jingle of sword belt and mail.

 

Alde made a move to go, and Rudy caught at her hands.

Their eyes met again, puzzled, seeking some answer to

why what had been between them had happened. The

liking between them had changed—everything had changed

and was colored by what had passed. In her face Rudy saw

 

desire, fear of this terrible newfound intimacy, and the re-

flection of his own bewilderment at a feeling he had never

known himself capable of possessing. Then her cheeks

flamed suddenly pink in the candlelight, and she pulled her

hands away, stammering, "I—I can't—" She turned to flee.

 

"Alde." He called her softly back, and at the sound of

his voice she stopped, her breath quick and uneven, as if

she had run a long way. "I'll see you on the road tomor-

row."

 

She whispered, "All right," and turned her eyes away.

A moment later he heard her footsteps flying lightly down

the hall.

 

CHAPTER TEN

 

A long time ago and perhaps in a previous incarnation,

 

Rudy recalled seeing a movie called The Ten Command-

ments which, among other things, had contained a memo-

rable scene of the Children of Israel getting their butts out

of the Land of Egypt. Charlton Heston had lifted up his

staff and they'd all been organized and ready to go, and the

whole clear-out had taken about three minutes of screen

time, goats and granddaddies and all, leaving not so much

as a crumpled bread wrapper or a pile of dog droppings on

the tidy streets of Thebes.

 

Karst had been stirring since several hours before dawn.

Rudy, standing by the cart in which the rations earmarked

for the Guards would be hauled, had a good view of most

of the square, and it didn't look to him as if anybody

would be going anywhere until damn near noon, if then.

It had begun to rain again, and the ground was like por-

ridge. The cart wheels bogged in it; people running back

and forth on aimless errands churned it to ever-deeper

ooze. Mud and rain covered everything, soaked Rudy's cloak

and his clothing underneath, and plastered the clumped,

dirty agglomerations of depressed-looking refugees who

stood or sat around that scene of sodden chaos. Even Al-

wir, storming his elegant way among them, was beginning

to look shopworn and dirty.

 

By midmorning, the square was a total confusion of

people, goods, and makeshift transport. Children wan-

dered from their parents and got lost. Escaping pigs had to

be chased through the standing carts, pack beasts, and little

 

mounds of personal belongings, upsetting everything in

their flying path. The larger families and groups, and the

households of minor nobles, were engaged in last-minute

problem-solving sessions, among much cursing and the

waving of arms, arguing whether to go north to the Keep

of the landchief Harl Kinghead, south to Renweth in the

mountains, following Alwir and the Council of Regents, or

beyond that, over Sarda Pass, to Gettlesand, to risk the

threat of the White Raiders in the minor Keeps of the land-

chief Tomec Tirkenson. Rudy could see Tirkenson, big,

scarred, and ugly, cursing his followers into line with a

vocabulary that would have curled a bullwhacker's hair.

 

Rudy himself could have left town at a moment's notice.

From the leavings of the dead, he'd collected himself an

outfit of warm clothes—a brown tunic, shirt, breeches,

and boots, a hooded cloak that was too large, and a pair of

gauntlet gloves stitched with gold and emeralds. His Cali-

fornia clothes he carried in his pack, along with shaving

things scrounged, like everything else, from those who had

not survived the coming of the Dark to Karst, his Amer-

ican-made buck-knife, a horn spoon, and his big blue plas-

tic comb. The unfamiliar weight of a sword dragged at his

hip.

 

Leaning his shoulders against the tall wheel of the cart,

shivering in the wind that drove the rain and tossed the

dark trees that were visible above the black, gabled roofs,

he surveyed the milling chaos before him. Mud-slathered

people negotiated for space in two carts, tied dirty little

bundles onto muleback or into crude wheelbarrows or

travois, and argued about what to take and what to leave.

Watching them, his face stinging in the icy wind, he re-

membered California as if his whole life there had been

something that had happened to someone else.

 

"There," the cool, husky voice of the Icefalcon said at

his elbow. He turned to see the tall captain pointing out to

Gil the small train of wagons drawn up outside the Bishop's

palace, adjacent to the Church on the opposite side of the

square. Red-robed monks were loading two of them with

chests that were obviously filled with something heavy,

under the arrogant direction of the Bishop herself. "I find

that typical," the Guard went on. "They claim to work for

the salvation of souls, but from all I've seen, they only

collect the tithe, and keep records of how much is owed

 

and what souls have been born and baptized and confessed

and died, like a miser counting gold. Fleeing for their

lives, they will carry paper rather than food."

 

"They?" Gil echoed curiously, and glanced up at the tall

young man with the incongruous pale braids lying rain-

slicked over his dark shoulders. "You're not of the Faith?"

 

A disdainful sniff was all the answer she got.

 

Past the Church wagons, Alwir's household and the rem-

nants of the government of the Realm were holding what

appeared to be a Chinese fire drill on the steps of the Town

Hall. Rudy saw Alde seated in the front of one of the carts

there, muffled in black fur, her eyes peeking from the

shadows of her streaming hood. On her lap she cradled a

great bundle of dark, trailing blankets, in which no round

pink baby face was visible; but once he saw the blankets

squirm. That would be Tir. Medda, her round face swollen

with weeping, clambered up to take her place at the

Queen's side. Alde turned her head, her gaze searching the

crowd. Across the milling confusion she met Rudy's eyes,

then quickly looked away, as if ashamed to be caught seek-

ing sight of him. Beyond her, Bektis was climbing into

another wagon, his narrow face framed in a great collar

of expensive marten fur, looking down his elegant nose at

the bedraggled mob in the square.

 

Then someone was calling out orders, Commander

Janus' harsh, braying battle voice rising above the sluicing

drum of the rain and the clamor of argument and prepara-

tion. Alwir appeared from around the corner of the Town

Hall, mounted on a slim-legged sorrel mare. His great cloak

flapped in the wind as he bent from the saddle to exchange

last-minute instructions with someone on the ground. The

Guards moved into line, a ragged double file on either side

of the Chancellor's wagons. Like a kettleful of oatmeal

coming at last to a boil, the people in the square, alone or

by couples, families, or clans, caught up their few posses-

sions and jostled for a place within that doubled line, or,

failing that, as close to its protection as they could get.

Those who weren't ready to go yet redoubled their prepara-

tions, hastening in the hope of catching up on the road.

Whatever their ultimate goal, the north or Gettlesand or

Renweth, sticking with an armed convoy was far preferable

to taking that long road alone.

 

Rudy was a little surprised at what a mob there was,

 

once they got out on the road. They moved almost without

order, a vast confusion of provision wagons, transport carts

for the furniture of Alwir's household and the records of

the government of the Realm, small herds of cattle and

sheep, here and there coveys of spare horses for those for-

tunate enough to be riding to Renweth, the shambling rab-

ble of household servants, and the few remaining dooic

slaves that an occasional wealthy family had brought out

of the ruin of their world. Families straggled behind and

around the main body of the royal wagons, with their

crated chickens and barking dogs, their pigs and their

milk goats; it was astonishing how many families had ac-

tually succeeded in holding together through the chaos

of the last few weeks, though many of them, Rudy knew,

were missing members. Fathers and mothers were carrying

the bulk of the load, older children carrying those too

young to walk, others leading or driving such livestock as

they'd been able to save or acquire. There were not a few

grannies and grandpas of startlingly venerable years, too—

Rudy wondered how some of those old people had man-

aged to run fast enough to escape the Dark. But they were

there, leaning on walking sticks or on the shoulders of their

grandchildren or great-grandchildren, chirping to one an-

other with the equable calm of those who have long since

ceased being surprised by fate. And as they departed from

Karst, that great straggling mob passed an infinitely greater

number of half-assembled households, still loading the last

of their belongings onto donkey back or dog travois, or

trying to sort out the least essential essentials, arguing and

watching with apprehensive eyes as the convoy slopped

past in the driving gray rain. By the looks of it, Rudy

calculated, people would be drifting out of Karst all day.

 

A mud-spattered old man with a shabby bundle and a

stout walking stick fell into step with Rudy as they passed

the last outskirts of the town. The path dipped steeply in a

treacherous slide of black muck. Rudy's feet slithered on

it, and a strong hand grasped his elbow. "Cut yourself a

staff from the woods," a familiar scratchy voice advised.

"The roads aren't going to get any easier, once we reach

the mountains around Renweth."

 

"We're leaving the mountains, though," Rudy said, pick-

ing his way more carefully in the wizard's tracks. "Are

these the same mountains we're heading for, or different?"

 

"Different," Ingold said. "We're picking up the Great

South Road outside Gae and following it down the valley

of the Brown River, which runs through the heartlands of

the Realm. The road up to Sarda Pass crosses it, and we'll

take that up into the Big Snowies, the great wall of moun-

tains that cuts the Realm, the lands of the Wath, in two,

dividing the river valleys from the plains and the desert of

Gettlesand. Renweth stands above Sarda Pass. Watch the

ground."

 

Rudy scrambled over slippery autumn-yellow grasses

around a noxious patch of black quicksand. The road from

Gae up to Karst had been graded and cut so as to be easily

negotiable in good weather, but the constant coming and

going of the refugees, combined with the rains and the

steady departures that had been taking place from the

town since dawn, had reduced the way to a treacherous

river of slop. Those refugees who waited until the after-

noon to quit Karst would have to wade all the way to the

plain. Rudy looked around at the darkness of the misty

gray woods and pictured what the land would be like for

those who got bogged in the road when night began to fall.

He shivered.

 

"How far is it?" he asked suddenly. "How many nights

are we going to have to spend in the open?"

 

"Close to a hundred and seventy miles," Ingold replied,

making his way through the wet brush on the firmer ground

at the edge of the roadbed. "Eight or ten nights, if the

weather stays good and the Arrow River isn't too high to

cross when we get there."

 

"You call this good?" Rudy grumbled. "I've been freez-

ing my tail off since I came here. I don't think I'll ever dry

out."

 

Ingold held out his hand, and the rain collected, a tiny

lake, in his calloused palm. "It could be far worse," he

said mildly. "We've had harsh winters these last ten years,

with killing snows on the plains beyond the mountains driv-

ing the White Raiders, the barbarians of the plains, to

attack the settlements out of pure famine. This winter

promises to be the worst yet—"

 "Fantastic."

 

"—but it has been noticed that the Dark Ones seem to

attack less in foul weather. High winds, heavy rains, or

 

snow seem to keep them underground. Few blessings or

disasters come unmixed."

 

"Great," Rudy said, without enthusiasm. "So we've got

a choice of the Dark Ones or pneumonia."

 

The old man raised his eyebrows, amused. "So which

would you prefer?"

 

They turned a corner of the road, as Gil had done two

days before, and the rusty woods seemed to part, revealing

below them the dim, tawny plain and, half-hidden in the

pearl of the river mist, the ruined city of Gae. Used to the

megalopolis of Los Angeles, Rudy found the city very

small, but there had been a grandeur to it, a walled unity

with which the sprawling, featureless towns of his own ex-

perience could not compare. In his mind he pieced it

together to put roofs on the burned walls of the close-set,

half-timbered houses and leaves on the gray lace of bare

branches. He remembered Minalde's low, gentle voice say-

ing wistfully, "Now I'll always remember it in its

beauty..."

 

That thought brought others, and he stood for some time,

looking out over the pastel vista of ochre and silver-gray,

until a dimming of the noise behind him alerted him to the

passing of the convoy, and he thrashed back to the road

and hurried to catch them up, plowing his way through

torn black mud in which white chicken-feathers were

caught like flakes of fallen snow.

 

Still more refugees joined them on the plain by the walls

of Gae. The Karst-Gae road crossed the Great South Road

a few miles from the multiple turrets of the city gates, in a

great trampled circle amid the withered grass. Just north of

the crossroads loomed Trad's Hill, named for some hero

of ancient wars, the only prominence on that flat plate of

land, and from that hill a lichenous cross of carved stone

bestowed its arcane sanction on the joining of the ways.

There they were met by a motley horde of fugitives from

Gae itself, braver, or more foolish, or more conservative

souls who had hung on in the looted ruin of the capital,

hoping that the danger would somehow miraculously pass.

They were far better provisioned and more heavily bur-

dened than those who had fled to Karst earlier in the week;

better clothed, leading carts and mules and horses, driving

milk cows and pigs and chickens, carrying great satchels of

books, money, spare bedding, and the family silver.

 

"Where'd they get the cows?" Rudy demanded of Gil,

who happened to be walking close by him at the time.

"They didn't keep all them animals in the city, for God's

sake,"

 

Gil said, "People in New York, Boston, and Chicago

kept cows and pigs clear up to the 1890s. How do you

think you got milk if you lived in town?"

 

As the two parties converged, he heard the buzz of talk

pass down the length of the swelling caravan. "Is that really

her Majesty? Is her Majesty really well and safe? And his

Little Majesty?" People crossed themselves thankfully and

craned their necks to see. As an American, and not a par-

ticularly well-informed one at that, Rudy had expected the

subjects of a monarchy to fear and resent those who had

such absolute power over them, and it surprised him to see

the reverence in which they held Alde and Tir. He remem-

bered what she had said last night, about love and honor—

that people needed a ruler they could love, as well as a

law they could follow. Offhand, he couldn't think of any

member of his own government he even respected, let alone

one for whose survival he'd offer up prayers of joy. It

caused him to look with new eyes at the tall, hide-topped

cart with its drooping standards of black and red and to

think about the dark-haired girl inside.

 

The day wore on, and they followed the Great South

Road through the drenched green farmlands along the

river. In contrast to the muddy track down the mountain,

the road was wide and well-drained, with deep, weed-grown

ditches on both sides and a pavement of worn, close-fitted

hexagonal blocks of some kind of pale gray stone. As the

centers of the blocks were more worn than the edges, they

caught the rain in each separate hollow and turned the

road into a shining scarf of fish-scale silver, stretching away

into misty distance. The caravan left the wide sweep of the

plain of Gae behind them and crossed a bridge beneath

frowning, empty towers, to enter into the fertile bottom

lands where the road sought its lazy way between meadow

and farm and woods.

 

No countryman, Rudy was nevertheless impressed by

the solid appearance of prosperity that lay over the land.

The farmhouses were well-built, most of them boasting

more than one room, with separate quarters for the animals

—not always the rule in nonindustrial societies, Gil re-

 

marked cynically. But the emptiness of the land was chill-

ing. They saw very few people—only the eyeless stare of

vacant houses, the abandoned cattle, and mile after mile

of half-harvested corn, rotting in the rain. Those people

they did meet were the farm families, or the remnants of

them, who came out to the road with all their worldly

goods—plow, seed, and poultry—and the youngest baby of

the household piled haphazardly into ox carts, to swell the

ranks of the moving army of refugees, with children and

servants and herd dogs driving little bunches of sheep and

cows in their wake. As they passed through those desolate

farmlands, the Guards, or the Red Monks, or men and

women acting on their own left the train to forage in the

ruined fields and the oddly crushed, deserted barns for

what they could find, though Rudy noticed they seldom

went into the houses that they passed. Sometimes they

came back with wagonloads of seed and grain, or livestock,

pigs, and bleating sheep, or the small cobby farm horses—

beasts whose masters would take no further interest in

husbandry.

 

And still it rained. The convoy had grown to an army,

plodding along the silver road in the downpour. Rudy

thought of the sheer number of miles involved—Hell, that's

like walking from Los Angeles to Bakersfield—and won-

dered what the hell he was doing there. Above the dull

overcast and slanting rain, the gray day was sickening to-

ward twilight.

 

He shaded his eyes and squinted out across the wet land-

scape; he saw, as he had seen several times that day, a

person—man or woman, he couldn't always tell—wander-

ing aimlessly in the distance, driven by the cutting wind.

He wondered about those people, for none of them had

made any sign that they saw the passing convoy, and none

of the company on the road spoke or waved to them.

Sometimes alone, sometimes two or three together, they

moved like zombies, stood staring listlessly at nothing, or

lay on the ground in the fields, looking blankly into the

hollow sky.

 

He grew more and more curious about these outcasts.

Toward evening, when he saw a man and two young

women standing at the bottom of the drainage ditch on the

side of the road, gazing vacantly into space, he left the

pavement and went scrambling down the side of the culvert,

 

slithering through weeds and mud, and waded over to

where they stood.

 

The man wore a loose white cotton shift, plastered to his

soft, paunchy flesh by the rain. His hands and mouth were

nearly blue with cold, but he seemed to take no notice of

the ankle-deep ice water in which he stood. The girls wore

dripping silk rags, wilted flowers and colored ribbons

braided into their wet, snarled hair. Their lobotomized

eyes followed his motions, but none of the three made a

sound.

 

Rudy passed his hand cautiously across the man's line of

vision. The eyes tracked, but registered no understanding

of what they saw. The girls were the same—beautiful girls,

dainty and sweet as lilies of the valley. Rudy would cheer-

fully have taken either or both of them to bed with him,

except for the creeping horror of that empty stare.

 

"This," Ingold's voice said behind him, "is the other

thing that the Dark Ones do."

 

Rudy swung around, startled; he hadn't heard the wiz-

ard approach, even through four inches of water. The old

man's face looked taut and sick, barely visible in the

shadows of his drawn-up hood. "We didn't see much of it

at Karst; probably because the victims were trampled by

those seeking safety, or lost in the woods around the town.

But I know this from Gae. I daresay most people know it."

 

"What's wrong with them?" Rudy looked from the wiz-

ard to the three shivering, empty-eyed automatons and felt

a creeping of his flesh that, for once, had little to do with

the cold.

 

"I think I spoke of it earlier," Ingold said quietly. "The

Dark Ones devour the mind as well as the flesh—which

is why, I suspect, they prey upon human beings and not

upon beasts. As well as human flesh and human blood, the

Dark Ones devour the psychic energy, the intelligence—

the mind, if you will. Perhaps to them that is the most

important of the three."

 

Reaching out, Ingold shut the eyes of the man with his

thumb and forefinger and, closing his own eyes, meditated

for a moment in silence. The man's knees buckled abruptly,

and Ingold stepped lightly back from him as he splashed

noisily into the rain-thrashed water and lay face down.

Rudy was still staring, aghast, at the corpse when Ingold

touched each of the girls in turn. They fell and lay with

 

their flowered hair floating around them in the dirty water

 

of the ditch. The wizard turned away and, leaning on his

staff, clambered up the bank again. Rudy followed him,

water dripping soggily from the hem of his mantle, cold

and shivering and shocked at what he was pretty sure In-

gold had done.

 

They did not speak for some time, but trudged down the

road in silence. Then Rudy asked, "They don't get over it,

do they?"

 

"No." The wizard's voice came disembodied from the

shadows of his hood. A harmless old man, Rudy thought.

A charming old lunatic. No wonder people are afraid of

him.

 

"No," Ingold went on. "If they are indoors they gen-

erally starve. If they are outdoors they die of exposure."

 

"Uh—anybody ever take care of one, to see if his mind

might come back?"

 

Ingold shrugged. "Not easy when you're fleeing the Dark

yourself. Up in Twegged in the north, at the start of all

this trouble, it was tried. The victim lasted two months."

 

"What happened after two months?"

 

"Her caretakers killed her." The wizard added, in a

tone of explanation, "They were the victim's husband and

daughter, you see."

 

Rudy looked back over his shoulder. The evening mists

were coming down heavily, shadow and darkness covering

the land. Still, he thought he could see in the distance the

curve of the road, the ditch, and the whitish blur against

the darker ground.

 

The night fell, and for miles up and down the Great

 

South Road the refugees sought what sleep they could.

Watch fires threaded the darkness like a glittering neck-

lace on both sides of the road, and all who could bear

arms took their turn at them. In the low ground, the

puddled rain turned to ice.

 

Alde came to Rudy's watch fire in the night, with Medda

escorting her like a stout, disapproving shadow. She was

shy with him, and they did not speak of what had passed

between them at Karst, but Rudy felt a joy in her pres-

ence he had never known with any other human being. As

they sat together with their backs to the fire, not touching,

talking of Tir or of the small doings of the road, the in-

 

timacy between them was as close and warm as if they

shared a cloak.

 

The morning dawned clear and freezing cold. The wind

had broken the overcast and piled the clouds in the south,

like the immeasurable slopes of achingly white mountains

against the soaring blue of the morning sky. Word came

down the line that wolves had attacked the horse herd

belonging to the Church and had been driven off by the

Red Monks; four night guards had been found dead by

their watch fires, bloodless victims of the Dark. Never-

theless, Bishop Govannin gave a cart-tail service of thanks-

giving, and those who had survived the night thanked their

God that it had been no worse.

 

They came into a rolling country now, the great road

looping through the gray-green hills. To their right, the

distant heads of the western mountains were sometimes

glimpsed, plum and blue and gray, or covered in the lour

of clouds. It was a land of streams, ice-rimed in the morn-

ing, that flowed down toward the green, lush bottom lands

in the east. These streams were sometimes crossed by

narrow stone bridges, but often the road simply led to

shallow fords, so that everyone was perpetually half-wet

and shivering. Rudy, stiff and aching in every joint, took

Ingold's advice and cut a straight sapling from the next

grove of trees they passed, to trim into a walking stick.

He had never been much good at botany, but the Icefalcon

told him the wood was ash.

 

Toward noon they crossed a broad saddle of land that

lay between two hills, and from it a vista spread before

them of all the countryside down to the river, the long

grass rippling palely in the wan light of a heatless sun. The

red-clothed trooper leading the mules of Minalde's cart

paused there to breathe them, and Rudy came up close at

her side. Many people stood there, having stopped to rest in

the neck of that miniature pass and look down on the

lands below. Alde turned to him and smiled. "How are

you?" she asked quietly, a little shy at speaking to him in

the light of day.

 

"Sore as hell." Rudy leaned on his staff, not caring if it

made him look like an old man. "How in God's name do

you people stand it? I feel like I'm fixing to die."

 

"So do most of these people," Alde said. "So would I,

if I didn't have a cart to ride in because I'm the Queen.

 

We've been passing women all day, with children as young

as Tir. Carrying them. They'll carry them clear to Renweth,

unless they die on the road." She tucked the blankets

closer around the child she held propped at her side. Tir

made a little noise of protest and a determined effort to

divest himself of the blankets and, Rudy guessed, to roll

off the seat. The kid was going to be a real pest when he

started to walk.

 

"Die?" he said uneasily. He remembered things people

had said about those who straggled from the caravan . . .

 

"Of cold," Alde said. "Or hunger. We're doing all right

for food now, but when we get out of the farm country,

there won't be nearly enough. Not for the children or for

the old people or for those who are sick—"

 

She broke off, startled, lifting her head to stare off across

the hills, and Rudy followed her gaze down the smooth,

falling curves of the gray-green land. Far off he could see

huge brown forms stalking the distant pastures, swaying

like monstrous animated haystacks—impossibly large, mon-

sters in the icy distance.

 

"What are they?" he asked, shading his eyes. Then he

glanced back at Alde and saw the worry on her face. "Are

they..."

 

"Mammoths," Alde said, and her tone was puzzled and

surprised. "Mammoths this side of the mountains . . ."

 

"Mammoths?"

 

She glanced down at him, hearing but misinterpreting

the shock in his voice. "Woolly elephants," she explained.

"They're common on the northern plains, of course, but

they haven't been seen in the river valleys since—oh, for

hundreds of years. And never this far south. They must

have come over the passes of the mountains for some

reason."

 

But mammoths were not the only things to come over

the passes of the mountains.

 

That night, as he and Alde sat talking quietly under

Medda's disapproving chaperonage by the watch fire, Rudy

thought he heard the distant thunder of hooves, an unlikely

sound in the convoy where horses were few and precious,

guarded more carefully than a miser guards his hoard.

After a time, the night wind brought him the faint, damp

drift of smoke and a sound that reminded him of the howl-

ing of wolves, although there was a difference to this

 

sound. In the morning he rode out with Ingold and the slim

handful of Guards whom the convoy could afford to

mount to look for the source of the sound.

 

They found it long before the sun had managed to burn

off the thick, white river mist. The charred hulk of a gutted

farmhouse loomed in the opal fog, haunted by the gliding

black shapes of spectral crows and the smell of roasted

flesh. They found some of the farm family a little ways

from the house. At first Rudy didn't register that the body

staked to the ground was human; when he did, he came as

close to fainting as he ever had in his life. He looked

away, his face clammy with sweat and the taste of vomit in

his mouth. He heard Janus' boots squishing in the mushy

grass and the faint, restless jingling of bridle-bits as the

horses tossed their heads in alarm. He heard Janus say,

"Not the Dark," and Ingold, skirting on foot the trampled

weeds beyond him, reply, "No."

 

Faintly, another Guard's voice drifted to him. "Dooic?

Gone feral or—or mad?"

 

Another responded. "On horses? Be serious."

 

Ingold returned, materializing like a specter from the

mist, holding in his hand a strip of rawhide trimmed with

chips of colored glass, from which a long feather dangled,

its end tipped in blood. "No," he said, his voice calm in

spite of the butchered horror lying in the grass nearby.

"No, I fear this is the work of the White Raiders."

 

"On this side of the mountains?" Janus asked nervously,

looking around him.

 

Ingold nodded and held out to him the rawhide, the

spinning feather brushing his wrist and marking the flesh

with blood. "Lava Hills People," he identified briefly, and

gestured toward the grisly evidence, scattered over several

square yards of grass. "It's a sacrifice, a—propitiation. An

offering to something they fear."

 

"The Dark?" the Commander asked. He took and ex-

amined the rawhide tag.

 

"Doubtless," Ingold said slowly, and looked around him

at the burned trees, the scorched remains of the outbuild-

ings, and the fallen house surrounded by a hideously sug-

gestive cloud of screeching carrion-birds. "Doubtless.

Though if the Dark were their principal fear—why did

they cross the mountains? The danger of the Dark is

thickest in the valleys of the river."

 

"Possibly they didn't know."

 

"Possibly." The wizard's tone was still dubious, and he

moved restlessly along the trampled verge of the grass,

scanning the flat opaque whiteness of a countryside turned

two-dimensional with fog, as if sniffing the wind for the

scent of unknown danger. "In any case, it puts us in a

bad position. You see, the hoof-tracks here are shod, which

means they're already short of horses, stealing what they

can find from the valley farms. My guess is that they're

too few to protect their herds from wolves. They'll be

turning on the convoy soon."

 

"Would they?" Janus asked doubtfully.

 

"If they thought they could get away with it, yes." In-

gold came back to him, brushing the dew from his sleeves.

He walked, Rudy noticed, with an instinctive cat-footed

care that left hardly a mark in the sodden grass. "The

combined force of the Guards, Alwir's troops, the Church

troops, and the remains of the Army, plus Tirkenson's

men, outnumber the Raiders at least twenty to one. But

the convoy is nearly seven miles long on the march; four

miles, bunched up to camp. They could strike us like a

spearhead at any point."

 

The Guards were mounting to go. Only Janus and Ingold

remained afoot, talking in low voices, the red-haired Com-

mander of the Guards towering over the smaller form of

the wizard. From his uneasy perch on the restless horse,

Rudy looked down at the pair of them, wondering about

the friendship that was so evident, despite the Church

strictures against wizards. It occurred to him that, apart

from himself and Gil, Janus seemed to be the only friend

Ingold had in the convoy. People, ordinary people follow-

ing the road to the myth of refuge in the south, treated the

old man with a combination of awe, distrust, and out-

right fear, as something completely uncanny; even Minalde,

whose life and child he had saved from certain doom, was

timid and silent in his presence. Rudy wondered what the

bond was between the wizard and the Guards.

 

"And how much danger are we in, from the Dark?"

 

In the diffuse light Ingold's face was thoughtful, his gaze

going past the Commander to scan the landscape that was

slowly revealing itself as the mists dissolved into pale and

heatless daylight. Far off, a dark sense of movement along

the bases of the round hills marked the road, with its

 

endless chain of pilgrims; closer, crows hunched in the

bare black trees and watched the Guards with bright, in-

quiring eyes. All around them, north and south and west,

lay a desolation of sun-silvered grass. Rudy felt he had

never seen a land so empty.

 

"More than we think," the wizard said quietly. "We had

a good moon last night, but I could sense them, far off,

masses of them. There was a Nest of them at one time,

blocked long ago, at the foot of the mountains. The road

will run quite close to it."

 

Janus' glance cut sharply back to him, but Ingold did not

elaborate. He only said, "Right now, speed is our ally,_

and the weather. We must reach the Keep and quickly;

every day on the road heightens our danger. It may be

that, when we reach it, we will have to hold the Keep

against more than the Dark."

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

A fever of uneasiness seemed to spread down the con-

voy. The unseen presence of the White Raiders dogged

them by day, as the threat of the Dark dogged them by

night, and all that day and the next Rudy felt it, following

the endless road. He heard it in the snatches of conversa-

tion he caught and picked it up, unsaid, from the people he

talked to during the days; he saw it in the movements of

the refugees who still clung, a vast tattered horde, to the

nucleus of what had been the government of the greatest

Realm in the West of the World. Little groups and families

would accelerate past him, a man pushing an impossibly

piled wheelbarrow, cursing an exhausted woman with a

child in her arms and a goat on a frayed rope behind her

to hurry, hurry, get a little farther down the road before

something—the Dark, the wolves, the invisible Raiders—

got them. Later Rudy would pass them, sitting in a tired

huddle on a worn milestone, the child wailing hungrily

while the man and woman looked over their shoulders at

the empty lands beyond. Tempers shortened. At the cross-

ing of the Mabigee River, its bridge flooded out by unsea-

sonable storms in the mountains, Alwir and Bishop Govan-

nin came to bitter words over the cartloads of ecclesiastical

records that the Bishop had brought from Gae. The rec-

ords could be left behind—the carts were needed for the

sick, the injured, the very old and very young whose

strength was failing them due to poor food and exhaustion.

 

The Bishop bit back at him, "Yes, and then all record

of precedent, which puts the dominion of God above the

 

commands of man, may be left behind, too, when we

reach the Keep."

 

"Don't be a fool, woman!" Alwir snarled. "God would

rather have souls than a load of moldy paper!"

 

"He has their souls," the Bishop snapped, "or should. If

it's souls that concern you, my lord Chancellor, turn out

your tame mirror of Satan, your pet conjurer, and let your

precious sick ride in his place. A man who takes the ad-

vice of wizards should be the last to talk of souls."

 

The river crossing left the refugees soaked and ex-

hausted, and no one traveled more than a few miles on-

ward after that. The main body of the convoy halted in

an abandoned village and took shelter in the stone houses

that were half-falling into ruin, scorched by the fires their

defenders had lit against the attacking Dark, or caved in

by the power of the Dark themselves. Those parties that

could not fit into the houses spread out like water across

a flood plain all around, making a great tangled city of

tents and makeshift shelters, ringed in the far-flung watch

fires of its bright perimeter against the coming of the night.

 

Rudy's campfire was built in a little dip in the ground a

hundred yards from the building farthest from the road.

He'd found a tiny dugout cabin nested into the side of a

kill that, in better days, had been used for a wood store

and still contained ample sticks for his fire. The hill itself,

facing away from the road and the camp, made a fair wind-

break against the bitter, searching winds from the west.

 

All that day the mountains had been visible, growing per-

ceptibly in the west and south. Now, in the last of the

sunset, they hung like a black wall against the cloud-

heaped sky of evening, their heads wreathed in storms and,

when the wind cleared the cover a little, white with the

mantle of winter. He had been told that Sarda Pass lay

high in those mountains. Rudy thought of snow and shiv-

ered. He had grown used to being wolf-hungry all the

time, and, to his surprise, his body seemed to be adapting

to days of walking and the weariness of night guard. But

since his coming to the Realm of Darwath, he had always

been conscious of being cold. He wondered if he would

ever get warm again.

 

When the night was fully dark, Alde and Medda ap-

peared, bringing him some mulled wine. Rudy sipped it

thankfully, reflecting to himself that he'd rather have had

 

about six cups of the foulest black truck-driver coffee

and a handful of caffeine tablets. Still, he reasoned, look-

ing across the gold rim of the cup at the girl's dark eyes,

it proved she cared, or at least felt something for him.

Alde, Minalde, he thought despairingly, you're the goddam

Queen of Darwath and I'm a bum passing through, and

why does this have to happen to me? His desire for her

was palpable, urgent, but they could not so much as touch

hands. Medda sat, a stout bundle of silent disapproval, on

the other side of his fire, far enough away so as not to

overhear their conversation, if they kept their voices low.

For the rest, her mere presence lent them a respectability

without which Alde would not have been able to see him

at all.

 

"Would Alwir be mad if he knew you were coming out

like this?" Rudy asked, without taking his eyes from the

darkness. It was a soldier's trick the Icefalcon had taught

him, not to look at the campfire. It blinded the eyes to the

movements of the night.

 

"Oh—" Her voice was unwilling. "Probably. He half-

knows. Alwir worries about me."

 

"If you were my sister, I'd want to keep an eye on you,

too."

 

"Not that way, silly." She smiled at him. "He's con-

cerned about my 'state.' So is Medda, for that matter."

 

Rudy glanced briefly across the fire and met the fat

woman's disdainful eyes. She'd given him dirty looks when-

ever their paths had crossed these last five days, and to-

night he sensed the silence between Alde and Medda that

spoke louder than any words. He guessed she'd said some-

thing to her charge, the beautiful young woman who had

once been her little girl, about going out alone at night to

see a man, a mere Guard and an outworlder at that. He

could feel in that frosty silence how that conversation had

gone; he knew that Medda had reminded Alde of her sta-

tion in life and had had the words thrown back in her face.

 

"If it will make you trouble . . ." he began.

 

She shook her head, the great cloudy mass of her un-

bound hair sliding on the fur collar of her cloak. "I'd only

lie awake, nights," she said. And her eyes met his, knowl-

edge passing between them.

 

So they were quiet for a tune, sitting side by side, not

too close, not touching, only comfortable in each other's

 

presence. He watched the darkness beyond the ring of the

firelight and judged, with his ears, the noises of the night.

In the distance he saw a dark shape walking back toward

the camp along the line of the wide-spaced fires and knew

it was Ingold, Ingold who seldom slept now, but divided

his nights between a solitary, silent patrol and long hours

of watching, staring into the heart of his enchanted crystal,

in the cold time before dawn.

 

Wind moved the clouds down from the west, obscuring

the brightness of the moon. The camp was far enough

away, behind the sheltering hill, to give them a greater

illusion of privacy than they had ever had before, while

the moon gave enough light between the clouds for Rudy

to be sure nothing was sneaking up on them. He was less

afraid of the Dark Ones than of the White Raiders or the

wolves, though in all that dim world he saw nothing move,

nor heard any howling nearer than the far-off river. So

they drank the spiced wine Alde had brought and spoke

of everything and nothing, of their childhoods and their

past lives, trading memories like a couple of children

trading marbles. More clouds gathered, and the darkness

surrounding them deepened, the firelight warming and

bright on their faces.

 

The brief downpour, when it rushed without warning

from the sky, took them completely unawares. Hand in

hand, they ran for the dugout cabin, with Medda grum-

bling behind and stopping to pick up the discarded wine

cup and a stick from the fire. They fell, laughing, through

the door. From inside, they could just barely see Medda,

leaning over the torch to protect it from the rain and

stumping grumpily through the long grass. But for the

moment they were alone in the damp, earth-smelling dim-

ness of the little house.

 

The realization that this was the first time they had

been alone together out of anyone's sight came to both

of them, and their laughter faded. In the darkness of the

shack, he could hear Alde's breathing and he sensed that

she was afraid of something she had never felt before,

something to which she was not yet ready to give herself.

She did not move when he put his hand up to push aside

her unbound hair. Her cheek was cold under his touch.

He could feel her trembling, feel her breath grow quick

and uneven against his face. She put her hands against his

 

chest, resisting as he pulled her to him, and the cloak

slid from her shoulders and fell with a soft thud around

their feet. He took her mouth, forcing it open with his

own. Though she made a small noise of denial in her throat,

she did not pull away from him. She went limp against

him, shaking as his hands molded her body under the soft

texture of the gown, her arms sliding up around his shoul-

ders, his neck, uncertain at first and then clinging tighter

and tighter, as if she would never let him go. Through the

burning urgency of his own desire, his common sense

told him that Medda would be there soon—that the old

nurse could probably see them already and would be

clucking her shocked disapproval of them.

 

Releasing Alde's searching mouth from his, he raised his

head and looked out. The rain was easing to a gentle

shower, and a sliver of moon had broken through a hole

in the clouds. By its light, he saw Medda.

 

She stood less than four feet away. She wasn't looking

at them. Though her eyes were open and staring, she wasn't

looking at anything. The wine cup dangled forgotten from

one nerveless hand, and the torch had gone out in a puddle

at her feet. All this Rudy saw across Alde's shoulder in a

split second of time, and he felt a chill, directionless wind

ruffle across his face from somewhere in the darkness.

 

With a violence born of the pure reflex of terror, he

slung Alde into the back of the dugout and jerked the door

shut with a slam like a gunshot. She fell against the wall,

catching at it for balance, her eyes dilated with fear and,

he suspected, misinterpretation of the situation. "Get me

one of those sticks," he commanded roughly. Warned by

something in his voice, she obeyed immediately. He used

it to bolt the door and found another to use as a wedge for

good measure, his hands shaking with shock.

 

"There's a Dark One out there," he told her quietly.

She said nothing, but in the dim light of the cabin's single

window, he could see her eyes get wider. "It—got Medda."

 

"Oh!" she whispered.

 

"Do you have anything to make a fire with?"

 

She shook her head, a tiny gesture, stunned. Then sud-

denly she turned, looking around the almost lightless in-

terior of the room. "There's wood all along the back here,"

she said, her voice low and tense. "Your fire outside . . ."

 

"It's a long way to my fire," Rudy said shortly, "and

 

the rain probably put it out. I wouldn't leave you alone

here, anyway." The ceiling of the tiny place was barely

high enough for him to stand. He waited, drawn sword

in hand, before the door, trying desperately to think what

to do next. Behind him Alde gathered sticks together and

made a competent little arrangement of them, with dead

leaves and twigs for tinder, working swiftly, without dis-

play of the fear that must have been screaming inside her.

Still tensed to spring, Rudy knelt down and fingered the

wood. Soft and splintery. Did one need a special kind of

wood, to make fire by rubbing two sticks together? Any-

how for sure, this trash wouldn't work. He examined the

hilt of his sword. Steel. Flint and steel. Was it worth it to

try to get a spark from the steel blade of the sword, at

the risk of ruining the thing for fighting purposes? Anyhow,

the walls of the dugout were made of wattle-and-daub, not

stone, let alone flint.

 

The rain now drummed lightly and steadily on the front

wall. The moon must be hidden again, since he could see

almost nothing in the darkness. But he felt suddenly that

same chill wind creeping around the edges of the door. It

stirred in the tinder, made a thin, dry whispering among

the leaves, and closed off the breath in his throat with the

strangling grip of fear.

 

Flint, he thought through his panic. We've got to strike

a spark somehow.

 

"Are you wearing any jewelry? Any stones at all?"

She shook her head, her eyes wide.

 

What the hell, I probably wouldn't know what to do

with flint if it jumped out and bit me . . . "Well, after

this you're going to have a gold ring made with a hunk of

flint as big as a walnut set in it, and you're going to wear

it all the time, you understand?"

 

"All right," she whispered breathlessly.

What the hell am I talking about? There's not going to

be anything after this.

 

Alde crouched back, keeping out of his way so as not to

encumber his sword arm, though her terror cried for the

comfort of his touch. High up, near the top of the door,

Rudy heard a soft bumping noise, like a testing finger

tapping, and then a faint scratching on the heavy glass of

the window. His heart slamming sickeningly against his

ribs, Rudy thought, All I can do is take a swing straight

 

down at whatever comes through that door. What's stone?

What's flint? What will make a spark? I wish to Christ

Ingold were here. He could make a fire just by looking

at the wood.

 

Wonder if I could do that?

 

Ingold's words came back to him, spoken in the darkness

of the gatehouse, the light glowing up from his empty

palm. You know what it is . . . by its true name you call

it . . . Rudy looked at the tiny pile of wood, the dried

leaves and tinder scattered beneath. That would catch, he

knew it would. Its true name . . . Maybe there was some

kind of a magic name for fire. But whatever you called it,

fire was fire. The smell of it was the same, the brightness.

He thought how it would smell as it caught off those twigs,

sort of sweet and sharp. It would give off snappy, sputtery

little gold sparks, little crackly sounds . . . He called them

to mind, the shape and smell and brightness, straining eyes

and mind to see the tinder in the deepening darkness. He

saw only that the room was fading; even his consciousness

of Alde kneeling beside him and his chilled fear of the

death that waited outside the door began growing less im-

portant than the fire, the fire purely for its own sake. He

could see it, hear it, smell it; he knew how it would splutter

out of that tinder. "

 

The dry leaves fluttered a little in the wind. From far

off, he could see Alde press her knuckles to white lips,

all the while without a sound. Detachedly, he saw the fire

in his mind, in the first instant of its sparking, and knew

exactly how it would be. He could see it, just couldn't

touch it yet. He felt his mind and body relax, withdrawing

to some great distance, his perspective on the world alter-

ing, narrowing to only the dry shapes of leaf and twig

and wood that he could see, quite clearly, in the utter dark-

ness. The wood, the dry little heap of leaves, the tiny gold

sparks like stars . . . Without moving, he reached his mind

across from where he was to where the fire was, as easily

as picking a flower that grew on the other side of a fence.

 

There was a sudden, bright crackle of little gold sparks,

and the sharp, sweet smell of dry leaves catching. Rudy

bent forward, still detached from himself, calm, half-

wondering if it could be a hallucination, but calmly certain

that it was not, and fed one twig and then another to the

fire, real fire where no fire had been before. The light

 

spread quickly into the room, threw gleeful shadows across

his face, and danced flickering, crazy jigs of triumph that

reflected in tiny points of light in Alde's eyes as she brought

up more and bigger sticks without a word.

 

And then it hit him, like a blow from a club. I did that,

he thought. I did that. The warmth scorched his trembling

fingers and seeped into the cold flesh of his palms and

face. The wind that had rustled so evilly at the door

faltered, then waned and ceased, and all outside the dugout

became terribly still, except for the faint drizzling of the

last of the rain.

 

Rudy's mind echoed like a thunderclap with the shock,

and rocked wildly with surging triumph. One part of him,

it seemed, was screaming, I did it! I did it! I called the fire,

and the fire came, and another was saying, I shouldn't have

been able to do that. But more real than either, deeper,

within his true heart, there was only a calm knowledge,

clear and small like a little light—the memory of that

first crackle of flame in the dry leaves and the knowing that

he could do this.

 

Then he looked up and met Alde's terrified eyes. They

were wild with fear, a fear tinged with hysteria and relief

and superstitious terror, fear of the Dark, of the fire, of

him. He saw that newfound power reflected in her eyes,

saw it as others would see it, alien and terrible and un-

canny. She couldn't speak the wild question in her eyes,

nor could he have answered, and for a moment they could

only stare at each other in the firelight, as once before they

had stared in the shocked, shared knowledge of their desire.

Then, with a sob that seemed to rip her soul from her

body, she threw herself into his arms, weeping wildly,

holding onto him as if he were her last hope of life itself.

Magic and terror and death released him, the tension break-

ing with an almost physical shock, and he clutched the

slender girl in his arms with a grip that seemed to drive

her bones into his and buried his face in her dark hair.

Desperately they took one another beneath their shared

cloaks on the floor, while the fire threw its shadow dance

across the low rafters.

 

Afterward Alde slept, terror exhausted in passion, and

Rudy lay awake, sword close to his hand, watching the

fire and letting his thoughts of past and future have their

 

way with him, until the rain outside stopped, and dawn

came.

 

"You think that's fighting?" Gnift roared in a voice that

cut like the steel of his grip-worn sword. "Get him! Get

him!" The Icefalcon, armed with an eighteen-inch wooden

stick, feinted warily at his opponent, a massive Guard

wielding three feet of split bamboo that could draw blood

like metal. The young captain was marked with it, face

and hands; Rudy, sitting on the sidelines, shuddered. Gil,

he noticed, watched beside him with an alert interest. She

looked as if she'd already had her turn at this game, and

gotten the worst of it.

 

Stubborn broad, he thought. They'll have to kill her be-

fore she'll give it up.

 

Gnift yelled, "Attack him, you puling coward! Don't

make love to him!"

 

The big man swung, and the Icefalcon shifted back out

of range. Exasperated, Gnift stepped forward under the

arc of the wooden blade, grabbed the back of the captain's

black tunic, and shoved him into the fray. The result was

bloody, painful, and exhausting for both combatants.

 

Rudy said thoughtfully, "One of these days somebody's

gonna take a poke at that little bastard."

 

"Gnift?" Gil raised her split eyebrow in amused sur-

prise. "Not bloody likely." Rudy remembered seeing Gnift

sparring with Tomec Tirkenson, the big landchief of Gettle-

sand, yesterday evening about this time, in the last of the

daylight after the long march. Maybe Gil was right.

 

They watched for a time more, sitting side by side on

the square of groundcloth just off the makeshift training

floor. Around them, the camp was settling itself down for

the night once again. It would soon be time to collect their

meager rations and make for the watchfires. Rudy noticed

that Gil looked drawn and exhausted, a thin, almost sex-

less shadow with a great straggling mane of black hair.

He knew that in addition to marching and guard duty she

was training this way nightly, on starvation rations, with

the mess of her half-healed arm wound, as if deliberately

driving herself to collapse.

 

Wind sneered down off the mountains and washed over

the camp like incoming tide. The mountains loomed above

them now, hugely close, blacking the western sky, a sheer

 

wall, like the Rockies. That morning they had passed the

crossroads, which were watched over by a crumbling stone

cross, and set their feet on the great road that ran up

to Sarda Pass. It was colder here in the shadows of the

foothills and desolate of all habitation.

 

In the wan twilight before them, the Icefalcon was hold-

ing his own, retreating before the great swinging strokes of

his opponent's sword. Sweat bathed his face, white in the

frame of ivory hair, and his pale eyes were desperate with

exhaustion. Cursing, reviling, Gnift circled the fighters,

finally stepping lightly up behind the captain and hooking

his feet out from under him with a deft sweep of one leg.

The Icefalcon went down, his opponent dropping on him

like grim death from above. There was a confused blur

of movement. The younger man came up under the arc

of the longer sword with a clean slash across the big

Guard's belly and turned the end of the movement into a

circle-throw that hurled his attacker over his head and flat

on the Guard's back in the mud. He got both swords and

scrambled to his feet, gasping. The bigger man lay on

the ground, puffing and cursing. Gnift yelled, "When you

get your man down, do something, don't just take his

sword and stand there like a fool. If you did that . . ."

 

Rudy, who'd been tremendously impressed with this last

maneuver, whispered, "Do all warriors have to do that? I

mean, Alwir's Guards and the Church troops?"

 

"The method is much the same," Ingold's mild voice

remarked behind them. "Gnift is stricter than most, and

the Guards have the reputation of having the best instruc-

tion in the West of the World. Methods differ in different

modes of combat, of course. In Alketch, for instance, they

train their famous cavalry by chaining a slave by one

wrist to an iron post in the middle of the exercise hall,

putting a sword in his free hand, and having the cavalry

trainees practice their saber-charges on horseback against

him."

 

"What's their budget for replacements?" Rudy wanted to

know. "Somebody remind me never to visit Alketch."

 

Gil glanced sideways, from the old shackle gall on the

wizard's wrist to his serene face, and said, "Somebody told

me once that you used to be a slave in Alketch."

 

"Did they?" Ingold's eyes twinkled. "Well, I have been

and done many things in the course of my misspent life.

 

Rudy, if you could spare me a moment, I would like to

talk with you in private." He rose and led the way through

the orange-lit confusion of the settling camp with Rudy

tagging at his heels. At a distance they passed Alwir's

wagons, and Rudy recognized the sable standards of the

House of Dare and knew that Minalde was there with her

son.

 

He had hardly spoken to Alde during the day. She had

turned away from him, silent and more shy than before, as

if withdrawing herself after the shattering intimacy of last

night. Rudy was puzzled but not surprised; they had taken

each other in the passion that followed tension and terror;

such things could change drastically come morning. It

could be grief at Medda's death, though she must have

known, after the Guards led the poor, stumbling zombie

who had been her oldest companion out of the camp, that

there was no way to bring her along with the train. It

could be shame, either at the act of sex itself or at its

implicit betrayal of her dead King. Rudy wondered about

that. Alde seldom spoke of Eldor and shied almost visibly

at the mention of his name. It might be shame that she'd

lain with a commoner—though from remarks about history

that Gil had dropped in passing, that wasn't something that

seemed to bother female royalty much—or, more likely,

fear and a kind of revulsion that she'd lain with a wizard.

Alde was a good daughter of the Church. Rudy remem-

bered the look in her eyes, awe and a wild kind of horror,

staring into his across the new brightness of the flames.

 

But whatever her reasons, he sensed in her no anger

toward him, only a terrible emotional confusion. And he

knew, looking back at the square gray silhouette of the

wagon top against the fading salmon of the sky, that he

must bide his time. Rudy had been around enough to know

that sleeping with someone once could happen to and with

literally anybody. It was the second time, and those after,

that had meaning. Impatient as he was to be with her again,

he was aware that to rush her would be fatal. He knew

Alde and knew that behind her deceptive gentleness lay a

core of steel. For all her quiet diffidence, she was not a

woman who could be bullied into bed.

 

And that would be fine, he thought, as his breathing

suddenly constricted, if she were the only one involved.

 

He forced himself to turn his eyes away.

 

"Now." Ingold halted on the grassy open ground that

lay between the edge of the camp proper and the guard

line where the watch fires were being kindled. Here they

were alone, camp and lines both fading into the feature-

less gray of the evening. The wind blew the cold rain-smell

down around them, surging through the grass and over the

bare patches of stony ground beneath their feet. "You

told me this morning how you called fire at need last

night. Show me what you did."

 

Rudy gathered a few sticks together that had been

dropped from the making of the watch fires and found a

patch of dry ground. With his thumbnail he peeled enough

dry bark to make a little tinder and sat cross-legged beside

that small pinch of wood, his cloak wrapped about him.

He relaxed his body and mind, shutting out the smells of

the camp, the smoke and scent of wet grass, and the low-

ing of the cattle. He saw only the twigs and the bark, and

how the stuff would catch. Smokier than last night's leaves,

he thought. A little spot, like one made with a magnifying

glass in the sun . .. a different smell from the leaves . . .

 

The fire came much more quickly than it had come be-

fore.

 

There was a hint of triumph mixed with anxiety in the

glance Rudy gave Ingold. The older wizard watched the

new flames impassively for a moment, then without moving

put them out. He produced the stump of a candle from

somewhere about his person and held it a few feet from

Rudy's eyes.

 

"Light the candle," he instructed.

 

Rudy did.

 

Ingold blew it out thoughtfully and regarded him for a

moment in silence through the whitish drift of the smoke.

Then he set it aside. From a pouch in his belt he fished a

piece of string with a dangling bit of lead on it like a

fishing-sinker. He held the string before him and steadied

the suspended weight to stillness with his free hand.

 

"Make it move."

 

It was like starting the fire, only different.

 

"Hmm." Ingold gathered the plumb weight into his hand

again and put it away without speaking.

 

A little ripple of evening wind stirred the grasses beside

them. Rudy fidgeted, his mind shying from the implications

 

of what he had done. "What is it?" he asked nervously. "I

mean—how can I do this?"

 

The wizard straightened his sleeves. "You know that,"

he said. "Better than I do." Their eyes met and held. Be-

tween them passed the understanding of something known

only to those who had felt what it was. There were not

even words for it among those who did not know already.

"The question is the answer, Rudy. The question is always

the answer. But as to your Power, I'd say you were born

with it, as we all are."

 

We, Rudy thought. We. He stammered, knowing Ingold

must be right, his mind fighting the nets of the impossible.

"But—I mean—I never could do this before."

 

"In your own world you couldn't," Ingold said. "Or

possibly you could—did you ever try?"

 

Rudy shook his head mutely, helpless. It had never

occurred to him past his childhood. But unbidden images

invaded his mind, images of dreams he had had as a very

small child, before he started school. Things he was not

sure whether he had done or only dreamed of doing. The

memory of the need in him struck like an arrow, a need

deeper than his love for Alde, a wordless yearning so

deeply buried he had never sensed its loss in all his aimless

life. The need for something they had taken away from

him when he was far too young to fight back. And, like

the child he had been, he felt the tears choke him.

 

"Never?" Ingold whispered, and his eye was like a

dragon's that holds and reflects, a mirror that swallows the

soul. In it Rudy saw his own memory of the spark leaping

from the dried leaves, the dark, terrified gaze of deep blue

eyes into his. He saw the scattered pictures from childhood

dreams, and felt the utter grief he had felt when he had

first learned that they were impossible. Ingold's voice held

him like a velvet chain. "You have talent, Power. But even

your little power is dangerous. Do you understand that?"

 

Rudy nodded, hardly able to breathe. "Will I—can I—"

Was there some kind of etiquette about it, some way of

asking? "Will the Power grow, if I learn how to use it

right?"

 

The old man made a slight movement of assent, sky-blue

eyes remote and cool as water.

 

"Will you teach me?"

 

The voice was now very soft. "Why do you want to

learn, Rudy?"

 

He felt then for the first time the terrifying extent of

the old man's power. The blue gaze pinned his brain like

a spear, so that he could neither answer nor deny. He saw

his own thoughts, stripped before that watching power, a

mushy jumble of half-formed longings and a selfish, dis-

proportionate indulgence of his own passing emotions,

pettiness, indolence, sensuality, a thousand sloppy, stupid

errors past and present, murky shadows he had turned

his back on, probed by glass-edged light. "I don't know,"

he whispered.

 

"That's no answer."

 

Rudy tried desperately to think, to express more to him-

self than to the old man that terrible need. This, he under-

stood suddenly, was what Gnift did to your courage, your

spirit, your body, making you understand your own truth

before you could manifest it to another. He understood

then why Gil trained with the Guards, understood the bond

of commitment and understanding that lay between Ingold

and the Commander. And he knew he had to answer and

answer right, or Ingold would never consent to be his

teacher.

 

But there is no right answer! the other half of his mind

cried. It's nothing—it's only that calm. It's only knowing

that it's right, and I have to do it. It's only that I wasn't

surprised when I could call the fire. But it's different for

everyone, everything.

 

And suddenly Rudy knew, understood, as if something

had been turned within him and the truth of his own soul

had focused. Tell the truth, he told himself. Even if it's

stupid, it is the truth. He whispered, "If I don't, nothing

will mean anything. If I don't learn—about that—there

won't be any center. It's the center of everything, only I

didn't know it."

 

The words made sense to him, though they were prob-

ably utter Greek to the wizard. He felt as if some other

person were speaking through him, drawn out of his im-

mobilized mind by the hypnotic power of that depthless

gaze.

 

"What's the center?" Ingold pressed him, quiet and in-

escapable as death.

 

"Knowing—not knowing something, but just knowing.

Knowing the center is the center; having a key, one thing

that makes sense, is sense. Everything has its own key,

and knowing that is my key."

 

"Ah."

 

Being released from that power was like waking up,

but waking up into a different world. Rudy found he was

sweating, as if from a physical shock or some great exertion.

He wondered how he could ever have thought Ingold harm-

less, how he could ever have not been half-afraid, awed,

loving the old man.

 

Dryly amused fondness briefly crossed the old man's

face, and with slow illumination, Rudy came to realize the

vast extent of Ingold's wizardry, seeing its reflection in

the potential of his own. "You understand what it is," the

wizard said after a moment. "Do you understand what it

means?"

 

Rudy shook his head. "Only that I'll do whatever I have

to. I have to do it, Ingold."

 

At that, Ingold smiled to himself, as if remembering

another very earnest and extremely young mage. "And that

means doing whatever I tell you to," he said. "Without

question, without argument, to the best of your ability.

And only you know what that best is. You will have to

memorize thousands of things that seem to have no mean-

ing, foolish things, names and riddles and rhymes."

 

"I'm not very good at memorizing stuff," Rudy admitted

shamefacedly.

 

"Then I suggest that you get good, and quickly." The

eyes turned cold again, distant, and in the clipped, deci-

sive tone Rudy could feel once more the flash of that ter-

rible power. "I am not a kindergarten teacher; I have my

own work. If you wish to learn, Rudy, you will learn as

and how and when I choose to teach you. Is that clear?"

 

For a split second, Rudy wondered what would happen

if he said, What if I can't? But if the question was the

answer, the answer would surely be. Then you can't. It was

entirely his choice. And though he would be as friendly as

before, Ingold would never mention the subject again.

 

Rudy saw his own future, made suddenly clear, and

what the commitment would mean: a change, enormous,

all-encompassing, irrevocable, and terrifying, in everything

 

he was, everything he would do or be. The choice was be-

ing thrust violently into his shaky, unprepared hands, a

decision that he must make, could never back out of, and

would never, ever be able to make again.

 

How come stuff like this always happens to me?

 

The question was the answer. Because you want it.

 

He swallowed hard and found his throat aching with

strain. "Okay," he said weakly. "I'll do it. I'll do the best

I can, I mean."

 

Night had fallen around them. Ingold folded his arms,

a dim, cloaked shadow against the distant glitter of the

camp lights. Thin, translucent ground mist had risen, and

the sounds and smells of the camp were obscure behind

them; Rudy had the sense of being isolated in a wet, cold

world of nothingness, as if he had been kneeling there

in the damp grass for hours, wrestling with some terrible

angel.

 

And he had won. His soul felt light and empty, without

triumph or anxiety, as if he could drift upon the wind.

 

Then Ingold smiled and was nothing but a shabby little

man in a stained and rusty brown robe. "That," he said

pleasantly, "is what I shall expect of you at all times.

Even when you are bored, and tired, and hungry; when

you're afraid of what I tell you to do; when you think it's

dangerous, or impossible, or both; when you're angry

with me for prying into what you consider your trivial

personal life. You will always do the best you can; for

only you understand what it is. God help you!" He stood

up, shaking the damp grass and stray twigs from his rough

robe. "Now get back to camp," he said, not unkindly. "You

still have your shift of watch to stand."

 

Cold wind keened down the foothills, whining in the

canyons surrounding the refugee camp that lay strung out

along the road. It flattened Rudy's little fire to thin yellow

streamers that paralleled the ground and sent chill fingers

through cloak and tunic and flesh, searching out his bones.

The first hard, mealy, little flakes of snow had begun to fall.

 

Alde had not come.

 

Rudy knew why and was sorry. What had happened

last night had changed things between them. That, too, was

irrevocable; if she was not his lover, she could no longer

 

be his friend, either. And, good daughter of the Church

that she was, she would be no wizard's woman.

 

He would miss Minalde. His body hurt for her, but the

longing was deeper than that, a loneliness, a need for her

company, for the sound of her soft voice. It brought home

to him with a painful little stab that he was now an out-

sider, as he would be an outsider for the rest of his life. In

this world, or in his own, he had cut himself off from all

hope of communication with those who did not understand.

It would be worse when he went home—that much he

knew already. But having seen the center, the focus, the

key of his own life, he knew there was no way he could

not pursue it. Even when he left the peril-fraught world

of the Dark and returned to the electric jungles of Southern

California, he knew he would be driven to seek it there.

And he knew that somehow, some way, seeking, he would

find.

 

The wind stung his face, carrying with the snow the

mourning of the wolves. Behind him he sensed the camp

slipping into its dark sleep, and the endless road behind

him, down the foothills and out onto the plains, marked on

both sides by a broken chain of watch fires.

 

He cast his mind back to his interview with Ingold

earlier in the evening, trying to recall that reflected glimpse

he'd had of his own mind, or soul, or the center of his

own being. The memory was hazy, like the memory of in-

tense pain. He could recall seeing it, but could not call

back clearly what it had been—only the grip, the cold, of

Ingold's thought on his, and the clear certainty, for the

first time in his life, of knowing what he was.

 

He hadn't known then that it would cost him Minalde.

He hadn't known it would cost him everything that he was,

for that was what it amounted to. But if the question is the

answer, it wouldn't have mattered if I knew or not. He

only knew that if he had turned away, he would always

have been sure that he'd had it within his grip and let it go.

He knew that he couldn't have let it be taken from him a

second time.

 

The fire crackled, the wood sighing as it broke and fell.

Rudy took a stout branch and rearranged it. The shower of

ascending sparks glittered like fireworks among the spitting

snow. He huddled deeper into his cloak, then glanced back

 

in the direction of the camp. By the renewed light of the

fire he could see a dark figure walking toward him,

wrapped from head to heel in fur. Her black cloud of hair

blew about her in the wind, and the firelight, when she

drew near him, laid blue and golden shadows across her

violet eyes.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

"Be still. Let your mind be silent. See nothing but the

flames." The hypnotic smoothness of Ingold's voice filled

Rudy's mind as he stared at the brightness of the Guards'

campflre by which he sat. He tried to push aside his own

chasing thoughts, his fatigue and need for sleep, and

his wondering about the White Raiders he thought he'd

glimpsed, dogging the line of march. He tried to think of

nothing but the fire, to see nothing but the little cluster of

sticks, transfigured by the flames and heat. He found that

the less he tried to think of something, the stronger it

crowded back.

 

"Relax," Ingold said softly. "Don't worry about anything

for the time being. Only look at the fire and breathe."

 

The wizard turned away to speak to a middle-aged

woman who'd appeared on the edge of the Guards' en-

campment with a sickly-looking young boy in tow.

 

Doggedly, Rudy tried to obey his last instructions. The

cold, overcast daylight was fading out of the sky again,

the eighth day from Karst. Voices bickered distantly along

the line of the road as thin rations were handed out. Far off

he heard the castanet-click of wooden practice swords

and the harsh bark of Gnift's sarcasm blistering his ex-

hausted students. Somewhere he heard Alde singing and

Tir's little crowing voice joining in, making baby sounds

of joy. A feeling went through him such as he'd never

known before, a desperate tangle of yearning and relief

and affection, and it distracted him hopelessly from the

matter at hand.

 

He glanced up. Ingold was sitting on his heels, looking

gravely into the sick youngster's dutifully opened mouth,

then into his eyes and ears. The mother wore that harried,

angry look so common in the refugee train now. She was

looking away, pretending she hadn't brought her son

to an old excommunicate wizard; but her eyes slid back

to the child, anxious and afraid. There were doctors in the

West of the World who were not wizards, but few of them

had survived the coming of the Dark. Those few who

moved south with the convoy had their hands full, between

sickness and exposure, fatigue and starvation; people were

not as fastidious about going to a wizard for help as they

had once been.

 

Ingold stood up and spoke briefly to the woman, his

hand resting on the boy's dark, ruffled hair. When they had

gone, he turned back to Rudy and raised his eyebrows in-

quiringly.

 

Rudy shrugged helplessly. "What am I supposed to be

looking for?" he asked.

 

Ingold's eyes narrowed. "Nothing. Just look at the

fire. See how it shapes itself."

 

"I have looked," Rudy protested. "And all I see is fire."

 

"And what," Ingold asked tartly, "did you expect to

see?"

 

"Uh—I mean—" Rudy was conscious of having missed

the boat somewhere but wasn't sure where. "I see you

watch the fire every night and I know for sure you aren't

just watching wood burn."

 

"No," the wizard said. "And when you've been a wizard

for fifty years, maybe you'll see more than that, also. You

must love things wholly for their own sake, Rudy, before

they will give themselves to you."

 

"Sometimes I just don't understand," Rudy said much

later to Alde, when she'd slipped away from her wagon

to sit in the warmth of their shared cloak. "I feel that I

should understand all this stuff, but I don't. I don't even

know what I don't know—I feel as if I've been dumped

in the ocean and I'm trying to swim, but it's a million miles

deep. I don't even know how deep it is." He shook his

head. "It's crazy. A month ago—" He broke off, unable

to explain to this girl, who had grown up knowing kings

and mages, that a month ago he would have laughed at

anyone claiming to possess such powers.

 

Her body moved closer to him, her breath a little white

mist in the air. Due to the narrowness of the canyons

through which the road now wound, the lines of watch

fires lay only a dozen paces from the edges of the sleeping

convoy, hemmed in by the shoulders of the mountains

whose heads were hidden behind towering promontories of

granite, furred over with the black of the pine forest. Now

and then that day, Rudy had been able to catch glimpses

of the higher peaks of the Rampart Range of the Big

Snowies gouging the clouds like broken teeth. But mostly

he was conscious of the forerunners of that looming

range, and the way they overlooked the turnings of the

road and hid what lay beyond.

 

Alde's voice was comforting. "If the water's a million

miles deep or only six feet, all you have to do is to keep

your head above it," she said. "For an outlander, you're

doing well." And her arm tightened around his waist.

 

He grinned at her and returned the pressure gently. "For

an outlander, I'm doing fantastic," he said. He shifted his

arm around her shoulders to look at the tattoo on his wrist.

 

Alde noticed the movement and looked, too, "What's

that for?" she asked.

 

He chuckled. "Just thinking. A girl I knew used to tease

me about my tattoo. That's my name on the banner there

across the torch. She used to say I got it so I could remem-

ber who I was, if I ever forgot."

 

"And do you need to be reminded?"

 

He looked out for a moment into the bitter stillness of

the alien night, then up to the great, burning stars. His

ears caught the distant howling of wolves. All the scents

of the looming mountains came to him, shrub and pine,

rock and water. The long hilt of the killing sword lying

close by his right hand reflected the dim sheen of firelight,

as did the braided hair of the woman curled, warm and

fragile as a captive bird, in the circle of his other arm. He

remembered, as if in an old legend, a sunburned California

youth in a garish pachuco jacket, painting vans in a body

shop. About the only thing they had in common, he re-

flected, was the tattoo.

 

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, sometimes I do."

 

"I know what you feel," she murmured. "Sometimes I

think I need reminding myself."

 

"What was it like," he asked, "to be Queen?"

 

She was so long silent that he was afraid he had hurt

her by asking. But looking over at her face, profiled against

the dim rose-amber of the fire, he saw in her eyes instead

a kind of dreamy nostalgia, of memories whose beauty

overrode their pain.

 

"It was very beautiful," she said at last. "I remember—

dancing, and the hall all lit with candles, the way the

flames would all ripple in unison with the movement of the

ladies' dresses. The smell of the warm nights, lemon-

flowers and spice perfumes, coming up-river on the royal

barge and the water stairs of the Palace all lit like a jewel-

box, golden in the darkness. Having my own household, my

own gardens, the freedom to do what I wanted." She rested

her head against his shoulder, the looped braids that bound

her hair as smooth as satin under his jaw and gleaming

like ebony. "Maybe it would have been the same, no matter

whom I married," she went on softly. "Maybe it wasn't

so much being Queen as having my own place to be."

Her voice was wistful. "I'm really a very happy person,

you know. All I want is to take life as it comes, to be at

peace, with small things, small joys. I'm not really a stub-

born, bloodthirsty hellion ..."

 

"Oh, yes, you are," he teased her, holding her close. She

raised her eyes to his reproachfully. "And I love you

anyway. Maybe I love you because of it. I don't know.

Sometimes I don't think there is any why in love. I just do."

 

Her arms tightened convulsively around his ribs, and

she turned her face away, burying it in his shoulder. After

a moment he realized that she was crying.

 

"Hey . . ." He turned under the weight of the cloak and

stroked her shivering shoulders tenderly. "Hey, you can't

cry on guard duty." The cloak slithered down as he raised

his hands and caressed her bowed head with its gleaming,

twisted braids. "Hey, what is it, Alde?"

 

"It's nothing," she whispered, and began wiping futilely

at her eyes with the back of her hand. "It's just that nobody

ever said that to me before. I'm sorry, I won't be stupid

like this again." She fumbled at the fallen cloak, her face

averted and wet with tears.

 

Rudy caught her firmly under the chin, forced her head

up, and kissed her gently on the mouth. Her lips tasted of

salt. "I can't believe that," he murmured.

 

She sniffled and swiped at her eyes with her arm in a

child's gesture. "It's true."

 

Rudy's voice was soft. "What about Eldor?"

 

At that her eyes filled again, the tears making them seem

fever-brilliant in the soft, glowing light of the watch fire.

For a moment she could only gaze helplessly at him, un-

able to speak.

 

"I'm sorry," Rudy said. So much had happened, he had

forgotten how short a time it had been.

 

She sighed and relaxed in his hold, as if something had

gone out of her, a tension whose very pain had kept her

strong. "No," she said softly. "No, it's all right. I loved

Eldor. I loved him from the time I was a little girl. He had

a magic that drew people, a vitality, a splendor. You no-

ticed even the simplest things he did, as if they had a kind

of significance that no one else could match. He became

King when I was ten." She bowed her head, as if under

the weight of memories impossible either to accept or to

withstand. Wordlessly, Rudy took her back into the circle

of his arm and drew the cloak up over her shoulders to

cut out the icy air of the night. In those black cliffs above

the road, the wolves were howling again, the full-throated

chorus of the pack at the kill, distant and faint in the dark-

ness.

 

"I remember standing on the balcony of our townhouse

in Gae, the day he rode to his coronation." The murmur of

her voice was hardly louder than the soughing of the pines

above the road and the crackle of the fire. She was a

dreamer reliving a dream. "He'd been in exile—he was

always in and out of favor with his father. It was a hot

day in full summer, and the cheering in the streets was so

loud you could barely hear the music of the procession. He

was like a god, like a shining knight out of a legend, a

royal prince of flame and darkness. Later he came to our

house to go hunting with Alwir or to see him on some mat-

ters of the Realm, and I was so afraid of him I could

barely speak. I think I would have died for him, if he had

asked."

 

Rudy saw her, a shy, skinny little girl, all dark-blue eyes

and black pigtails, in the crimson gown of a daughter of the

House of Bes, hiding behind the curtains in the hall to

watch her tall, suave brother and that dark, brilliant King

 

walk by. He was barely aware that he spoke aloud. "So you

always loved him."

 

That same small smile of self-mockery folded into the

corner of her mouth. "Oh, I was always falling in and out

of love in those days. For six months I had a terrible crush

on Janus of Weg. But this was—different. Yes, I always

loved him. But when Alwir finally arranged the marriage, I

found out that—that loving someone desperately doesn't

always mean that he'll love you back."

 

And Rudy said again, "I'm sorry." He meant it, though

he saw now that the dead King's ghost would always be his

rival. She had loved so much, it was monstrous that she

should be hurt by not having that love returned.

 

Silently the pressure of her hand in his thanked him,

"He was so—distant," she said after a time, when she had

regained control of her voice. "So cold. After we were

married, I seldom saw him—not because he hated me, I

think, but because—for weeks at a time I don't think he

even remembered he was married. Looking back, I suppose

I should have seen that that brilliance of his was so imper-

sonal, but—it was too late, anyway." She shrugged, the

gesture belied by the quaver in her voice, and she wiped

her eyes again. "And the worst of it is that I still love him."

 

To that there was no possible reply. There was only

physical tenderness, the closeness of another human being,

and the reassurance that he was there and would not leave

her. Against him, he felt her struggle to control her sobs

and eventually grow still, forcing living grief back into its

proper sphere of memory. He asked, "So Alwir arranged

your marriage, too?"

 

"Oh, yes," she replied, in a small but perfectly steady

voice. "Alwir knew I loved him, but I don't think that was

the reason. He wanted the House of Bes allied to the

Royal House; he wanted his nephew to be High King. I

don't think he'd have forced me into it if there had been

someone else, but since there wasn't—Alwir is like that;

he's very calculating. He knew he would be made Chan-

cellor after we were married. He's always doing things with

two intentions."

 

You're telling me, sweetheart.

 

"But for all that," she went on, "he's been very, very

good to me. Underneath that gleaming edifice of sartorial

 

splendor," she declaimed, half-jestingly, "there really does

lurk a great deal of love."

 

Oh, yeah? Love of what?

 

He had realized that in Alwir's case, there was no such

thing as Love of whom.

 

From her watch fire in the darkness, Gil saw Alde stand

up, wrap the soft bulk of her black fur cloak tighter around

her, and make her way cautiously down the stony ridge of

land back toward the dark silhouette of her wagon against

the lighted camp. Gil was apprehensive, for the night

seemed to her to prickle with evil, and she wondered how

the silly girl could ever have left her child, even with the

camp guards there, to go play pattyfingers in the dark with

Rudy Solis. Gil was a woman who did not love, and her

feelings toward those who did were a mixture of sympathy,

curiosity, and occasionally a longing that she would not ad-

mit to. Ordinarily she would not have cared whether Rudy

and the widowed Queen held hands and talked or engaged

in al fresco orgies. But tonight was different—tonight she

felt the presence of the Dark, that watchful malice she had

fell lurking in the stygian mazes of the vaults at Gae, that

chaotic, abhuman intelligence, so close to her that, despite

the fire at her back, she was always turning her head to see

if it were standing at her elbow.

 

At midnight one of Alwir's troopers relieved her, a big,

solid young man in a red uniform much patched and

stained. She saw Rudy turn his post over to one of the Red

Monks and descend the ridge toward the camp. From the

darkness where she stood, halfway between camp and

ridge, Gil watched him double back through the shadows

of the wagons and slip quietly over the tailboard of the one

that bore the banners of the House of Dare.

 

Gil sighed and started back for the campfire of the

Guards. But, like a dog, she scented wrongness in the wind-

shifting darkness. She kept looking out into the night that

lay beyond the amber glow of the camp lights, feeling, like

a cold and heavy hand, the threat of impending doom.

 

Most of the Guards were already asleep when she re-

turned to their camp, rolled in their blankets and lost in the

swift, hard sleep of physical exhaustion. Only one man was

awake, sitting by the small glow of the fire like a weathered

rock, somehow giving the impression that he had been there

 

from the beginning of tune. She'd seen him sitting thus

night after night, when he wasn't patrolling the perimeters

of the camp. She could not remember when she had last

seen him sleep.

 

Gil hunkered quietly down at his side. "What do you

see?"

 

The wizard shifted his eyes from the blaze, light catch-

ing in the shadowy seams of his face as he smiled. "Noth-

ing of any moment." The small motion of his fingers took

in the louring silence of the night. "Nothing to explain—

this."

 

"You feel it, too," she said softly, and he nodded.

 

"We should reach the Keep in as little as three days," he

said. "Last night I felt this, dimly and far off. Tonight it's

much worse. Yet for three nights now there has been no

report of the Dark anywhere along the line of march."

 

Gil locked her hands around her drawn-up knees and

looked at the muted light flickering over her bruised and

swollen fingers, reddened with cold. "Is there a Nest in this

part of the mountains?" she asked.

 

"Only the one I spoke of once to Janus. It's an old Nest,

long ago blocked. Night after night, I've sought it in the

fire and seen no sign that it has ever been touched. Yet

night after night I look again." He nodded toward the small

fire. "I can see it now. It lies in a broad, shallow-sided

valley, maybe twenty miles from here. I can see the foun-

dation lying at the very back of the vale, slanting upward

against the cliffs; the valley itself is crowded with foliage;

filled with heat and darkness." A log broke in the fire and

the scattering embers threaded his face with light.

 

"The place lies always under a kind of shadow. No re-

flection of sky or stars touches that polished stone. And in

the middle of that darkness, like the mouth of a tomb,

there is the deeper darkness of the entrance itself. But I can

see that it is blocked, and the heaped earth and rock there

are covered over with straggling weeds."

 

Staring into the fire, Gil could see nothing—only the

play of colors, topaz and rose and citrine, and the curling

heat shivering over the rocks that enclosed the pit, reveal-

ing, like frost-traceries, the ghostly patterns of fossil ferns

printed in the fabric of the rock. But his rusty voice put the

images in her mind, the way the darkness clotted in those

too-thickly twined trees, the stirring in the shadows of the

 

mountain that no wind could account for. The sense of

eldritch horror was latent in the whispering night.

 

"I don't like it," Gil said softly.

 

"Neither do I," Ingold replied. "I don't trust that vision,

Gil. We are three days from the Keep. The Dark must

make their attempt, and make it soon."

 

"Can we go there?"

 

He raised his head and looked around him at the silent,

sleeping camp. Clouds were building above the mountains,

killing the stars; it seemed as if deeper darkness were set-

tling over the land. "I don't see," he said, "that we have

any choice."

 

The Dark were all around them. Gil could feel them,

sense their presence in the still, sour miasma that overlay

the daylight. She stopped on the edge of one of the innu-

merable tangled woods that snarled the valley like the

thick-grown webs of monstrous spiders, looking northward

on the rising slant of that unholy land, and found herself

firmly repeating in her heart that it was broad daylight and

she was with Ingold.

 

But she knew they were there.

 

The climb had been an easy one. Too easy, she caught

herself thinking—an odd thing to think. The broad, round,

shallow-walled valley through which Ingold had led her

most of the morning was smooth-floored, with an easy

grade that would have made considerably better walking

than the road below, were it not so badly overgrown. The

wind that had tormented them on the long miles down

from Karst was cut off here. The walls of the canyon, cliffs

marching steadily back toward a tumbled pile of talus

slopes and the sudden, dark ramparts of sky-gouging peaks,

protected the place. In their shelter the air was warmer

than she had encountered anywhere in the West of the

World. But, though she was warm now for the first time in

days, Gil found that the valley disconcerted her. The woods

were too thick to be healthy, the air was too heavy, and

the ground was too even underfoot. The clumps of dark,

sullen trees that scattered the broad length of the valley

seemed to hem her in with a labyrinth of shadow, guarding

beneath their entangling boughs thin shreds of a night that

never lifted.

 

"They're here," she whispered. "I know they are."

 

Beside her, all but invisible in the shadows of the trees,

Ingold nodded. Though it was not long after noon, the ak-

in this valley seemed to play tricks with the sunlight. The

thickness of the atmosphere dragged on Gil's lungs and,

she had thought once or twice, on her mind as well.

 

"Can they be a danger to us even by daylight?"

 

"We know very little about the Dark, my dear," Ingold

replied quietly. "All power has its limits, and we have seen

that the power of the Dark grows with their numbers. We

walk on a layer of ice that covers the depths of Hell. Tread

carefully." Drawing his hood over his face, he moved for-

ward, a wraith in the vaporous, leaden air.

 

As they climbed the valley, this sense that they were

tampering in evil far beyond human ken grew upon her.

There was something hellishly symmetrical about the valley,

some persistent wrongness in the geology of the crowding,

stratified rock of the cliffs that whispered warnings to Gil's

mind. The land under their feet smoothed its way up over

a great fault that cut the valley in half, with wild grape and

a particularly tough-fibered species of ivy tangling over

the break and the natural causeway that bridged it. Fossils

Gil had seen on the stones of last night's campfire re-

peated themselves, peeking from broken rock—huge ferns,

long-fingered marine weed, and the crawling things of tunes

long past, trilobite and brachiopod, imprinted forever in the

stamp of the slate. The ground seemed leveled by the pass-

ing feet of millions, hard as an ancient roadbed among its

pathless labyrinth of crowding trees.

 

Ingold paused and turned to check their backtrail for

what seemed like the hundredth tune that day. Gil rubbed

her aching eyes; she had snatched a few hours of sleep

before setting out from the camp before dawn, but the

lack of it was beginning to tell. Not, she reflected wryly,

that she had gotten whole bunches of that particular com-

modity since this trail drive started. Some anomaly in the

lay of the ground caught her attention, a stream bed that

did not lie as it ought, a formation of rocks . ..

 

Looking back, she found she was alone. Momentary

panic seized her. Even a few weeks ago she would have

thrown caution to the winds and yelled for Ingold, even

on the very doormat of the Dark. But living like a winter

wolf and associating with the Icefalcon had altered her

 

reactions, and she stood perfectly still, scanning the too-

regular landscape.

 

A hand touched her shoulder and she swung around.

Ingold caught her wrist as her sword was half out of its

scabbard. "Where did you go?" she whispered.

 

The wizard frowned. "I didn't go anywhere." His hand

still on her wrist, he looked around them doubtfully.

 

"You sure as hell weren't here a minute ago."

 

"Hmm." He scratched thoughtfully at his scrubby beard.

"Wait here," he said finally, "and watch me." With these

words he released Gil's arm and walked away, his feet

making barely a sound in the knee-deep jungles of under-

growth. Gil tried her best to watch him. Tired as she was

with the weariness that seemed to have settled around her

bones, she was certain she hadn't moved or shut her eyes.

But somehow she lost sight of the wizard, in open ground,

in the sunlight, without an inch of cover in yards.

 

She blinked and rubbed her eyes again. There was

something, she thought, in the air of this place, some foul-

ness, an invisible game of blindman's bluff. Then she

looked back and saw Ingold standing about twenty feet off

at the end of the track of flattened ivy, as if he had al-

ways been there. As he came back to her, she had no

trouble following his movements.

 

Gil shook her head. "I don't understand." She hitched

her cloak up on her shoulder, a gesture that was quickly

becoming automatic, like straightening her sword belt.

Always before, the cloak had never provided quite enough

protection from the cold, but in this place, with its stifling

air, it seemed hot and heavy. She was acutely aware of

the wrongness of this place. "Do you know what's going

on?"

 

"I'm afraid I do," Ingold said slowly. "The power of the

Dark is strong here, very strong. It seems to be interfering

with the cloaking spell I've had over both of us, which is

a pity, because that probably means I'll have to dispense

with it."

 

"You mean," Gil said in surprise, "we've been under a

spell all along?"

 

"Oh, yes." He smiled at her startled face. "I've been

keeping a number of spells on the convoy all the way

down from Karst. Mostly ward and guard, aversion and

 

protection. They wouldn't hold back a concerted attack,

but they have served to deflect random misfortune."

 

She flushed, annoyed at herself. "I never knew that."

 

"Of course not. It's the mark of a good mage that he's

never seen doing anything at all." She glanced suspiciously

at him to see if he were teasing her, but he seemed per-

fectly serious—as serious as Ingold ever looked.

 

"But would a—a cloaking spell protect us from the

Dark in the first place?"

 

"Probably not here in their own valley," Ingold replied

casually. "But the White Raiders have been following us

since we left the road. If the cloaking spell is unreliable,

we're going to have a devil of a time getting back."

 

They reached the place in midafternoon. Gil felt it from

afar, horror coalescing in her veins. She knew without

being told that this was the place that Ingold had seen

reflected in the depths of the fire. The ground was unnatu-

rally even, tipped at a steep angle, with a great slanting

slab of basalt jammed into the foundations of the moun-

tain behind it, its farther end rising like the hull of a heeled

wreck; one corner was buried in the valley floor as if driven

there by some unspeakable cataclysm lost in the abysses of

time. The slanted angle showed how deep the slab was

founded; though it had been displaced upward a good thirty

feet, there was no sign of bottom. And in the midst of it

gaped the black hole of its stairway, the plunging road

down into the chasm of the Dark.

 

The stairway was open. Little trace of the earth and

rock Ingold had seen in the shadow image of the fire re-

mained anywhere near that hideous gulf. A great scattering

of stones, like the fan-trail of a volcanic spew, littered the

slope below, but Gil could see from the way the clutching,

ubiquitous weeds grew over them that the stones had

been blown from that hole many years since. Still she

picked one up. On its side, she could see the dry ghost

of a lush, obscene orchid, frozen in some primeval swamp

a million years ago and fragmented by the violence of that

ancient blast. Ingold, too, was examining the wide-flung

pattern of the stones, working his way methodically toward

the crazily tilted pavement and the hole that yawned like

a silent scream at the day.

 

He paused at the place where the rank, overgrown

 

ground ended and the black pavement began. Gil saw him

stoop to pick up a stone and stand in thought for a mo-

ment, turning it over in his hands. Then he stepped cau-

tiously onto the slick, canted surface of the stone and

began his careful climb toward the stairway itself.

 

Though her whole being shrank from it, as it had on

that other pavement in the vaults at Gae, Gil followed

him. She struggled through the foliage that clung with

such perverted persistence to her feet, scrambled up after

the wizard onto the tilted pavement, and saw, ahead of

her, Ingold pause to wait, his shadow lying small and

leaden around his feet. Seen under the light of day, naked

to the sky, the sheer size of the pavement awed her; from

the corner buried in the weed-choked earth to the corner

tilted upward and buried in the out-thrust knee of the

mountain, it must have measured close to seven hundred

feet. In its midst Ingold seemed very small and exposed.

It was a tricky scramble up the smooth incline; when she

reached his side, Gil was panting in the gluey, breathless

air.

 

"So we were right," Ingold said softly. "The vision was

a lie."

 

Below them stretched the stairway, open to the winds.

A cool drift of damp air seemed to rise from it, making

Gil's sweat-matted hair prickle on the back of her neck.

There was nothing now between them and the Dark ex-

cept the presence of the sun, and she glanced at the sky

quickly, as if fearing to see the gathering of clouds.

 

"So what can we do?"

 

"Rejoin the convoy as quickly as possible. We do not

yet know what they plan, but at least we know the direc-

tion of the attack. And in any case, it may be possible to

thwart them and cover Tir's retreat to the Keep."

 

Gil glanced across at him. "How?"

 

"Something Rudy said once. If we—"

 

He broke off and caught her by the wrist. Gil followed

the direction of his eyes along the smooth, tangled floor

of the vale and spotted a stirring in the dark woods near

one of those queer formations of black stone that dotted

the valley. A movement was quickly lost to sight, but Gil

knew what it was. There was only one thing that it could be.

 

She asked, "Have they seen us?"

 

"Doubtless. Though I should be surprised if they came

 

any closer." Balancing himself carefully with his staff,

Ingold began his cautious descent from the ramplike pave-

ment, with Gil edging gingerly behind. When they reached

the ground, Ingold scanned the valley again, but could see

nothing further. "Which doesn't mean anything, of course,"

he said, turning to walk along the rising edge of the pave-

ment. "Just because you don't see White Raiders doesn't

mean they aren't there."

 

"So what are we going to do?"

 

Ingold pointed with his staff toward the narrowing maze

of crevices and hanging valleys at the end of the vale of

the Dark, a great ruinous confusion of old avalanche scars,

split and faulted from the rock. "There should be a way up

there," he said calmly, pausing in the vine-entangled

shadows of the seamless black wall.

 

"You're kidding," Gil said, aghast.

 

"I never kid, my dear." He started off up the talus

slope.

 

Gil stayed where she was for a time, watching him dis-

appear up the curve of the land. The ground rose and

buckled oddly around the featureless wall of the black

foundation, but whatever upheaval had disrupted it had

been so long ago that the geology of the valley had settled

around it. That in itself bothered Gil—the thing was so

old, so incredibly old. Eons had rolled by since some

arcane power had founded it here, so that the very shape

of the lands and seas had changed. More fossils caught her

eyes. My God, she thought, this place was a tropical swamp

when this was wrought. How long have the Dark Ones

inhabited the earth, anyway?

 

Who could ever tell, since they didn't have a bone in

their floating plasmoid bodies? And yet they had intelli-

gence, the intelligence to sink shafts, to build these dark

pavements at their heads and have them endure for mil-

lennia with very little appearance of decay. They were

intelligent enough to work their own kind of magic, differ-

ent from the nature of human magic, ungraspable by any

human brain. They were intelligent enough to keep tabs on

the convoy, to know where Tir was, and to know why he

had to be put out of the way.

 

Arms folded, Gil stood for a while in the lengthening

shadows and meditated on the Dark.

 

After a tune she looked up and saw Ingold again, ap-

 

pearing and disappearing among the twisted confusion of

boulders and huddled trees at the end of the valley. Some

primordial cataclysm had broken the side of one of the

guardian peaks of the valley, leaving a wilderness of split

granite and bottomless chasms, and time had overlaid

the ruin with plant life grown far too large for the vertical

rocks. The result reminded her vaguely of a Chinese

painting, with full-size trees sprouting unconcernedly from

the sides of cliffs. But this was messier, fouler, darker;

here dead trunks had fallen to rot in gullies bristling with

dead white spikes below the crumbly footing above. She

could see Ingold's brown mantle shifting along impossibly

narrow rock ledges high on the faces of those cliffs,

 

Ingold saw her looking and paused, flattened to the

rock behind him. "Come up," he called down to her, his

voice echoing faintly among the rocks. "There's a trail."

 

What the hell. Gil sighed. You only die once.

 

Gil had never liked heights. Scrambling over the treach-

erous footing, she envied the wizard his six-foot staff,

for in places the ledges narrowed to inches, and in others

cascades of vines sprawled over the trail and masked any

hint of the footing underneath. She found herself back-

tracking a dozen times, scrupulously avoiding looking up

or down or anywhere but at her own scratched hands when

a promising ledge petered out or a slit between two huge

rock faces became too narrow to be passed, or too choked

with rotting foliage that could house any number of

creatures less Lovecraftian, but certainly as deadly, as the

Dark. She wondered if there were rattlesnakes in this

world—or, for that matter, poisonous snakes without

rattles.

 

She finally caught up with him in the mouth of a dark

slit in the rocks, after a precipitous scramble around the

convex face of a boulder on a ledge over a nightmare maw

of tangled thorn and broken stone. She was sweating and

gasping in the afternoon heat and fighting for balance on

the sandy, crumbling ground. The shift of the sun over the

backbone of the Rampart Range had thrown the chasm

into deep shadow. Ingold was barely visible but for the

pale blur of face and beard and the bright glitter of his

eyes.

 

"Very good, my dear," he greeted her mildly. "We shall

make a mountain climber of you yet."

 

"The hell you will," she gasped, and looked back down

behind her. If there was any kind of trail she'd come up,

she was damned if she could see it now.

 

"We should be able to follow this chasm up toward the

top of that ridge there," he went on, pointing. "Once over

the ridge, we should be nearly to the snow line and, I be-

lieve, out of reach of the Dark for the time being. With

luck, we should be able to pick up another trail on the

other side that will lead us down to the Vale of Renweth,

and hence to the Keep of Dare."

 

Gil calculated the distance as well as she could in the

deceptive clarity of the mountain air. They seemed to

have climbed above the drifting haze of the valley; things

seemed blindingly clear up here, and the slanting shadows

altered the apparent positions of peak and ridge. "I don't

think we'll make it by dark," she stated doubtfully.

 

"Oh, I don't either," Ingold agreed. "But we can hardly

spend the night in the valley."

 

Gil sighed resignedly. "You have a point there."

 

The wizard jabbed his staff cautiously at the loose rock

hiding the foot of the trail, and a boulder curtsied peril-

ously, sending a little stream of gravel and sand down

across their feet and over the edge of the trail. Muttering

to himself about the advisability of taking along a rope

next time, coupled with imprecations against the unseen

Raiders in the valley below, he began to scout cautiously

for an alternate route. While he did so, Gil turned to look

back over the cliff, appalled anew at the suicidal ascent

she'd just made. Her gaze wandered to the valley below

them and was held there by a queer, cold feeling of shock.

 

"Ingold," she called quietly. "Come and look at this."

 

Something in the note of her voice brought him scram-

bling and sliding to her side. "What is it?"

 

She pointed. "Look. Look out there. What do you see?"

 

Viewed from above and behind, the land wore a different

aspect, the angle of the sunlight westering on the moun-

tains changing the perspective of that darkness-haunted

place. From here the symmetry was obvious, the nuclei

of the long-overgrown woods lying in some kind of pattern

whose geometry was just beyond the range of human

comprehension, the stream beds following courses that

held the echoes of perverted regularity. The clinging mats

of the ubiquitous vines took on a curious appearance from

 

this angle, the shifts in their color and thickness disquiet-

ingly suggestive. Almost directly below them the great

rectangle of pavement lay, and its position relative to the

anomalous mounds of black stone that thrust through the

foliage became suddenly, shockingly, clear to a woman

trained in the rudiments of archaeology.

 

Ingold frowned, staring down at the distorted counter-

pane beneath them. "It's almost—almost as if there were

a city here at one time. But there never was, not in human

history." His eye and finger traced the mathematical ob-

scenity of a curved shadow in the weeds, the queerly

obtuse angles faintly visible in the half-hinted relationships

between stream and stone. "What causes that? It's as if

the vines grow thinner in places..."

 

"Buried foundations," Gil softly replied. "From the looks

of it, foundations so deeply buried that they leave barely

a trace. The trees are more stunted on that line because

their roots cannot go so deep. Look, see the line of that

stream? And yet—" She paused, confused. "It looks so

planned, so regular, but it's not like any city I've ever

seen. There's a layout—you can see that in the angle of the

sunlight—but the layout's all wrong."

 

"Of course," the wizard said mildly. "There are no

streets."

 

Their eyes met. The meaning of this came to her slowly,

like a whisper from incomprehensible gulfs of time.

 

"Come," Ingold said. "This is no place for us to remain

once the sun has gone in."

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Once they were out of the valley, the winds began, sear-

ingly cold, ripping at their grip on the precarious hand-

holds with active malice. At times they were far over the

timberline, scrambling perilously over goat trails slippery

with old snow, at others working their way through knots

of vegetation, or clinging for support to the wind-flayed

roots of twisted acrobat trees, trusting to their strength

over a sightless abyss. Gil and Ingold moved through a

world whose only elements were cold, rock, wind, and the

distant roaring of water, where they could not have stopped

if they had wanted to, for there was nowhere to rest. With-

out the threads of witchlight Ingold had thrown to outline

the ledges, Gil was certain they would not have survived

the climb; even so, looking back on it later, she felt only

a land of dull astonishment that she had done it at all.

 

They slept, finally, in the crevices of the bare rock

slopes, locked together for warmth; it was the first sleep

Gil had had in close to forty hours. In the deeps of the

night she felt the weather change and, in her dreams,

smelled the far-off threat of snow.

 

In the morning the going was easier, not much worse

than a rough backpacking trip. By noon Ingold found the

ghost of a trail-head and followed it down the sheer, tree-

covered western face of the Rampart Range, to reach, by

midafternoon, the cold, winding Vale of Renweth.

 

Gil shaded her eyes and squinted into the long, bright

distance. "What the hell?" The cold winds that snaked

down the valley tore her breath away in rags and rippled

 

in patterns like swift-pouring water over the knee-deep

fjord of colorless grass. "What is it?"

 

"It's the Keep of Dare." Ingold smiled, folding his arms

to keep warm and shivering slightly in spite of it. "What

did you expect?"

 

Gil wasn't sure what she'd expected. Something smaller,

anyway. Something more medieval. Not that trapezoidal

monolith of black stone that rose, bone of the mountain's

bone, on the great knoll at the foot of those distant dark-

browed cliffs. Its roof was taller than the pine trees that

grew on the ridge behind. Thin, powdery snow blew in

clouds from the Keep's flat roof, but none lodged any-

where on its sides, which were as bare and smooth as

unflawed glass.

 

"Who the hell built that thing?" Gil whispered, awed.

"How big is it?" She could believe, now, that in it human-

kind had withstood the Dark. The might of the Dark Ones,

which could shatter stone and iron, would find this fortress

impregnable. With a sense of surprise, she realized that

there was, after all, a place of refuge in this dark and cold

and terrible world into which she had been unwillingly cast.

 

"Dare of Renweth built it," Ingold's voice said at her

side, "using the last of the technology and power of the

ancient Realms, power which is far beyond our means to-

day. In it he sheltered those of his people who survived

the first onslaught of the Dark, and from it he and his

line ruled this valley and Sarda Pass and all that was left

of an empire whose name, bounds, and nature have been

utterly lost to human memory. As to how big it is—" He

gazed into the distance, surveying the black monolith that

guarded the twisting expanses of the valley beyond. "It is

small. It can hold some eight thousand souls in some sort

of comfort, and the valley can be cultivated to support

almost twice that many. The records no longer exist, if

they ever existed, as to how many it has actually sheltered

at any one time."

 

As they waded toward it through the champagne grass

of the Vale, the thing seemed to grow in size, shadowless

in the cold overcast of the day. Gil looked around her at

the Vale as well, a walled series of upland meadows scat-

tered with stands of aspen, birch, and cottonwood, their

leaves glittering restlessly in the winds that whined down

from the peaks above. There was a hard, bright beauty to

 

the place, first heartland of the Realm and last, cradle and

grave. Her bones ached, even muscles trained to the en-

durance of swordsmanship burning with the lingering

effects of that tortuous climb.

 

As a place to be cooped up in for years on end, she

thought, it isn't bad. Still, familiar as she had been with

petty neighborhood bitchery, she had recognized its seeds

already in the gossip that even a twenty-four-hour state of

crisis hadn't eliminated from the refugee train, and she

saw where it would lead—a small town, cramped in an

impenetrable fort with the same people, bound together

year in and year out, and nowhere to go.

 

"The Keep has stood a long time," Ingold said as they

came at last to the roadway that led up past the Keep

toward Sarda Pass, the same road where, miles below, Al-

wir led his people along in their quest for semimythical

safety. "Yet the Runes of Power are still on the Keep

doors, marked there by the wizards who helped in the

building of the place—Yad on the left, and Pern on the

right, the Runes of Guarding and Law. Only a wizard can

see them, like a gleaming tracery of silver in the shadows.

But after all this time, the spells of the builders still hold

power."

 

Gil turned her eyes from the towering masses of the

mountains that rose, wall on wall of black, tree-enshrouded

gorges cut with the distinct, shallow notch of Sarda Pass,

to view again the looming shadow of the Keep. She could

see nothing of the Runes, only great panels of iron, hinged

and strapped in steel, and untouched for centuries.

 

The great gates stood open. Waiting in their shade were

the assembled members of the small garrison Eldor had

sent down years before to ready the place as an eventual

refuge, when Ingold had first spoken of the possibility of

the rising of the Dark. The captain of the garrison, a

petite blonde woman with the meanest eyes Gil had ever

seen, greeted Ingold with deference and seemed unsur-

prised at the news that Gae had fallen and its refugees

were but a few days off.

 

"I feared it," she said, looking up at the wizard, her

gloved fingers idling on the hilt of her sword. "We've had

no messages from anywhere in over a week, and my boys

report seeing the Dark Ones drifting along the head of the

valley almost every night." She pursed her lips into a

 

wry expression. "I'm only glad so many as you say got

clear. I remember, when I was in Gae, people were laugh-

ing at you in the streets about your warnings, calling you

an alarmist crackpot and making up little songs."

 

Gil made a noise of indignation in her throat, but Ingold

laughed. "I remember that. All my life I wanted to be

immortalized in ballads, but the poetry of the things was

so bad that they were completely unmemorable."

 

"And," the captain said cynically, "most of the people

who made them up are dead."

 

Ingold sighed. "I'd rather they were still alive to go on

singing about what a fool I am, every day of my life," he

said. "We'll be here the night. Can you feed us?"

 

The captain shrugged. "Sure. We have stock . . ." She

gestured to mazes of cottonwood-pole corrals that stretched

out beyond the knoll, where a gaggle of horses and half

a dozen milk cows stood rubbing their chins on the top

rail of the fences, staring at the strangers with mild, stupid

eyes. "We even have a still over in the grove there; some

of the boys brew Blue Ruin out of gaddin bark and

potatoes."

 

Ingold shuddered delicately. "At tunes I see Alwir's

point about the horrors of uncivilized existence." And he

followed her up the worn steps to the gates.

 

"By the way," the captain said as the other warriors of

the garrison grouped up behind them, "we have Keep Law

here."

 

Ingold nodded. "I understand."

 

They entered the Keep of Dare, and Gil was struck silent

with awe.

 

Outside, the Keep had been intimidating enough. In-

side, it was crushing, frightening, dark, monstrous, and

unbelievably huge; the footfalls of the Guards echoed in

its giant sounding-chamber like the far-off drip of distant

water, the torches they bore dwindling to fireflies. The

monstrous architecture with its blending of naked planes

had nothing to do with the gothic liveliness of Karst—

nothing to do with human scale at all. The technology that

had wrought this place out of stone and air was clearly far

beyond anything else in this world or, Gil guessed, in her

own. She gazed down the length of that endless central

cavern, where the small bobbing candles of torchlight were

 

reflected in the smooth black of the water channels in the

floor, and shivered at the cold, the size, and the emptiness.

 

"How was this place built?" she whispered, and the

chamber picked up her voice and sighed her words to

every corner of that towering hall. "What a shame it

couldn't have been the chief architect's memory that got

passed on, as well as the Kings'."

 

"It is," Ingold said, his voice, too, ringing family in the

unseen vaults of the ceiling. "But heritable memory is

not governed by choice—indeed, we have no idea what

does govern it." He moved like a shadow at Gil's side, fol-

lowing the diminishing torches. Gazing around her, Gil

could see, as far as the torchlight reached, that the tower-

ing walls of the central hall were honeycombed with dark

little doorways, rank on rank of them, joined sometimes

by stone balconies, sometimes by rickety catwalks that

threaded the wall like the webs of drunken or insane spi-

ders. Those dark little doors admitted onto a maze of cells,

stairways, and corridors, whose haphazard windings were

as dark as the labyrinths below the earth.

 

"As to how it was built—Lohiro of Quo, the Master of

the Council of Wizards, has made a study of the skill of

that tune from such records that survived, and he says that

the walls were wrought and raised by magic and machinery

both. The men of those days had skills far beyond our own;

we could never create something like this."

 

They crossed a narrow bridge over one of the many

straight channels that led water from pool to pool down

the length of the echoing hall. Gil paused for a moment

on the railless span, looking down into the swift, black

current below. "Was that why he made such a study?" she

asked softly. "Because he knew the skill might be needed

again?"

 

Ingold shook his head. "Oh, no, that was years ago.

Like all wizards, Lohiro seeks understanding for its own

sake—for his own amusement, as it were. Sometimes I

think that is all wizardry is—the lust for knowledge, the

need to understand. All the rest—illusion, shape-craft, the

balance of the minds and elements around us, the ability

to save or change or destroy the world—are mere inci-

dentals, and come after that central need."

 

*        *        *

 

"The trouble with this," Ingold grumbled much later,

after they had shared the meager supper of the Guards and

been shown to a tiny cell next to those of the garrison, "is

that I can only look for what I know. It's absolutely useless

for what I don't know." He glanced across at Gil, the

pinlight-sparkle of triangular lights thrown by his scrying

crystal scattering like stars across the roughness of his

scarred face. They had kindled a small fire on the tiny

hearth to take the chill off the cell. To Gil's surprise, no

smoke came into the room itself—the place must be

ventilated like a high-rise. Her respect for its builders in-

creased.

 

Ingold had sat watching the crystal for some time now.

Gil, fortified with porridge and warmth, was sitting with

her back to the corner, meticulously sharpening her dagger

in the manner the Icefalcon had shown her, sleepy and

content in the wizard's presence. From the first, she had

felt that she had always known him. Now it was impossible

to conceive of a time when she had not. She held the blade

up critically to the light and tested it with an inexperienced

thumb. For all the terror she had undergone, for all the

burden of constant physical weariness and the unending

pain in her half-healed left arm, for all her exile from

the only world she had known and the only thing she had

ever truly wanted to do, she realized that there were com-

pensations. She never felt the weight of her exile when she

was with him.

 

And soon he'd be gone. She'd be here for endless weeks

while he pursued his solitary quest across the plains to

Quo, in search of the wizards, his friends, the only group

of people who really understood him. She wondered what

he would find there. She wondered, with a chill, if he'd

even return.

 

He will, she told herself, looking across at the old man's

still profile and calm, intent eyes. He's tough as an old

boot and slippery as a snake. He'll make it back all right,

and the other wizards with him.

 

She shifted the ball of her wadded-up cloak a little

more comfortably behind her aching shoulders and blinked

out at the room. After last night's trek over the bare back-

bone of the world, even a watch fire by the road would

have looked good; this nine-by-seven cell in which she

could hardly stand was a little corner of Paradise.

 

The place, viewed by more critical eyes, would have

been called dingy; the warm gold of the firelight probing

into the cracks of the rough-plastered walls and flagged

floor cruelly revealed the unevenness, the shoddy work-

manship, the patina of stains and soot-blackening, and the

dents and scratches of hundreds of generations of con-

tinuous habitation and a thousand years of neglect. The

cell would be awfully crowded for a family, Gil reflected.

Unbidden to her mind leaped Rudy's picture of his own

boyhood home, shrill with the bickering of acrimonious

female voices. She grinned as she wondered what the in-

cidence of sibling murder had been in the Keep's heyday.

 

The shadows by the fire shifted as Ingold put aside his

crystal and lay down across the other end of the room,

drawing his mantle over him as a blanket. Gil prepared

to do likewise, asking him as she did so, "Could you see

the convoy?"

 

"Oh, yes. They're settling in for the night, under double

guard. I don't see any sign of the Dark. Incidentally, the

crystal shows the Nest in the valley of the Dark as being

still blocked."

 

"They like that, don't they?" Gil drew her cloak over

her, watching the changing patterns of flame and shadow

playing across the rickety wall that had long ago parti-

tioned this cell off from a larger one. Her thoughts idled

over the world enclosed within those narrow walls, over

the great black monolith of the Keep, guarding its dark-

ness, its silence, its secrets—secrets that had been for-

gotten even by Ingold, even by Lohiro, Archmage of all

the wizards in the world. Those dark, heavy walls held only

darkness within.

 

She rolled over onto her side and propped her head on

her arm. "You know," she said dreamily, "this whole

place—it's like your description of the Nests of the Dark."

 

Ingold opened his eyes. "Very like," he agreed.

 

"Is that what we've come to?" she asked. "To living like

them, to be safe from them?"

 

"Possibly," the wizard assented sleepily. "But one might

then ask why the Dark Ones live as they do. And when all

else is considered, here we are, safe; and so we shall re-

main, as long as the gates are kept shut at night." He

rolled over. "Go to sleep, Gil."

 

Gil bunked up at the reflection of the fire, thinking

 

about that for a moment. It occurred to her that if once

the Dark came into this place, the safety here would turn

to redoubled peril. In the walls of the Keep was lodged

eternal darkness, like the mazes of night at the center

of the earth, which no sunrise could ever touch. She said

uneasily, "Ingold?"

 

"Yes?" There was a hint of weariness in his voice.

 

"What was the Keep Law that the captain talked about?

What did that have to do with our spending the night

here?"

 

Ingold sighed and turned his head toward her, the dying

firelight doing curious things to the lines and scars of his

face. "Keep Law," he told her, "states that the integrity

of the Keep is the ultimate priority; above life, above

honor, above the lives of family or loved ones. Anything

that does not require the presence of human beings after

dark is left outside the gates, and when the gates are shut

at night, it is, and always must be, the ruling of the Keep

that no one will pass them until sunrise. In ancient days the

penalty for opening the doors—on any excuse whatso-

ever—between the setting and the rising of the sun was to

be chained between the pillars that used to surmount the

little hill that faces the doors across the road, to be left

there at night for the Dark. Now go to sleep."

 

This time he must have laid a spell on the words, for

Gil fell asleep at once, and the wizard's words followed

her down into the darkness of her dreams,

 

The Dark hunted. She could feel them, sense them,

sense the dark shifting of movement through spinning,

primordial blackness, the vague stirrings in unspeakable

chasms that light had never touched. Groggily, through a

leaden fog of sleep, Gil tried to remember where she was—

the Keep, Dare's Keep. Fleeting, tangled images came to

her of slipping through nighted corridors and converging

on a chosen prey. She could sense that eyeless, waiting

malevolence, smell, as they smelled, the hot pulse of

blood, and sense, through the thick gloom of vibrating,

purple darkness, the glow of the prey, the centerpoint

of a whirling vortex of lust and hate . . . But it wasn't the

closeness of the Keep at all that surrounded her, but wind,

utter bone-piercing cold, the roaring of water among

pillars of stone, the white surge and fleck of spray, and the

 

freezing touch of the air above the flood. Greedy power

gnawed at stone, greedy minds counted out glowing beads

on a four-mile chain of tangled sleep and laughed with a

gloating laughter that never emerged to sound.

 

Her eyes snapped open, and sweat drenched her face at

the memory of that gloating laughter. She whispered,

"Ingold . . ." almost afraid to make a sound, for fear they

might hear.

 

The wizard was already awake, his white hair tousled

with sleep, his eyes alert, as if he listened for some dis-

tant sound that Gil could not hear. A dim blue ball of

witchlight hung above his head; the fire in the cell had

long grown cold. "What is it?" he asked her gently. "What

did you dream?"

 

She drew a deep breath, grasping at the fast-fading rags

of sensation, of things she'd heard and smelled. "The

Dark..."

 

"I know," he said softly. "I felt it, too. What? And

where?"

 

She sat up, drawing her cloak around her shoulders, as

if that would still her shivering. "I don't know where it

was," she said, a little more calmly. "There was water rush-

ing, and—stone—hewn stone, I think, pillars. They were

tearing pieces of stone out of pillars, throwing them into

rushing water—and—and laughing. They know where Tir

is, Ingold," she added, her voice low and urgent.

 

He came across the room to her and put an arm around

her shoulders for comfort, though for her the worst was

past. His voice was grim as he said, "So do I. He's with his

mother, half a day's journey below the stone bridge that

crosses the gorge of the Arrow River."

 

Somewhere above the inky overcast, the sky might have

been lightening, preparatory to the breaking of day; but

if so, Rudy Solis could see little indication of it. The can-

yon through which the road at this point wound was like a

black wind tunnel, the smell of the wind strong and some-

how earthy, its sound like the roar of the sea in the pines

above the road. He prowled restlessly through the rousing

camp, unable to account for his uneasiness, threading

through little knots of bundled-up fugitives huddled around

their breakfast fires, making his way almost subconsciously

 

back to the wagons he had stealthily quitted before the

camp was astir.

 

The fires there had been built up and threw an uneasy

flickering glow over the camp. Alde was awake, feeding

Tir on bread soaked in milk in the little island of shelter

at the back of her wagon. On the other side of the fire, a

handful of troopers of the House of Bes were wolfing

down their meager rations in silence. Farther out among

the wagons, another woman, a servant of the household,

was ordering two small children about as she fed a baby

smaller than Tir, while her husband fed the ox teams in

sullen silence. Overhead, the banners cracked like bull-

whips in the icy stream of the wind.

 

Rudy shook his head and grinned down at Alde, leaning

his shoulder against the uprights that supported the wagon's

roof. "You know, what amazes me about this trip is how

many kids have survived. You see them all over the camp.

Look at that one there. He looks as if the first stiff wind

would blow him away."

 

"It's a she," Alde replied calmly, watching the child in

question playing tag with herself under the feet of the

wagon teams. The little girl's mother saw what she was

doing and called her back to the fire with a screech like a

parrot's, and the child, with the sublime unconcern of those

who have only recently learned to walk, came running

happily back out of danger, arms open, a treasury of broken

straws in her hands.

 

Rudy reached out to stroke Tir's downy hair absent-

mindedly. He'll grow up like that, he found himself

thinking. Learning to run in the dark labyrinth of the

Keep of Dare, learning swordsmanship from the Guards ...

Strange to think of Alde and Tir going on living for years

in that fortress Rudy had never seen, long after he was

gone.

 

If they make it there. And he shivered, not entirely from

the cold.

 

"And it isn't so unusual," Minalde went on, a glimmer

of timid mischief in her blue eyes. "If you've noticed, it

isn't the women and children who sit down by the roadside

and die. If a wagon breaks down, the man will moan and

despair—the woman will start pushing. Watch sometime."

 

"Oh, yeah?" he said, suspicious that she was baiting him.

 

She gave him a sidelong, teasing glance. "Seriously,

 

Rudy. Women are tougher. They have to be, to protect

the children."

 

He remembered the wind-stirred gallery at Karst, the

flutter of the white dress of a girl who was running down

the hall in darkness. "Aaah—" he conceded ungraciously,

and she laughed.

 

More children eddied into the circle of the fire, the

gaggle of camp orphans with the slim young girl they'd

taken as their guardian carrying the youngest in her arms.

The girl and the servant woman stopped to speak. Seeing

them together, Rudy was reminded of the way he'd seen

Alde and Medda that first day on the terrace of the villa

at Karst.

 

A new thought crossed his mind, and he frowned sud-

denly. "Alde?" She looked up quickly, getting milk all

over her fingers. "How do the Dark Ones know who Tir

is?"

 

Slim brows drew together in thought. "I don't know,"

she said, startled by the question. "Do they?"

 

"Yeah. They went after him at Karst, anyway, and at

Gae. There were beaucoup kids in the villa at Karst. As

far as they should have known, he could have been any

one of them. But they were right on the spot outside his

nursery."

 

She shook her head, puzzled, the cloak of her unbound

hair slipping across her shoulders. "Bektis!" she called

out, seeing the tall figure crossing the camp to his own

wagons.

 

He came forward and gave her a gracious bow. "My

lady pleases?"

 

The Sorcerer of the Realm didn't look any the worse

for two weeks in the open; like Alwir, he was fastidious to

the point of foppishness, and there wasn't so much as an

untoward wrinkle in his billowing gray robe.

 

Rudy broke in. "How do the Dark Ones know where to

find Tir? I mean, they haven't got eyes, they can't tell

he looks different or anything. Why do they know to come

after him?"

 

The sorcerer hesitated, giving the matter weighty con-

sideration—probably, Rudy guessed, to cover the fact

that he was stumped. At length he said, "The Dark Ones

have a knowledge that is beyond human ken." He is

stumped. "Perhaps my lord Ingold could have told you,

 

had he not chosen this time to disappear. The sources of

the knowledge of the Dark—"

 

Rudy cut him off. "What I'm getting at is this. Do the

Dark Ones really know it's Tir, or are they just going

after any kid in a gilded cradle? If Alde went on foot with

the kid in her arms, like every other woman in this train,

wouldn't she be safer than being stuck in the wagon?"

 

Bektis looked down his long nose at this grimy upstart

outlander who, he had been informed, had presumed to

show signs of being mageborn. "Perhaps," he said loftily,

"were we presently in any danger from the Dark. Yet it

has been noted that no alarm of their presence has oc-

curred since we reached the high ground . . ."

 

"Oh, come on! You saw how well that high ground stuff

worked at Karst!"

 

". .. and," the sorcerer grated, with an edge to his high,

rather light voice, "I have seen in an enchanted crystal the

only Nest of the Dark known in these mountains, and I

assure you that it is blocked, as it has been blocked for

centuries. Naturally my lady may do as she pleases, but

for reasons of her own comfort and health, and on account

of her state and prestige, I doubt that my lord Alwir will

permit my lady to walk in the back of the train like a

common peasant woman." Turning on his heel, the old

man stalked back toward his wagon, his fur cape swirling

behind him like a thundercloud.

 

Minalde sat in unhappy silence for a time, rocking her

child against her breast as if to protect him from unseen

peril. Distantly, the sounds of the camp's breaking came

to them, the braying of mules and the creak of harnesses,

the splash and hiss of doused fires. Somewhere quite close,

voices raised in anger, Alwir's controlled and cutting as a

lash, and after, the dry, vituperative hiss of Bishop Govan-

nin's.

 

Alde sighed. "They're at it again." She kissed Tir's round

little forehead, following up the mark of affection with a

businesslike check of the state of his diaper, and proceeded

to tuck him up in his multiple blankets again; the morn-

ing seemed to be growing colder instead of warmer. "They

say we should reach the Keep tonight," she went on in a

low voice, excluding from hearing any but the man who

stood beside her in the shadows of the wagon. "Sometimes

 

it has seemed that we'd travel forever and never reach the

place. So Bektis is probably right."

 

Rudy leaned his elbow on the wagon-tail. "You think

so?"

 

She didn't reply. Beyond, there was the clatter of trace-

chains and the sound of troopers talking casually among

themselves as they harnessed the oxen. "Will we reach the

Keep in daylight, or will we have to push on after sun-

down?"

 

Her hands paused in their restless readying of the

wagon for travel. In a low voice she said, "After sundown,

I think."

 

Ingold slumped back exhaustedly against a boulder and

rested his elbows on his drawn-up knees. "I am very

much afraid, my dear," he said tiredly, "that we are not

going to make it."

 

Gil, who for the last several hours had been aware of

very little beyond the form of the wizard, who had always

seemed to be walking farther and farther ahead of her,

could only nod. The little bay among the rocks above the

road where they had taken shelter offered no protection

from the increasing cold, but at least they were out of the

wind. They had fought the wind all day, and, like a wolf,

it had torn at their cloaks and mauled their exposed faces

with savage violence. Gil could sense on it now the smell

of the storm moving down from the glaciers on the high

peaks. Even in this comparative shelter, hard bits of mealy

snow had begun to fly. It was now late afternoon; there

was no chance, she knew, of reaching the Arrow Gorge

before the convoy did. Whatever the Dark Ones had done

to the bridge there, it was beyond her power or Ingold's to

warn the people of it.

 

After a little time she recovered enough to disengage the

flask she wore at her belt, draw the stopper, and take a

tentative sip—the stuff made white lightning taste like

lemonade. "The captain at the Keep gave me this," she

explained, passing it over.

 

He took a drink without turning a hair". "I knew there

was an ultimate reason in the cosmic scheme of things for

you to accompany me," he said, and smiled through the

ice in his beard. "Now that makes twice you've saved my

life."

 

Over their heads in the rocks, the roaring of the wind

increased to a kind of cold, keening shriek, and a great

gust of snow blew down on them. Gil drew herself closer

to Ingold's side. "About how far above the Arrow are we

now?"

 

"Two or three miles. We would be able to see it, but for

the winding of the road. That's what worries me, Gil; if

they had passed the bridge in safety, we would have met

them before this."

 

"Might the storm have slowed them down?"

 

"Possibly, But it won't really hit until about sundown. It

would be suicide for them to stop now."

 

"Can't you do anything about the storm?" she asked

him suddenly. "Didn't you say once that wizards can call

and dismiss storms?"

 

He nodded. "And so we can," he replied, "if that is what

we wish to do." As he spoke she noticed that, instead of

gloves, he was wearing mittens—old and frayed now, like

everything about him, but, by the intricacy of their design,

clearly knitted for him by someone who cared very much

for the old man. "We can send storms elsewhere, or call

them to serve us—all except the ice storms of the plains,

which strike without warning and make this—" He ges-

tured at the whirling snow flurries. "—resemble a balmy

spring breeze. But I think I pointed out to Rudy once, and

I may have mentioned to you as well, that the Dark will

not attack under a storm. So it may be that in doing noth-

ing about the storm, we will be choosing the lesser of two

evils."

 

He rose to go, wrapping his muffler tighter around his

neck and drawing his hood down to protect his face. He

was helping Gil to her feet when they heard on the road

below them the muffled clop of hooves and the jingling of

bits, echoes thrown into the sheltered pocket of boulders

and dried grass that a moment ago had hidden all sound

of the troop's coming. Beyond the boulders, Gil saw them

come into view, a weary straggle of refugees. She recog-

nized, in the lead, the big, scarred man on a brown horse

whose head drooped with exhaustion. She and Ingold ex-

changed one quick, startled glance. Then the wizard was

off, scrambling down the rocks to the road, calling, "Tirk-

enson! Tomec Tirkenson!" The landchief straightened in

his saddle and threw out his hand as a signal to halt

 

Gil followed Ingold with more haste than seemliness

down to the road. The landchief of Gettlesand towered

over them in the leaden twilight, looking like a big, gaunt

bandit at the head of his ragged troop of retainers. Glanc-

ing down the road, Gil could see that his followers—a

great gaggle of families, a substantial herd of bony sheep

and cattle, a gang of tough-looking hard-cases riding point-

guard—were hardly a sixth of the main convoy.

 

"Ingold," the landchief greeted them. He had a voice

like a rock slide in a gravel pit and a face to match. "We

were wondering if we'd run into you, Gil-shalos," he

greeted her with a nod.

 

"Where did you leave the rest of the convoy?"

 

Tirkenson grunted angrily, his light, saddle-colored eyes

turning harsh. "Down by the bridge," he grumbled.

"They're making camp, like fools."

 

"Making camp?" The wizard was aghast "That's mad-

ness!"

 

"Yes, well, who said they were sane?" the landchief

growled. "I told them, get the people across and to hell with

the wagons and the luggage, we can send back for that..."

 

Ingold's voice was suddenly quiet. "What happened?"

 

"Holy Hell, Ingold." The landchief rubbed a big hand

over his face wearily. "What hasn't happened? The bridge

came down. The main pylons went under the weight of

those carts of Alwir's, took the whole kit and caboodle

down with them—"

 

"And the Queen?"

 

"No." Tirkenson frowned, puzzling over it "She was

afoot, for some reason, up at the head of the train. Walk-

ing with the Prince slung on her back, like any other

woman. I don't know why—but I do know if she'd been in

a cart, there would've been no saving her. So what's Alwir

do but start salvaging operations, hauling the stuff up out

of the gorge, and rigging rope pontoons across the river

down below. Then the Bishop says she won't abandon her

wagons, and they start breaking them down to carry them

across in pieces, and half the people are cut off on one

side of the river and half on the other, and squabbling

about getting baggage and animals across, and before you

know it, everybody's saying they'll settle there for the night

 

"I tried to tell them they'd be froze blue by morning,

sure as the ice comes in the north, but that pet conjurer of

 

Alwir's, that Bektis, says he can hold off the storm, and by

the time Alwir and the Bishop got done slanging one an-

other, they said it was too late to go on anyway. So there

they sit." He gestured disgustedly and leaned back into the

cantle of his saddle.

 

Ingold and Gil exchanged a quick look. "So you left?"

 

"Oh—Hell," Tirkenson rumbled. "Maybe I should have

stayed. But Alwir tried to commandeer that big wagon of

the Bishop's, the one she's dragging the Church records in,

and you never heard such jabber in your life. She threat-

ened to excommunicate Alwir, and Alwir said he'd slap

her in irons—you know how she is about these damn

papers of hers—and people were taking sides, and Alwir's

boys and the Red Monks were just about pulling steel over

the argument. I told them they were crazy, with the camp

split and the storm and the Raiders and the Dark all

around them, and they got into it again about that, and I'd

had enough. I got my people and whoever else wanted to

come with us to Gettlesand and we pulled out. It might

not have been the right thing to do, but staying another

night in the open sure as hell looked like the wrong thing

to do. We figure we can make the Keep before midnight."

 

Ingold glanced briefly at the sky, as if able to read the

time by the angle of an unseen sun above the roof of

clouds. The sky was no longer gray but a kind of vile yel-

lowish brown, and the snow smell was unmistakable. "I

think you did right," he said at last. "We're going on

down, and I'll try to talk them into moving on. You'll

have to fight the weather before you reach the Vale, but

if you can, get them to open the gates and build bonfires

on both sides of them, frame them in fire, and guard them

with every man in the train. With luck, we'll be there

sometime tonight."

 

"You'll need luck," the landchief grumbled. "I'll see

you at the Keep." He raised his hand in the signal to go

on. The train began to move like some great beast dragging

itself along in the last stages of exhaustion. Tirkenson

reined away from where Ingold and Gil stood, clicking en-

couragement to his tired horse. Then he paused and turned

back, looking down on the two pilgrims in the frozen road.

 

"One more thing," he said. "Just for your information.

Watch out for the Bishop. She's got it around that you and

Bektis are leagued with the Devil—and Alwir, too, just

 

coincidentally by association, you understand—and she's

got Hell's own support in the train. I never held with it—

wizards trading their souls for the Power—but people are

scared. They see Alwir's helpless. You might say the pow-

ers of this world are helpless. So if they're gonna die any-

way, they're gonna die on the right side of the line. Stands

to reason. But scared people will do just about anything."

 

"Ah, but so will wizards." Ingold smiled. "Thank you

for your warning. Good riding and a smooth road to you

all."

 

The landchief turned away, cursing his exhausted mount

and threatening to rowel him to dogmeat if he didn't get a

move on. Gil glanced from the big man's wicked, star-

shaped spurs to the untouched flanks of the tired horse

and knew, without quite knowing how, that Ingold's part-

ing blessing had contained in it spells to avert random

misfortune, to shake straight the tangled chains of circum-

stance, and to aid the landchief of Gettlesand and those

under his loud-voiced and blasphemous care.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

It was snowing in earnest when Gil and Ingold came

within sight of the camp on the near bank of the Arrow.

In the swirling grayness they could make out huddled

shapes bunched around the feeble yellow flickers of camp-

fires, the dark milling of small herds of animals, the rest-

less activity on the bank of the gorge, and the shadowy

comings and goings around the broken bridge. Across the

gorge more activity was visible, lights moving here and

there around the farther camp, and the distant threnody of

bleating goats and a child's wailing cries drifting on the

intermittent veering of the wind. Between the two camps

lay the gorge, a sheer-cut chasm of darkness, filled with

the greedy roaring of the river. On either bank of the

gorge, great tongues of broken stone thrust out over the

void.

 

"How deep is the gorge at that point?" Gil asked, squint-

ing through the blurring gusts of snow.

 

"About forty feet. It's a difficult climb down the side

and up again, but the water itself isn't very deep. As you

can see, they've swum most of the stock." Ingold pointed

to where three men were driving a small herd of pigs up

the trail. "From what you told me of your dream, it would

seem that the Dark weakened the central pillars of the

bridge, so that they gave way under the weight of the

wagons—as pretty an attempt at murder as you're likely

to see. And even though the attempt failed, Prince Tir is

stranded in camp on the banks of the river tonight, cut

off from most of the convoy, with the camp in confusion.

 

Either way, the Dark could hardly have missed." Leaning

on his staff, he started down the steep slope toward the

fires.

 

Rudy met them on the outskirts of camp. "What did you

find?" he asked them.

 

As they made their way through the dark chaos toward

Alwir's massive tent, Gil filled him in on the valley of the

Dark, Renweth, the Keep, and what Tomec Tirkenson had

said. In the end, she asked, "Why wasn't Alde in her

wagon?"

 

"I talked her out of it," Rudy said. "I had a bad feeling

they'd try something tonight, but I never thought about

anything happening by daylight. We were only a couple

feet in front of the section of the bridge that went."

 

"And you still believe in coincidence," Ingold chided

reprovingly. "I'm surprised at you."

 

"Well," Rudy admitted, "not as much as I used to."

 

Alwir's was one of the few tents left in the tram. It was

pitched in the lee of some trees, out of the wind; in the

darkening of the late afternoon, yellow lights could already

be seen glowing within. Gil could make out a confusion of

voices coming from it, Bishop Govannin's harsh half-

whisper, and now and then Bektis' light, mellifluous tenor.

 

".. . full ferocity of the storm is by no means upon us,"

the sorcerer was saying sententiously. "Nor will it be, for

I will turn its force aside and keep it over the mountains

to the north until such time as we can come to the Keep."

 

"Turn it aside?" Govannin rasped. "Have you been to

the camp across the river, my lord wizard? They are half-

buried in the snow there and freezing."

 

"Yet we cannot go on tonight," Alwir said and added,

with smooth malice, "We have too few carts and horses to

make good speed. What must be carried, must be carried

on the backs of men. And if they will not rid themselves

of what is useless..."

 

"Useless!" the Bishop spat. "Useless to those who would

dispose of all precedents for the legal position of the

Church, perhaps. Mere technicalities to those who would

rather forget their existence."

 

Alwir protested, as sanctimonious as a preacher, "God's

Church is more than a pile of mildewed paper, my lady.

It lies in the hearts of men."

 

"And in the hearts of the faithful it will always remain,"

 

she agreed dryly. "But memory does not lie in the heart,

nor does law. Men and women have fought and died for

the rights of the Church, and the only record of those

rights, the only fruit of those spent lives, is in those wag-

ons. I will not leave that to perish in the snow at the mere

word of a baby King's running-dog."

 

Ingold pushed aside the flap of the tent. Beyond him,

Gil saw Alwir's face change and stiffen into a mask of

silver, barred and streaked with ugly shadow, the mouth

made of iron. The Chancellor lurched to his feet, his head

brushing the bottom of the single hanging lamp, towering

over the slight scarlet figure of the Bishop with clenched

fist; for a moment it seemed that he might strike her where

she sat. But she only looked up at him with flat black eyes,

emotionless as a shark's, and waited in triumph for the

blow to fall.

 

"My lord Alwir!" Hoarse and unmistakable, the voice

cut like a referee's whistle between them, breaking the ten-

sion with an almost audible snap. They both turned, and

Ingold inclined his head respectfully. "My lady Bishop,"

he finished his greeting.

 

Just perceptibly, the Bishop's taut body settled back into

her chair. Alwir placed his fist upon his hip, rather than

visibly unclench it at another man's word. "So you de-

cided to come back," the Chancellor said.

 

"Why did you make camp?" Ingold asked without pre-

amble.

 

"My dear Ingold," the Chancellor soothed, "as you can

see, it has begun to grow dark..."

 

"That," Ingold said acidly, "is what I mean. You could

have pushed on, to reach the Keep sometime tonight, or

gone back across the river, to be with the main body of the

convoy. Isolated on this side of the river, you're nothing

but bait."

 

Patiently, Alwir said, "We have, as you may have no-

ticed, a temporary bridge, across which we are slowly

bringing the rest of the convoy, as well as sufficient troops

to deal with any emergency that may arise in the night."

 

"You think the Dark couldn't deal with that as easily as

they deal with solid oak doors? As easily as they dealt

with the stone pillars of the original bridge?"

 

"The Dark had nothing to do with that," Alwir said

rather sharply.

 

"You think not?"

 

Bektis' long fingers toyed with a huge solitaire cat's-eye

he wore on his left hand. "You cannot pretend it anymore,"

he said rather pettishly. "You are not the only mage in the

train, my lord Ingold, and I, too, have cast my powers of

far-seeing here and there in the mountains. The only Nest

that was ever in these parts was blocked with stone long

ago, and you yourself know that we have felt no threat of

the Dark since we have come to the high country." He

raised heavy white lids and stared from under them at

Ingold, defiance, resentment, and spite mingling in his

dark, burning eyes.

 

"So they have made it appear," Ingold replied slowly.

"But I have come from that Nest and I tell you that it lies

open."

 

"And is this another of those things," the Bishop asked

dryly, folding her fingers before her on the table, like a

little pile of ivory spindles, "for which yours is the only

word?"

 

Lamplight glittered in the melting snow on his shoulders

as he turned toward her. "It is. But there are things, like

the commandments of God, which we must all take upon

trust, my lady. Surely you yourself know that we have only

one man's word on the true means of salvation and that

those means are not what a reasonable man would logical-

ly conclude. For now mine—and, incidentally, Gil's—must

be the only word you have that the Dark are in that valley,

that they have held back from the train deliberately, and

that they have broken the bridge in order to kill the Prince

or isolate him on this side of the river."

 

Govannin opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again

thoughtfully.

 

Ingold went on. "They will never allow Tir, with what

he could become and the secrets he may hold, to reach the

Keep. The storm has given us our chance, and I suggest

that we take it and push on now, tonight, under its cover

to the Keep."

 

"Cover?" Alwir swung around to face him, his voice

jeering. "Shroud, you mean. We'll freeze to death . . ."

 

"You'll freeze just as quickly here," Ingold pointed out

 

Piqued, Bektis announced primly, "I am quite capable

of holding off such a storm as this ..."

 

"And the Dark as well?" Ingold retorted.

 

The sorcerer stared at him for a moment, hatred in his

narrow face, and a watery flush of red crept up under his

white cheeks.

 

Without waiting for his reply, Ingold said, "Nor could

I. There are limits to all power."

 

"And to all endurance," the Bishop said imperturbably.

"And I for one will not be stampeded by fear, like a sheep

into the shambles. We can weather this storm and push on

in the daylight."

 

"And if the storm does not break until this tune tomor-

row?"

 

Alwir leaned a kid-gloved hand on the back of his

carved chair. "Don't you think you're putting too much

importance on this storm? I am agreeable to whatever may

be voted, provided I can find cartage for the effects of the

government..."

 

Govannin's eyes blazed. "Not at the cost of—"

"Don't be a pair of fools." The words were spoken

quietly as the white embroidery of the tent-curtains rippled,

and a girl stood framed in gleaming silk against the shad-

ows of the room beyond. Minalde's face was very white

against the raven blackness of her unbound hair. She was

wrapped for warmth in a star-decorated quilt, holding Tir

against her under its folds. The child's eyes, wide and

wandering in fascination over the lamplit ulterior of the

tent, were a jewel-blue echo of his mother's and of Alwir's

own.

 

"You are both acting like fools," she went on in a low

voice. "The tide is rising, and you are arguing about who

will be the first one into the boat."

 

Alwir's aristocratic nostrils flared in annoyance, but he

only said, "Minalde, go back to your room."

 

"I will not," she replied in that same quiet voice.

"This is none of your affair." His was the voice of a

man to a recalcitrant child.

 

"It is my affair." She kept her words soft, but Alwir and

Rudy both stared at her, more astonished than if she had

burst forth into colorful profanity. All the breath went out

of Alwir as if she'd kicked him; he had obviously never

even considered that his gentle and acquiescent little sister

would defy him. Rudy, who remembered how she'd shoved

a torch into his face on the haunted stairs at Karst, was

less surprised.

 

"Tir is my son," she continued. "Your stubbornness

could get him killed."

 

The Chancellor's impassive face flushed; he looked ready

to tell her to mind her tongue before her elders and betters.

But she was, after all, Queen of Darwath.

 

"If what my lord Ingold says is true," he said.

 

"I believe him," she said. "And I trust him. And I will

go on with him to the Keep tonight, if I go alone."

 

From where she stood in Ingold's shadow by the corner

of the tent, Gil could see that this girl, wrapped in stars

and darkness, was trembling. It couldn't have been easy to

defy a man who, by all accounts, had run her life for years;

Gil's respect for Minalde, who had been up to this mo-

ment merely a name and a silhouette in the darkness,

increased.

 

"Thank you for your trust, my lady," Ingold said quietly,

and their eyes met for a moment. Gil knew from experi-

ence that the wizard's gaze could strip the spirit bare and

defenseless; but whatever Alde saw in his eyes, it must have

reassured her, for she turned away with a straight back

and an air of resolution.

 

Alwir caught her arm, drew her to him, and said some-

thing that none of them could catch, but his face was in-

tent and angry. Alde pulled her arm from his grip and

went inside without a word. It was just as well that she

did, for she did not see her brother's face, transformed

by cold rage into the mask Gil had seen when first she'd

entered the tent, a mask all the more inhuman because it

was so impersonal. But when he turned back to them, his

smile was deprecating. "It appears," he said, "that we are

moving on tonight after all."

 

It was clear that this was the opening line to something

else, but the Bishop cut him off so smoothly that the inter-

ruption had every appearance of being accidental. "If that

is so," she said in her slow, dry voice, "I must go and

make ready the wagons of the Church." And she was gone,

far more quickly than anyone would have believed possible,

before he could speak any command.

 

It was almost fully dark by the time the camp broke.

Snow was coming down harder now, the wind whirling

little flurries of grainy flakes into the ashes of the stamped-

out fires and coating the churned mud in a thin layer of

 

white. Word had been carried across the river over the

makeshift bridge, and families were crossing slowly, men

and women balancing precariously on the shaky spiderweb

of rope and cottonwood poles, with their bundles on their

shoulders. Oddly enough, when Rudy walked down to the

jerry-built bridgehead with Ingold and Gil to see about the

single wagon Alwir had negotiated from one of his mer-

chant friends, he found that a spirit of optimism seemed to

have seized the train, grossly at odds with the circum-

stances. The grumbling wasn't any less prevalent, and the

curses were just as loud and vivid. Men and women packed

up their few belongings, rubbing chapped hands in the

flaying cold, snapping, bickering, and fighting among them-

selves—but something had changed. The bitter desperation

of the early part of the march was gone. An aliveness

crackled through the blinding air that had not been felt

before—a hope. This was the last march, if they could

make it. They were within striking distance of the Keep.

 

"That should do," Ingold remarked, watching Guards

and Alwir's private troops dragging the half-disassembled

wagon box up the crooked trail. "Granted, it should make

Minalde and Tir a target, but in this case that's better than

risking losing them in the snow. As for you two . . ." He

turned to them and laid a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Whatever you do, stay close to that wagon; it's your best

hope of reaching the Keep alive. I'm going to be up and

down the train; I may not see you. I realize none of this is

any of your business—that you were hauled into it against

your will, and neither of you owes me anything. But please,

see that Alde and the child reach the Keep in safety."

 

"Won't you be there?" Gil asked uneasily.

 

"I don't know where I'll be," the wizard said. Snow

lodged in his beard and on his cloak. In the failing light

Gil thought he looked worn out. Not surprising, she

thought. She herself was operating on nervous energy

alone. "Take care of yourselves, my children. I'll get you

safely out of this yet."

 

He turned and was gone, the stray ends of his muffler

whipping like banners in the wind.

 

"He looks bad," Rudy said quietly, leaning on his staff

as the snowy twilight swallowed the old man. "You guys

must have had one hell of a trip."

 

Gil chuckled dryly. "Never doubt he's a wizard, Rudy.

 

He has to be, to get people to follow him on crazy stunts

like that."

 

Rudy gave her a sidelong, thoughtful glance. "Well, you

know, even back in California I thought the setup was

crazy, but I just about believed him. You do. You have to."

 

And Gil understood. Ingold had a way of making any-

thing seem possible, even feasible—that an aimless motor-

cycle drifter could call forth fire from darkness, or that a

mild-mannered and acrophobic Ph.D. candidate would

follow him over the perilous roof of creation to do battle

with bodiless, unspeakable foes.

 

Or that a ragged train of fugitives, split by dissensions,

frozen half to death and at the end of their strength,

could make a fifteen-mile forced march through storm and

darkness to find at last a refuge they had never seen.

 

She sighed and hitched her too-large cloak over her nar-

row shoulders. The wind still bit through, as it had torn at

her all day. She felt tired to the bones. The night, she

knew, would be terrible beyond thinking. She started to

move off, seeking the Guards, then paused in her steps.

"Hey, Rudy?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

'Take care of Minalde. She's a good lady."

 

Rudy stared at her in surprise, for he had not thought

she had known, much less that she would understand.

Rudy still had much to learn about coldhearted women

with pale schoolmarm eyes. "Thanks," he said, unaccount-

ably touched by her concern. "You ain't so bad yourself.

For a spook," he added with a grin, which she returned

wickedly.

 

"Well, it beats me why she'd hang out with a punk air-

brush-jockey, but that's her business. I'll see you at the

Keep."

 

Rudy found Alde where the few remaining servants of

the House of Bes were packing the single wagon. She her-

self was loading bedrolls into it; Medda, if she had still

been alive, would have expired from indignation at the

sight. He kissed her gently in greeting. "Hey, you were

dynamite."

 

"Dynamite?"

 

"You were great," he amended. "Really. I didn't think

Alwir would go along with it."

 

She turned back, Hushing suddenly in the diffuse glow

of the torchlight. "I didn't care whether he went along, as

you say, or not. But I ought not to have called them fools.

Not Alwir, and certainly not my lady Bishop. It was—

rude."

 

"So do penance for it at confession." He drew her to

him again. "You got your point across."

 

She stared in silence for a moment into his eyes. "He's

right, isn't he?" she whispered intently. "The Dark are in

the mountains."

 

"That's what Gil tells me," he replied softly. "He's right.

They're nearer than we think."

 

She stood for a moment, her hands clasped behind his

neck, staring up into his face with wide, desperate eyes, as

if unwilling to end this moment because of all that must

come after. But a noise from the cart made her break

away and scramble over the tailboard to replace her wan-

dering son in his little nest among the blankets. He heard

her whisper, "You lie down." A moment later she reap-

peared around the curtains.

 

"You're gonna need a leash for that kid once he starts

crawling," Rudy commented.

 

Alde shuddered. "Don't remind me." And she disap-

peared inside.

 

The convoy began to move. The wind increased in vio-

lence, howling down the canyons to fall on the pilgrims

with iron claws. Rudy stumbled along beside the wagon,

blinded by the snow, his fingers growing numb through his

gloves. The road here was disused, but better than the

road from Karst had been, with pavement down the center

where it had not been broken up by tree-roots or buried

by neglect. Still, the drifting snow made treacherous foot-

ing, and Rudy knew that those at the tail of the convoy

would be sliding their way through a river of slush. Wind

and darkness cut visibility to almost nothing. The shapes

of the Guards surrounding the wagon grew dim and cha-

otic, like half-guessed shadows in a frightful dream.

 

Remembering Ingold's teachings, Rudy tried to call light

to him. He managed to throw a big, sloppy ball of it about

three feet in front of him to light his steps. But the effort

took most of his concentration and, as he slipped in the

snow or staggered under the brutal flail of the wind, the

light dimmed and scattered. The snow thickened in the

 

air, like swirling gray meal all around him, except where

it passed, unmelting, through the witchlight, which trans-

formed it into a tiny roaring storm of diamonds that made

his eyes ache. His cloak and boots dragged wetly on his

limbs, and his hands passed quickly from insensibility to

pain. Once, when the wind slacked like the slacking of a

rope, he heard Minalde's voice from the wagon, singing

softly to her child:

 

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word,

 

Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird.. ."

 

He wondered numbly how that song had ever leaked its

way into the tongue of the Wathe.

 

He lost all track of time. How long he'd been struggling

through the blinding wilderness he had no way of knowing,

could not even guess. He felt as if it had been hours since

they'd broken camp, the ground always rising under his

slipping feet, the wind worrying at him like a beast at its

prey. He hung onto the wagon grimly with one hand and

onto his staff with the other; at tunes it seemed as if those

were the only things keeping him on his feet He knew by

then that if he went down, he would die.

 

At one point, Gil came up beside him, so thin and

ragged he wondered dully why she didn't blow away. She

yelled at him over the gale. "You okay?"

 

He nodded. A lady and a scholar, he thought. And

tough as they come.

 

Others passed them, or were passed by them, fighting

the wind with desperate persistence. He saw the old man

from Karst with his crates of chickens still piled on his

bowed back, wrapped up in blankets and laden with pounds

of trapped snow. The struggling band of camp orphans

were roped together like goslings behind their chief. A

stout woman leading a goat passed them; a little farther

on he saw her lying face down in the snow, the goat stand-

ing wretchedly over her body.

 

And still they pushed on. Rudy stumbled and fell, his

body so numb he was scarcely aware of hitting the ground.

Someone bent over him, hauled him to his feet, and shook

him out of his stupor with a violence that surprised him—

a ghostly, dark shape in a blowing mantle, with a blue-

white light burning on the end of his staff. Rudy staggered

 

wordlessly back to the wagon, catching the cover ropes for

support, and the shape melted into the dark. In the light-

less chaos he could see other shapes moving, dragging

stragglers to their feet, urging them on with words or pleas,

curses or blows. He clung to the ropes grimly, reminding

himself he'd promised to get Alde to the Keep, reminding

himself that there was a goal, somewhere in this black

universe of unending cold. He had learned already that,

under certain circumstances, death could be very sweet

indeed.

 

Time had become very deceptive; every movement was

ponderously slow, an incredible effort barely worth the

trouble, like that old Greek guy who had to push the stone

up the hill, knowing full well it was just going to roll to

the bottom again. The night was far gone. He could tell by

the changing note of the wind that they were coming clear

of the deep gorges, coming into a more open space. Feebly,

mind and will drowning in a blind darkness that was within

him as well as without, he tried to call back a little of the

witchlight, but raised not even a glimmer.

 

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, he told

himself grimly. You'll get there. The wind struck him like

a club; he went down and this time decided not to get up.

They could make it to the Keep without him. He was going

to sleep for a while.

 

He drifted for a time in memories, chiefly of the warm

hills of California, the rippling gold of the sunbaked grass,

and the way the sun had felt on his bare arms as he hauled

down Highway 15 on his chopper in the late evening, the

wind streaming through his hair. He wondered if he'd ever

get to do that again. Probably not, he decided. But even

that didn't matter much. Who'd have figured that leaving

on a beer run would end up with me freezing to death in

a range of mountains that never even existed?

 

Life is weird.

 

A seven-foot giant with a kick like a mule loomed sud-

denly in the darkness and booted him in the ribs. Cold

returned, and a thin leakage of pain spread into every

muscle and joint. He mumbled, "Hey," protestingly, and

the giant kicked him again.

 

"Get up, you sniveler." Why did a seven-foot giant have

Gil's voice?

 

Arrogant egghead bitch. "No."

 

Even a few weeks of swordmastery training had given

her a grip like a claw. Surprising, too, that somebody

wasted down to ninety-eight pounds of brittle bone could

have the strength to drag him to his feet and throw him

with such violence against the side of the moving wagon,

so that he had to catch hold of it.

 

"Now keep moving," she ordered.

 

Stupid of her not to understand. "I can't," he explained

groggily.

 

"The hell with you!" she yelled at him, suddenly furious.

"You may be a goddam wizard, but you're a coward and

a quitter, and I'll be damned if I'll have you let everybody

down by up and dying on the road. You die when you get

to the Keep if you want to so bad. We're only a couple

miles from it."

 

"Hunh?" Rudy tried to keep a grip on the rope with his

fingers, but they were too numb. He thrust his whole arm

through the space between the rope and the flapping cover.

"What did you say?"

 

But as if in answer to his words, he felt a sudden change

in the air. The titanic winds veered, and the relentless

hammering force of them slackened, making him stagger,

as if for a support suddenly lost. The snow, instead of

peppering his body like bullets from a Tommy gun, fell

straight for a few moments, then ceased. He could hear the

roaring of the wind in the pines above the road and its

shrieking whine in the rocks, but the air around him,

though freezing cold, was still.

 

The wagon team halted, one ox managing a plaintive

low. Boots scrunched in the squeaking snow all about him;

somewhere leather creaked. He could hear his own breath

and that of the woman beside him.

 

"What is it?" he whispered. "Has the storm let up?"

 

"Not like that, it wouldn't. Besides, you can still hear it

overhead."

 

He blinked against the darkness and raised a shaking

hand to scrape ice crystals from his eyes. "Then what. . ."

Then he realized what must have happened. Shock and

fear sent a jolt of adrenalin into his veins that cleared his

groggy mind. "Oh, Christ," he whispered. "Ingold."

 

"He stopped the storm, didn't he?" Gil said softly. "They

must have been losing too many people ..."

 

"But you know what that means?" Rudy said urgently.

 

"It means the Dark will be coming now." He took an ex-

perimental step away from the wagon and found he could

stand after a fashion by leaning on his staff. "We gotta get

moving."

 

The Guards were closing in around them, some thirty

strong; he could pick out their voices in the darkness. God

only knew where the rest of the train was. They'd gotten

so badly strung out in the storm, it was every man for him-

self. He flexed his right hand stiffly, trying to convince

himself it was still really his; he heard Gil's voice speaking

softly to the Guards around them and, brief and cold, the

Icefalcon's breathless laugh. Gil came back to him. "Can

you call up some light?" she asked. "The land flattens out

from here on; we could lose the road completely. Look."

 

There was, in fact, only one thing to look at: a tiny

square of orange light, distant and sharp in the wastelands

of cold.

 

"Tomec Tirkenson's up at the Keep. That's the fire

around the doors."

 

"Okay," Rudy said. "We can make for that, if nothing

else." He tried several times to call light, but his fatigue-

drugged consciousness was unequal to the task. They were

moving again, heading steadily toward that tiny orange

star, the going impossibly rough over the steep, uneven

ground. From the wagon behind him, he heard Tir's thin,

protesting wails and Alde's voice, softly shushing him. He

trod on something hard that rolled sickeningly underfoot,

stumbled, and put his hand on it in falling. It was an iron

cook pot. Despite the cold and danger, he grinned—others

had made it this far. The whole Vale was probably littered

with discarded household goods, flung away in a last,

desperate effort to keep on going. Well, if they could do it,

he could do it.

 

And then he felt it—a breath of wind in the stillness, a

wind not like the might of the storm, but a thin, direction-

less whisper that spoke of stone and damp, warm darkness,

a faint stirring of air from above and behind and all sides.

Turning, he saw the Dark.

 

How he saw them he wasn't sure—perhaps by some

wizard-sense, grown from the exercise of his powers. They

flowed over the snow toward the wagon, scarcely distin-

guishable one from the other or from the shifting river of

illusion in which they swam. Whiplike tails steered and

 

propelled, and they moved with a sinuous glide, the jointed

legs tucked in folds like bamboo armor under the soft,

dripping tentacles of the slobbering mouths. For a moment

he stood hypnotized, fascinated by the changing shapes,

now visible, now only wavering ghosts. He wondered in

what sense they could be said to be material at all. What

atoms and molecules made up those sleek, pulsing bodies?

What brain, or brains, had conceived the stairways that

led down to the blackness under the earth?

 

Then one of the oxen gave a great bellow of terror and

tried to leap forward; it fell, pulling down its teammate in

a tangle of harness and splintering the wagon tongue under

its threshing weight.

 

"The Dark!" Rudy yelled in desperate warning, and

tried to summon light, any light, for aid against the unseen

foes. He heard Alde scream. Then from behind him a shat-

tering blaze of witchlight pierced the darkness like a

strobe, and that pouring river of shadow and illusion broke

against it and swirled away like a great ring of smoke.

Ingold came striding out of the unnatural stillness, his

shadow thrown hard and blue onto the glittering snow at

his feet.

 

"Cut that ox loose, get my lady out of the wagon, and

get moving," he ordered briefly. By the burning light, the

Guards came running to them, faces haggard under the

crusting of frost. "Janus, do you think you can make it as

far as the Keep?"

 

The Commander, barely recognizable under the ice that

scaled his hair and cloak, squinted at the light in the dis-

tance, against which the tiny figures of men were now

clearly visible. "I think so," he panted. "Again, you've

saved us."

 

Ingold retorted, "It's about a mile and a half too soon

to say that. My lady..."

 

He turned back to the wagon. The Icefalcon had cut the

team loose, but the wagon was clearly beyond further use.

From the curtains at the front, a white face looked out,

framed in the darkness of a black fur hood and a cascade

of crow-black hair.

 

Rudy stepped quickly over to the wagon. "We've got to

run for it, babe," he said softly, and she nodded, turning

unquestioningly back into the shadows of the cart to fetch

Tir. She reappeared a moment later with the heavily

 

muffled infant in her arms, her face pale in the light of

Ingold's staff, her eyes wide with apprehension. Gil held

out her arms and received the child awkwardly, while

Rudy helped Minalde down over the broken wagon tongue.

Even through two pairs of gloves and the burning numb-

ness of his fingers, he was conscious of the touch of her

hand.

 

"How far?" she whispered.

 

Gil nodded toward the distant orange gleam of the Keep

doors. "About two miles."

 

Alde took the baby back, feeling as she did so the chill,

prickly sensation she had known before, the subconscious

awareness of the presence of the Dark. The Dark Ones had

not been defeated by the advent of the light. They had

merely drawn off to wait.

 

The wind still howled overhead, but near them the air

was uncannily still. From all around them in the Vale they

could hear voices, distorted by cold and distance, voices of

fear, hope, despair. Refugees throughout the dark moun-

tains were making for the lights of the Keep, unseen forms

fighting their way through stillness and deep snow; but with-

in the circle of light cast by Ingold's staff, the little group

of Guards around the fallen wagon were alone. Coated with

frost, they seemed to be some kind of fantastic ice-crea-

tures, beaded with diamonds and breathing crystal smoke.

And beyond them, invisible in the blue-black ocean of the

night, that sense of restless motion stirred just out of the

range of vision.

 

Ingold came over to the little group by the wagon

tongue, his light harsh on their drawn, haggard faces. He

was a man who imparted his own strength to others; Gil

found she drew warmth from his presence, as from a fire,

and saw that Rudy and Alde looked a little less deathly as

well. He put a hand briefly to Alde's cheek and gazed

sharply into her face. "Can you make it?"

 

"I have to," she said simply.

 

"Good girl. Rudy..."

 

Rudy stepped forward hesitantly.

 

"Channel your Power through your staff; that's what it's

there for, not just to keep you from stubbing your toes."

 

Rudy looked in surprise at the six-foot walking stick

he'd cut for himself miles up the road. "Uh—you mean,

 

that's all? You don't have to do anything special to make

a staff magic?"

 

Ingold appeared to pray briefly for patience. "All things

are inherently magic," he said patiently. "Now . . ."

 

Tentatively, Rudy called light again, feeling the power

of it through his hand, through the wood that had become

smoothed to his grip by its use, through the air. Light be-

gan to burn smokily from the end of the staff, growing

brighter and throwing doubled shadows, blue and black, on

the spokes of the wagon wheels, on the thin, frightened

faces of the two girls, on the dilapidated cart, and on the

deep-set hollows of Ingold's eyes.

 

Softly, the wizard said, "Don't leave them, Rudy." Rudy

had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that the old man

knew about his giving up, his lying down to die and leav-

ing the others to their own devices. He felt himself flush.

 

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

 

Wind stirred around his feet. He swung about, scanning

the darkness beyond. He felt a counterspell, like the cold

touch of an alien hand, slipping into his mind from the

darkness. He felt the light dimming, looked up, and saw

that Ingold's staff, too, had begun to flicker unsteadily.

At the same time he smelled the cold, bitter, acid stink of

the Dark. Steel whined as Gil drew her sword; all around

them was the muted flashing of blades as the Guards

closed in an outward-facing ring.

 

What instinct warned him he never knew, but he

ducked, drew and turned, and slashed in one movement,

almost before he was aware of the thing that fell suddenly

on him out of the night. He heard Alde scream and got a

confused glimpse of Gil, with a face of stone and a blade

of fire, cleaving darkness in a long side-on cut that seemed

to cover them all in an explosion of blood and slime. The

witchlight dimmed to gray, and the Guards pressed back,

defending as best they could against the slimy onslaught.

The counterspell sucked at him, draining his power as if

from a cut artery, and for a time he saw nothing, knew

nothing but that he must keep between the Dark and the

woman at his back.

 

Then, without warning, they were gone, and the strength

of the witchlight was renewed. Somebody yelled, "Come

on!" and Rudy found himself grasping Alde's right arm

while Gil held her left, hurrying over the slime-spattered

 

muck of the snow, the light of his staff brightening over

the mess of mud and bloody bones, with the Guards clos-

ing around them in a tight flying wedge. Ingold strode

ahead, white breath smoking in the light that showed the

snow all around them trampled by stampedes of fleeing

feet and strewn with the discarded bundles of the refugees.

Groggily, Rudy tried to keep up with him, leaden with

cold and fatigue and stumbling in the drifted mess, trying

to keep his eyes on the brilliant square of orange light in

the distance that marked the end of this nightmare road.

He could make out movement there clearly now, small

shapes in those great doors. He could sense the Dark

massing above them like storm clouds and felt the touch of

their spells again, drawing and sapping at his strength.

 

Then the soft, sinister shadows dropped like vultures

from above, a half-seen cloudy death that filled the night.

Rudy's sword seemed to be weighted with lead, his arm

shot full of Novocain. He knew that if he hadn't been in

the center of the pack, he would have been killed at once.

Seeing Gil slash and dodge in the gray darkness and step

in under the whining arc of a spined whip half again as

long as she was, he understood why Gnift flayed the bodies

and souls of his Guard students and why Gil and the

others trained the way they did, doggedly, through injuries,

cold, and fatigue. It was only their training that saved them

now.

 

Thin winds ruffled mockingly around them, and the

Dark were gone. Rudy, gasping for breath, hung onto his

staff for support, holding the half-fainting Alde with his

other arm and wondering if he'd have the strength to drag

her as far as the Keep. Though they were less than a mile

off, the roaring glow of the gate-fires could barely be seen

through the massed, cloaking shadows that filled the night.

The Guards closed up again.

"Now," Ingold said quietly. "Go. Go quickly."

Horrified, Janus protested, "They're all around us, they'll

never let us through."

 

The wizard was panting with exertion, and the pallid

light showed his hands cut and noisome with slime. "They

will if you go now. Hurry, or—"

 

"You're not staying!" the Commander cried.

 

"But—" Rudy began, stupefied.

 

"Do as I say!" the wizard thundered, and Rudy stepped

 

back a pace, shocked. Ingold drew his sword in a single

gleaming movement, the blade flashing in the dark. "Got"

 

Janus looked at him for a long moment, as if he might,

at the last, disobey. Then abruptly he turned and strode

off through snow and darkness; after a momentary, uncer-

tain pause, Rudy and the others followed, he and Gil half-

dragging Minalde between them. He could feel the spells

of the Dark shifting aside from the light he bore and could

sense their malice concentrated elsewhere. Glancing back

over his shoulder, he saw Ingold standing where they had

left him, a dark form in the burning aureole of the light,

his head cocked to listen to the sounds of the night, blood

dripping from his gashed knuckles to stain the snow at his

feet.

 

The wizard waited until the little party of Guards had

gone almost two hundred yards from him. Then Rudy,

turning again to look back, saw him throw down his staff

in the snow. The light went out. The sword blade swung in

a searing, phosphorescent arc. Rudy knew that the Dark

had closed in on the old man.

 

They ran on. Tir had begun to wail, his cries thin and

muffled with exhaustion, within the shelter of his mother's

cloak. There was no other sound; but looking across Alde

once, Rudy got a glimpse of Gil's face, a pale-eyed mask

of pain. The blazing gates seemed to get no nearer, though

he could now clearly distinguish the shapes grouped on the

steps in the glare of the bonfires, with the Runes of Guard-

ing and Law looming behind them, reflected in the bloody

light. One dark shape he knew must be Tomec Tirkenson;

another, he thought, was Govannin. There seemed to be

something wrong with his perception of distance. The air

was still, without movement or scent or breath, without

even the sensation of the nearness of the Dark—though he

knew he had to be wrong about that; it must be only the

effect of his senses slipping gradually away. The Dark had

to be following, waiting the moment to strike. Twice he

looked back over his shoulder and saw the firefly move-

ment of Ingold's blade in the darkness. He wondered

dizzily why the wizard had sent them on and wondered,

with all the strength left in him to wonder, if they'd make

it as far as the gates before the Dark finally fell on them

from above. The ground steepened; he seemed to be mov-

 

ing through a knee-deep sea of slush, struggling to keep to

his feet.

 

Then from above them, the wind streamed down—not

the winds of the Dark, but the storm winds, swirling snow

down on them as they fled toward the blazing Hell-mouth

of the gates. The howl of the rising gale was like the

keening of wolves on the kill. The storm winds that hit

them with a force that made Rudy stagger were blinding,

freezing, raging over them with wild, malicious glee. He

struggled on, seeing before him the towering darkness of

some vast, somber cliff, the storm winds driving the flames

into thirty-foot maypoles of fire. He tripped on something

in the darkness and fell, Alde's arm sliding from his grasp.

Looking up, he saw before him the blazing gates; he had

fallen on the steps. He could see Gil dragging Alde up the

steps, framed in a wild coruscation of snow and fire, the

wind mixing their dark hair into a single streaming cloud.

 

Someone came down to him and hauled him up and into

that red inferno. Sick and half-fainting, he could see only

that the hand that gripped his arm was covered by a black

velvet glove glittering with rubies, like droplets of new-

shed blood.

 

When his eyes cleared, he was lying on the floor just

within the gates, half-covered in blowing snow. Men and

women were coming inside, staggering with cold and ex-

haustion—children, too, he saw, and realized Gil had been

right. His surrender to fate back in the snowy darkness

had been an act of cowardice that an eight-year-old could

have bettered. Beyond them, silhouetted against the ruddy

light, he saw Govannin, a skull with live coals in the eye

sockets, a sword in her skeleton hand. Alwir was a dark

tower, his sister leaning on the strength of his mighty arms,

her child sobbing exhaustedly at her breast. Alwir's eyes

were not on either of them, but looking beyond, into the

dark cave of the Keep itself, calculating the dimensions of

his new kingdom. And past them was Gil, her coarse,

witchy hair fluttering in the backwash of the storm as she

stood at the gates, looking out into the darkness. But in all

that waste of ice and bitter wind, Rudy could see no trace

of any moving light.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

"Where is he?" Rudy asked.

 

"With the Guards." Gil adjusted her sword belt without

meeting his eyes. He could see that she had been crying.

 

Rudy rolled over and found he had to use the wall to

climb painfully to his feet. His body ached, and little elec-

tric flashes of pain were stabbing every muscle and joint

as he tried to move. Lassitude gripped not only his bones

but his spirit as well, so that nothing—not last night's flight,

nor the news Gil had wakened him with this afternoon—

brought him either sorrow or joy. He recognized this as a

symptom of extreme fatigue.

 

When I get back to California, he vowed tiredly, I am

never, ever going to gripe about anything again. I will al-

ways know for a sure fact that things could be loads worse.

 

If I get back to California, he amended, and followed

Gil out of the cell.

 

The cell was one of a warren of partitioned-off cubicles

that stretched haphazardly beyond a door to the right of

the gate. To get out, he had to pick his way through ill-lit

huddles of those who still slept, lying where they'd fallen

in blind exhaustion, and step over and around the pitiful

little bundles of pots and blankets heaped in the corners

of the tiny rooms. Next to a small hearth, a porcelain-

headed doll slumped like a dead child against a pair of

broken boots. The place stank of unwashed clothes and a

child's neglected diaper. Blinking in the dim light, Rudy

stepped out into the central hall of the Keep.

 

Looking around him at the dark fastnesses of that fortress,

 

he could only wonder at the human powers of recuperation

and the human tendency to make oneself at home. Here, in

this awesome fortress of stone and steel, after they'd fought

their way through peril and death and darkness, people

were settling themselves in cozily for the winter. Children

—Minalde was right, children were tough little survivors—

ran madly up and down that great, echoing hall, their shrill,

piercing yells ringing off the unseen vaults. He heard

women's voices, sweet and high, and a man's genuine laugh

of pleasure. Down at one end of that monstrous space, a

rectangle of blinding light marked the doors—daylight,

filtered with clouds and snow. At the other end of the hall,

a couple of monks in patched red robes were putting up a

bronze crucifix over a cell doorway otherwise indistinguish-

able from a hundred small black doorways exactly like

it to establish the domain of the Church—Renweth Cathe-

dral and the administrative offices of Bishop Govannin.

She was evidently wasting no time. On the narrow catwalk

above, he saw Alwir, like Lucifer in his velvet cloak, quiet-

ly surveying his dominion.

 

The Guards had a complex of cells to the immediate

right of the great Keep doors. Gil led Rudy through a

narrow entrance. By the smoldering light of grease lamps,

he saw Janus arguing with a couple of indignant-looking

burghers who had the air of having been men of property

before the Dark had made hash of wealth and land and

prestige.

 

Janus was saying patiently, "Cell assignments aren't the

province of the Guards, they're the responsibility of the

Lord of the Keep, so I suggest..." But neither of the men

looked as if he were listening.

 

The room was heaped with provisions and mail, weap-

onry and kindling. Guards were sleeping in the chaos, with

their slack, pinched faces showing the last stages of weari-

ness. In the room beyond, the confusion was worse, for

most of the Guards there were sitting around, eating a

scratch dinner of bread and cheese, sharpening their

swords, and mending their uniforms. The Icefalcon, his

white hair unbraided and hanging in a sheet of liquid

platinum past his waist, was keeping a pot of water from

boiling by watching it impatiently. People looked up and

called greetings, cheerful and noisy, which Rudy returned

with what bloodless enthusiasm he could conjure. The place

 

stank of filth and grease and smoke. What the hell was it

going to be like in a year? Or two years? Or twenty? The

thought was nauseating.

 

A grubby curtain partitioned off a sort of closet, where

the Guards had stored their spare provisions in wildest dis-

order. Stepping through the grimy divider, Rudy blinked

at the dimness, for barely any of the greasy yellow illumi-

nation managed to leak through from the room beyond;

he had the impression of heaped sacks, scarred firkins, a

floor mucky with mud and old hay, and an overwhelming

smell of dusty cheese and onions. Across the back of that

narrow cell somebody had excavated a makeshift bed on

the fodder-sacks. On the bed, looking like a dead hobo, lay

Ingold.

 

"You're crazy, do you know that?" Rudy said.

 

The blue eyes opened, drugged and dreamy with fatigue.

Then the familiar smile lightened the whole face, stripping

the age from it and turning it impish and curiously young.

 

"You could have got killed."

 

"You have an overwhelming capacity for the obvious,"

Ingold said slowly, but his voice was teasing, and he was

obviously pleased to see Gil and Rudy alive and well. The

wizard's hands were bandaged in rags and his face welted

and snow-burned, but on the whole, Rudy thought, he

looked as if he'd live. He went on. "Thank you for your

concern, though the danger was less than it appeared. I

was fairly certain I could keep the Dark Ones at bay until

I released the spells over the storm. I knew I could escape

them under cover of the storm, you see."

 

"Yeah?" Rudy asked, sitting down at the foot of the

bed. "And just how the hell did you plan to escape the

storm?"

 

"A mere technicality." Ingold dismissed the subject. "Is

it still snowing?"

 

"It's coming down pretty heavy," Gil said, drawing her

knees up like a skinny grasshopper and settling herself be-

side the head of the bed. "But the wind's stopped. Tomec

Tirkenson says this is the coldest it's been in forty years.

The Icefalcon said he's never seen the snow pile up in the

canyons like this so early in winter. You're gonna have one

chilly trek over the Pass." Barely visible in the smoky

darkness, her face looked thin and haggard, but at peace.

 

"I'll wait until it actually stops snowing," Ingold said

 

comfortably, and folded his bandaged bands before him

on the moth-eaten wool of the coverlet. Half-hidden in the

gloom, he looked white and ill. Rudy didn't like the dreamy

weakness of his voice, nor the way he lay without moving,

propped on the sacks of grain. Whatever he said, the old

boy had had one hell of a close call.

  "I can't delay much longer than that," the wizard con-

tinued. "Things have happened about which it has become

imperative that I consult Lohiro, quite apart from the fact

that, so far as I know, Alwir still proposes to assemble his

Army here, for the invasion of the Nests of the Dark."

 

"Look," Rudy began. "About your going to Quo . . ."

 

But before he could finish, the muted voices outside rose

to a quick babble, followed by the hasty scuffle of too

many people all trying at once to get respectfully to their

feet in too small a space. The ragged curtain was thrust

aside, and a towering shadow blotted the infalling light.

Alwir, Lord of the Keep of Dare, stepped through. At his

side, dark and slender as a young apple tree newly come to

blossom, was the Lady Minalde.

 

The Chancellor stood silent for a moment, gravely re-

garding the old man lying on his bed of sacks. When he

spoke, his melodious voice was quiet. "They told me that

you were dead."

 

"Not much of an exaggeration," Ingold said pleasantly,

"but not strictly accurate, as you see."

 

"You could have been," the Chancellor said. "Without

you, we might all have been, back by the river. I have

come—" The words seemed to stick in his throat like dry

bread. "I have come to say that I have wronged you, and

to offer you my hand in friendship again." He held out his

hand, the jewels of his many rings flaming in the shadows.

 

Ingold stretched out a grubby, bandaged hand to accept,

a king's gesture to an equal. "I only did as I promised

Eldor I would," he said. "I have taken his son and seen

him to safety. My promise is fulfilled. As soon as the

weather permits, I shall be leaving to seek the Hidden City

of Quo."

 

"Do you think, then, that it can be found?" Alwir's frown

was one of troubled concern, but his eyes were calculating.

 

"I can't know that until I seek it. But the aid of the

Council of Wizards is imperative: to your invasion, to the

Keep, to all of humankind. Lohiro's silence troubles me.

 

It has been over a month, without word from him or from

any member of the Council. Yet it is impossible that they

cannot know what has happened."

 

"But you still think Lohiro isn't dead?"

Ingold shook his head decisively. "I would know it," he

said. "I would feel it. Even with the spells that surround

the city like a ring of fire, I would know."

 

Minalde spoke for the first tune, her eyes dark with

concern. "What do you think has happened, then?"

 

Ingold shook his head and said simply, "I don't know."

 

She looked down at him for a moment, hearing, as no

one else in the room did, the undercurrent in his voice of

helplessness and fear—not fear for the world's wizardry,

but for his friends in Quo, the only people in the world to

whom the old man truly belonged. She had seen him be-

fore only in his strength and command, and sudden sym-

pathy clouded her face. She said, "You would have

sought them weeks ago, but for your promise. I'm sorry."

 

Ingold smiled at her. "The promise had nothing to do

with it, my child."

 

She stepped quickly forward and bent to kiss the top of

his rough, silvery hair. "God be with you," she whispered.

She turned and fled the room, leaving lover and brother

staring after her in bemused surprise.

 

"You seem to have made a conquest," Alwir chuckled,

though, Rudy thought, he didn't sound a hundred percent

pleased about it. "But she is justified. Your service to the

Realm goes beyond any payment we can possibly make."

He looked around him at the grimy, low-ceilinged room with

its dirty walls, the smells and steam from the guardroom

outside drifting in, along with Gnift's cracked, tuneless

voice singing of love in cornfields. "It certainly deserves

better than a back room in the barracks. The Royal House-

hold is a regular warren—we can put you up there in the

comfort that befits your state, my lord."

 

The wizard smiled and shook his head. "Others could

use the space there better than I," he excused himself.

"And in any case, I shall be departing soon. As long as

there is a spare bunk in the Guards' quarters, I shall have

a home."

 

The Chancellor studied him curiously for a long moment.

"You're an odd bird," he said finally, without resentment.

"But have it as you will. And if you ever get tired of your

 

gypsy existence, the offer will always stand. The quarrel

between us has wasted your talents, my lord. I can only

ask your leave to make restitution."

 

"There is no leave," Ingold said, "nor restitution. The

quarrel is forgotten."

 

Chancellor Alwir, Regent of the Realm and Lord of the

Keep of Dare, bowed himself from the room.

 

A moment later the Icefalcon slipped in to give Ingold

a cup of the tea he had been brewing. The steam had a

curious smell, but it was supposed to prevent colds. It

occurred obliquely to Rudy that, although he'd been frozen,

wet, half-starved, and nearly dead of exhaustion, at no

time had he felt even mildly ill. Probably there was no

time for it, he decided. And what I've been through would

scare any self-respecting bacteria into extinction.

 

"Ingold," Gil said quietly after the Guard had left.

"About your going to Quo ..."

 

"Yes," the wizard said. "Yes, we shall have to talk about

that."

 

Rudy shifted his position at the foot of the bed. "I don't

think you should go alone."

 

"No?"

 

"You say it's dangerous as hell—okay. But I think you

should take me, or Gil, or one of the Guards, or some-

body."

 

The old man folded his arms and asked detachedly,

"You don't believe I can look after myself?"

 

"After that stunt you pulled last night?"

 

"Are you volunteering?"

 

Rudy stopped short, with a quick intake of breath. "You

mean—you'd take me?" He couldn't keep the eagerness

out of his voice or, to judge by Ingold's expression, off his

face. The prospect of going with the old man, no matter

what the dangers—of learning from him even the rudi-

ments of wizardry—overshadowed and indeed momen-

tarily obliterated everything he had ever heard or feared

regarding White Raiders, ice storms, and the perils of the

plains in whiter. "You mean I can go with you?"

 

"I had already considered asking you," Ingold said.

"Partly because you are my student and partly due to ...

other considerations. Gil is a Guard—" He reached out to

touch her hair in a wordless gesture of affection. "—and

the Keep can ill spare any Guard in the months ahead.

 

But you see, Rudy, at the moment you are the only other

wizard whom I can trust. Only a wizard can find his way

into Quo. If, for some reason, I do not make it as far as

Quo, it will be up to you."

 

Rudy hesitated, shocked. "You mean—I may end up

having to find the Archmage?"

 

"There is that possibility," Ingold admitted. "Especially

after what I learned last night."

 

"But—" He stammered, suddenly awed by that respon-

sibility. The responsibility, he realized, was part of the

privilege of being a mage; but still . . . "Look," he said

quietly. "I do want to go, Ingold, really. But Gil's right. I

am a coward and I am a quitter and if I didn't screw you

up or get you into trouble on the way—if I had to find the

Council by myself, I might blow it."

 

Ingold smiled pleasantly. "Not as badly as I would al-

ready have blown it by getting myself killed. Don't worry,

Rudy. We all do what we must." He took a sip of his tea.

"I take it that's settled, then. We shall be leaving as soon

as the weather breaks, probably within three days."

 

Three days, Rudy thought, caught between qualms and

excitement. And then, to his horror, he realized that, faced

with the chance of continuing bis education as a wizard,

he had forgotten almost entirely about Minalde.

 

I can't leave her! he thought, aghast. Not for the five or

six weeks the journey will take! And yet he knew that there

had never been any consciousness of a choice. To go with

Ingold, to study wizardry under the old man, was what he

wanted—in some ways the only thing he wanted. He had

known, far down the road when he had first brought fire

to his bidding, that it might lose him the woman he loved;

even then he had known that there was no possibility of an

alternative course. And yet—how could he explain?

 

Long ago and in another life, he remembered driving

through the night with a scholar in a red Volkswagen,

speaking of the only thing that someone wanted to have or

be or do. He looked across at her now, at the thin, scarred

face with pale schoolmarm eyes, the witchlike straggle of

sloppily braided hair. It had been hard for her to leave

something she disliked for something she loved. Harder

still, he thought, was it to leave something you loved for

something you loved more.

 

Sorely trouble in his mind, he returned his thoughts to

 

what Gil was saying. "So you'll be bunking here until

then?"

 

"I don't take up much room," Ingold remarked, "and I

far prefer the company. Besides," he added, picking up

his teacup again, "I never have found out who ordered my

arrest in Karst. While I don't believe Alwir would put me

out of the way as long as he had a use for me, there are

cells deep in the bowels of this Keep that are woven with

a magic far deeper and stronger and far, far older than

my own, cells that I could never escape. The Rune of the

Chain is still somewhere in this Keep—in whose possession

I cannot tell. As long as I remain in the Keep of Dare, I

would really prefer to sleep among my friends."

 

Rudy's fingers traced idly at the moldy nap of the blan-

ket. "You think it's like that?"

 

"I don't know," the wizard admitted equably. "And I

should hate to find out. The wise man defends himself by

never being attacked."

 

"You call that business last night not being attacked?"

 

Ingold smiled ruefully. "That was an exception," he

apologized, "and unavoidable. I knew that I could draw

the Dark away from Tir and hold them off long enough to

let you get close to the gates. There weren't very many of

them left by that time, too few to split up and still have

enough power among themselves to work counterspells

against me."

 

"I don't understand," Gil said, tossing the end of her

braid back over her shoulder. "I know there weren't a lot

of them—but why did they let us go? They've been follow-

ing Tir clear the hell down from Karst. They know what

the Keep is and they knew last night was their last chance

to get at him. But they turned back and went after you.

Why?"

 

He didn't answer at once. He lay watching the curl of

the steam rising from the cup in his bandaged hands, his

face in repose suddenly old and tired. Then his dark-circled

eyes shifted to meet hers. "Do you remember," he said

slowly, "when I almost became—lost—in the vaults at

Gae? When you called me back from the stairways of the

Dark?"

 

Gil nodded soundlessly; it had been the first day, she

remembered, that she had held a sword in her hand. The

darkness came back to her, the stealthy sense of lurking

 

fear, the old man standing alone on the steps far below

her, listening to a sound that she could not hear, the white

radiance of his staff illuminating the shadows all around

him. It had been the last day she had been a scholar, an

outworlder, the person she had once been. The memory of

that distant girl, alone and armed with a borrowed sword

and a guttering torch against all the armies of the Dark,

brought a lump to her throat that she thought would choke

her.

 

He went on. "I guessed, then, what I know now—that

Prince Tir is not their first target. Oh, they'll take him if

they can get him—but, given a choice, as I gave them a

choice last night, it isn't Tir they want.

 

"It's me."

 

"You?" Rudy gasped.

 

"Yes." The wizard sipped his tea, then set it aside. From

beyond the curtain, Gnift's voice bitingly informed some-

one that he had less stance than a wooden-legged ice

skater. "I can evidently be of more ultimate harm to them

than Tir can. I suspected it before, and after last night

there can be no other explanation."

 

"But how—I mean—your magic can't touch them,"

Rudy said uneasily. "To them you're just another guy with

a sword. You don't know any more about the Time of the

Dark than anybody else. I mean, Tir's the one who'll re-

member."

 

"I've wondered about that myself," Ingold said calmly.

"And I can only conclude that I know something that I'm

not yet aware that I know—some clue that hasn't fallen

into place. They know what it is, and they're concerned

lest I remember."

 

Rudy shuddered wholeheartedly. "So what are you going

to do?"

 

The wizard shrugged. "What can I do? Take elementary

precautions. But it might be well for you to reconsider

your offer to accompany me to Quo."

 

"To hell with that," Rudy reconsidered. "You're the one

who should reconsider."

 

"Who else can go?" Ingold reasoned. "And if I were

afraid of getting myself killed, I should never have taken

up this business in the first place. I should have stayed in

Gettlesand and grown roses and cast horoscopes. No—all

that I can do now is stay a few steps ahead of them and

 

hope that I realize what the answer is before they catch

me."

 

"You're crazy," Rudy stated unequivocally.

 

Ingold smiled. "Really, Rudy, I thought we'd long

settled the question of my sanity."

 

"You're all crazy!" Rudy insisted. "You and Gil and

Alde and the Guards .. . How the hell come I always end

up completely surrounded by lunatics?"

 

The old man settled comfortably back among the blan-

kets and picked up his tea again, the steam wreathing his

face like smoke from the altar of a battered idol. "The

question is the answer, Rudy—always provided you want

an answer that badly."

 

Considering it in that light, Rudy was not entirely sure

that he did.

 

Alde was waiting for him in the outer room. Most of the

Guards had gone. Beyond the black, narrow arch of the

doorway, Janus' voice could be heard in the next room,

still arguing with the same merchants. In a corner, the Ice-

falcon had fallen asleep, relaxed and self-absorbed as a cat.

But for him, they were alone.

 

"Alde ..." Rudy began, and she stood up from the bunk

where she had been sitting and put a finger to his lips.

 

"I heard," she said softly.

 

"Listen..." he tried to explain.

 

Again she shushed him. "Of course you should go with

him." Her fingers closed, cool and light, over his. "Was

there any question of your not going?"

 

He laughed softly, remembering his own apprehensions.

"I guess—not to me. But I sure didn't think you'd under-

stand." They stood together, as close as they had on the

road when they'd been accustomed to share a cloak on

watch at night. The ebbing yellow glow of the fire masked

them in dun, pulsing shadow, and he could smell the sweet-

grass braided into her hair. "I didn't think anybody would

understand or could understand. Because I sure as hell

don't."

 

She chuckled with soft laughter. "He's your master,

Rudy," she said. "And your need is to learn. Even if I

wanted to, I could never stop you from it." But she moved

closer to him in the shadows, belying her own words.

 

We all have our priorities, Rudy thought, and brushed

 

aside the dark silk of her hair to kiss her lips. If It came

to a choice between me and Tir, I know damn well who'd

get left out in the cold. She, too, had her choices between

loves.

 

The embers in the hearth whispered a little and col-

lapsed in on themselves, sending up a spurt of yellow

flame and almost immediately cloaking them both in deeper

shadow. From outside the room, the constant murmur of

voices from the hall beyond came to them like the mingling

of a stream. Rudy was finding already that he had grown

used to the Keep, the noises, the shadows, the smells. He

could feel the weight of that mountain of stone pressing

down around them, as it had pressed for thousands of years.

But as he kissed her again, holding her slenderness tight

against him, he reflected that there was a great deal to be

said for stillness and silence and love without fear.

 

Her breath a whisper against his lips, she murmured, "I

understand, Rudy—but I will miss you,"

 

His arm tightened convulsively about her shoulders.

Scraps of conversations drifted back to his memory, things

said in Karst and in the night camps all down that perilous

road. She had lost the world she had known and everyone

in it she had loved, except her son. And now he, Rudy,

was leaving her, too. Yet she hadn't said, Don't go.

 

What kind of love, he wondered, understood that need

and tried to make easier the separation it would cause?

 

None that he'd ever run into.

 

Alde, you're a lady in a million. I wish to hell you

weren't the Queen. I almost wish I weren't going back, or

that I could take you and Tir back with me when I go.

 

But either course was impossible.

 

As she slipped away from him, gathering her cloak about

her shoulders as she vanished through the darkness of the

far doorway, it occurred to him that she hadn't even asked

him that other thing—Will you miss me, too?

 

Against the blurred gleam that backed the grimy door

curtain, Gil watched the shadows of man and woman em-

brace, meld, and separate. In the stillness of the room, she

heard Ingold sigh. "Poor child," he said softly. "Poor

child."

 

She glanced across at him, invisible but for the glitter

 

of his eyes In the darkness and his bandaged hands folded

on his breast. "Ingold?"

 

"Yes, my dear?"

 

"Do you really believe there's no such thing as coinci-

dence?"

 

The question didn't seem to surprise him, but then, few

tilings did. Gil had known people—her mother, for one—

who would have replied, "What a question to ask at a

time like this!" But it was a question that could be asked

only at such times, when all the daylight trivialities had

been put aside, and there was only the understanding of

people who knew one another well.

 

Ingold gave it some thought, and said at last, "Yes. I

believe that nothing happens randomly, that there is no

such thing as chance. How could there be?" There was a

faint squeaking rustle as he settled himself back against the

sacks of fodder. "Why do you ask?"

 

"Well, " Gil said uncertainly. "I think I understand that

Rudy came here to—to be a wizard, to find that for him-

self—because he was born one. But I wasn't. And if there

are no such things as random events, why am I here? Why

me and not somebody else? Why was I taken away, why

did I lose everything I had—scholarship and friends and

—and life, really, the life I had? I don't understand."

 

Ingold's voice was grave in the darkness, and she saw

the faint touch of light on his cheekbone as he turned his

head. "You once accused me of dealing, magelike, in dou-

ble talk. But truly, Gil, I do not know. I do not understand

any more than you do. But I believe there is a purpose to

your being here. Believe me, Gil. Please believe me."

 

She shrugged, embarrassed as she always was by anyone's

concern. "It's not important," she lied, and she knew In-

gold heard the lie. "You know, I resented it like hell when

you told me Rudy would be a wizard. Not because I

wanted to be one, but—it's as if he's gained everything and

lost nothing, because he really had nothing that he cared

about to lose. But I lost everything . . ." She broke off, the

silence coming between them like the ocean between a

swimmer and the shore.

 

"And gained nothing?" To that she could not reply. "It

may be that it is not Rudy's purposes that are being served

at all by his coming here. Rudy is a mage, and the Realm,

the world, is suddenly in desperate need of mages. And it

 

may be that in the months to come, the Keep will have as

great a need for a woman with the courage of a lion,

trained in the use of a sword."

 

"Maybe." Gil rested her chin on her drawn-up knees and

stared through the darkness at the dim reflections of the

embers on the wall, like a streak of false dawn in the night

of the Keep. "But I'm not a warrior, Ingold. I'm a scholar.

It's all I ever have been and all I've ever wanted to be."

 

"Who can say what you are, my child?" Ingold asked

softly. "Or what you may be eventually? Come," he said,

as the voices outside rose in volume. "The Guards are back.

Let us go out."

 

The Guards were trooping back into the room when Gil

and Ingold came quietly through the curtain, the wizard

leaning heavily on her shoulder. The Guards greeted him

with boisterous delight, Janus all but dragging him off his

feet, hauling him into the circle of the new firelight. The

rose and topaz hearth-glow picked out the shabbiness of

the wizard's patched robe and the lines and hollows of

strain in his face. It flickered in a warm amber radiance

over scarred faces, frayed black surcoats with their white

quatrefoil emblem, and seedy old blankets making shift as

cloaks. The finest fighting corps in the West of this world,

she thought, huddling around a scratch fire like tramps in

a boxcar. Her brothers in arms. People a month ago she

hadn't even known.

 

Yet their faces were so familiar. Janus' blunt, square mug

she'd seen, nameless, for the first time by the cold light of

a quarter moon in a frightful dream whose memory

was clearer to her than the memory of many college

parties she'd attended. And those white braids draped over

a sleeper's anonymous shoulders—she remembered them,

briefly, from that same dream, remembered wondering if

their owner was the foreigner he looked to be. They had

been nothing to her then—extras in a drama whose signifi-

cance she had not grasped. Yet she knew them now better

than she had known any of her otherworld lovers—better,

with one exception, than she had ever known anyone in her

life.

 

Ingold was sitting near the hearth at the head of the

Icefalcon's bed, the Guards around him, his gestures ex-

 

pansive, relating some story that made Janus throw back

his head with laughter.

 

A voice spoke at Gil's elbow. "Well, he's alive, anyway."

 

She looked over and saw Rudy leaning against the wall

on the other side of the curtained arch. His long hair was

tied back, and that and the firelight made his rather aqui-

line face more hawklike than ever in the dim orange light.

He had changed, she thought, since that night he had called

the fire. Older, maybe. And not so much different as more

like himself than he had been before.

 

"I'm worried about him, Rudy."

 

"He's tough," Rudy said, though his tone was uneasy.

"He'll be okay. Hell, he'll probably outlive thee and me."

But he knew that this was not what she meant.

 

"What if he gets killed, Rudy?" Gil asked softly. "What

happens to us then?"

 

He had turned his mind away from that thought time

and time again, since the night in Karst when Ingold had

disappeared, imprisoned by order of the council. He whis-

pered, "Hell, I don't know."

 

"That's what bothers me," Gil went on, hooking her

bony hands with their nicks and scars and practice-blisters

through the beat-up leather of her sword belt. "That's

what's bothered me all the way along. That maybe there's

no going back."

 

The question is the answer, Rudy thought. The question

is always the answer. "But there's no going back from any-

thing we do," he said. "Not from anything we are. It

changes us, good and bad. What it is, we become. If we're

stuck, we're stuck. Would that be so bad? I've found my

power here, Gil, what I've always been looking for. And a

lady in ten million. And you ..."

 

"A home," Gil said simply, realizing the truth. "What

I've always been looking for."

 

And suddenly, unexpectedly, Gil began to laugh. Not

hysterically, or nervously, but with a soft, wholehearted

chuckle of genuine amusement. Rudy could not remember

ever seeing her laugh. It darkened her frost-gray eyes to

blue and softened the bony hardness of her white face.

 

"And my advisor will love it." She grinned up at him.

"What a Ph.D. thesis! 'Effects of Subterranean Incursions

on Preindustrial Culture.""

 

"I'm not kidding," Rudy protested, still astonished at

 

how changed she was, how beautiful, scars and swords and

all.

 

"Neither am I." And she laughed again.

 

Rudy shook his head, amazed at the difference in her.

"So tell me truthfully," he said. "Would you go back

from this? If it was a choice between the other world and

what you have and where you are now, and if this had all

never been—would you go back?"

 

Gil looked at him consideringly for a moment. Then

she turned her eyes back to the hearth, to Ingold, his warm,

rasping voice holding his listeners enspelled, to the firelight

on the faces of the Guards and the blackness of the shad-

ows beyond, and, past that, to the dark weight of the Keep,

the night it held within its walls, and the shifting, wind-

stirred night that waited outside. "No," she said finally. "I

think I must be crazy to say so, but no, I wouldn't."

 

"Lady." Rudy grinned, touching the emblem of the

Guards she bore on her shoulder. "If you weren't crazy,

you wouldn't be wearing that."

 

Gil looked him speculatively up and down. "You know,

for a punk you have a lot of class."

 

"For a spook," Rudy said gravely, "it's real perceptive

of you to notice."

 

The two of them went to join Ingold by the fire.