Barbara Hambly - 02 The Walls of Air

Ihgold bowed to her. 'As does the Straight God, my lady,' he replied. 'You know better than I in whose hands rest the people of the Keep.' He looked ready to pass out on his feet, but he met the chill, fanatic eyes levelly, and it was Govannin who turned away.

'And he was not the only one conspicuous by his absence, my lady Bishop,' Alwir added with sweet malice.

'Indeed,' the Bishop replied calmly. 'Many were absent from their appointed posts. Others remained - to guard their stores of food, lest those be looted while they were gone.'

The Chancellor's brows shot up, then plunged, hooding eyes that were the same morning-glory blue as his sister Minalde's, but hard as the sapphires he wore around his neck. 'Looted?'

'Or inventoried,' the Bishop went on softly, 'to be marked for future -' Alwir's

mouth hardened dangerously. '- reference.'

He lashed out, 'And you think that in the midst of an attack by the Dark Ones -'

'The Faith must protect itself as it can,' she shot back at him. 'To preserve our independence, we must be beholden to no secular power for bread.'

'As Lord of the Keep, I have the right to control -

'Lord of the Keep!' Govannin spat scornfully. 'The brother of the Regent for the true King, my lord, and that only. A man who consorts with wizards, who seeks to bring the Archmage, the very left hand of Satan, here among us. If you expect the blessings of the Straight God upon your endeavours...'

'The Straight God works in many ways,' Alwir grated. 'If our strike against the Dark in their Nests is to succeed, we shall need both the troops of the Empire of Alketch in the south and the wizards of the west.'

Like flint, his words struck fire from those steely eyes. The Straight God has no truck with the tools of Satan,' she snapped, 'nor with those who foul their hands with such tools.'

'We are beyond the time when a ruler can pick and choose his tools.'

'There is never a time when siding with the Crooked One is excusable.'

Quietly, Gil took Ingold's arm, and they descended the steps to the main body of the shadowed Aisle. The old man moved slowly, stiffly, leaning on his staff. Those who had crowded around to see the confrontation between wizard and Chancellor fell back from him, murmuring and making the sign against evil. Rudy fell quietly into step with them. He nodded back to where the Chancellor and the Bishop were still squabbling and shook his head. 'I don't believe this.'

'Oh, come, Rudy,' Ingold said mildly. They haven't any proof that I did more than endanger the whole Keep by opening the inner gates.' He glanced sideways, sunken eyes amused.

'But I saw the motherloving runes!' Rudy exploded. They disappeared, goddammit!'

'Did they? Gil looked across at him curiously. 'You know, I didn't see anything at all. I could feel - things, forces, in the air. But it was just - darkness.'

Frustrated, Rudy turned to Ingold for support. 'Of course they did,' the wizard said. 'But you were the only person in the Keep capable of seeing - you and Bektis.'

'And it would be worth Bektis'job to say so,' Gil added wryly.

She looked tired, Rudy thought, and no wonder. Coming down from Karst and training with the Guards, Gil had begun to have the look of a half-starved alley cat. He had never understood her, either as an intolerant, intellectual scholar in California or now as a warrior of the Keep. But having seen her standing behind Ingold as he faced down all the armies of the night, Rudy felt an awe of her that amounted almost

to fear.

That's how we wizards get our reputation for eccentricity,' Ingold went on in his mild, scratchy voice. 'We do things that people don't understand, for we see things differently and act as we deem fit. Those who are not mageborn cannot comprehend us and perforce must mistrust us or, rarely, trust us implicitly. It's no wonder wizards have few friends and that those few are mostly other wizards.' They crossed a footbridge, fragments of lamplight glinting on the silent spill of ebony below. 'And then, too, horrible things have been known to happen to those who befriend mages.'

The groups of people, the huddled families and restless, prowling watchers, were slowly trickling from the Ajsle to return to the black mazes of the Keep. From the doorways on the lower levels, voices could be heard as patrols called to one another. Alwir and Govannin, each surrounded by a separate retinue, were making their way back up the Aisle, the venom in their voices audible, though distance and echoes blurred the words. By the gates a line of guards had been set, their drawn swords flickering eerily in the red torchlight. The opposed terrors of both noise and silence no longer filled the Keep. Rudy wondered how long it was until dawn.

'I can't imagine what it's going to be like if you guys do bring the Archmage and the Council of Wizards here,' Gil went on as they approached the darkness of the barracks. 'Alwir's going to try to use them against the Bishop, even as he'll use the troops of the Empire of Alketch, if he can get them.'

'I have no doubt that he will get them,' Ingold said quietly. 'But since the Alketch is practically a theocracy, he will be lucky if his precious allies don't take his power and hand it over to the Church. He'll need Lohiro on his side to balance that threat if he hopes to invade the Nests of the Dark and still have any sort of kingdom to rule afterward.'

'Ingold,' Rudy said uneasily, 'I think I've seen the Archmage.'

The old man's attention narrowed and focused like the beam of a laser. 'Where? How?'

'Here, in the Keep. In this crystal kind of thing. I -I got lost.' The wizard raised a quizzical eyebrow at that, but said nothing. Rudy hesitantly described the room, the table, the crystal, and the visions he had seen.

Ingold listened intently until Rudy was done and then asked him, 'Where was this room?'

'I don't know,' Rudy said helplessly. 'Someplace on the second level is all I know.'

Ingold was silent long enough for Gil to wonder what arcane curses revolved through his mind. Finally he sighed. That is Lohiro,' he said. 'I have seen him walk so, down the beach at Quo. But the thing that you speak of I have never seen before.' They stopped before the doors of the barracks. Ingold glanced over his shoulder, back into the darkness of the Aisle. Flickering lights ran to and fro there on hurrying ghostly feet, like spooks on a deadly earnest Hallowe'en. He turned back to them. 'I have sought for some word, some contact with Lohiro for a month now, ever since the

fall of Gae.'

'Could you put off your departure? Gil asked. 'Worstcase, it wouldn't take more than two days to find that room.'

The old man hesitated, obviously torn. At last he shook his head. 'In two days, the storms will have moved down from the high glaciers to bury the Pass again.' He sighed. 'If we leave tomorrow, I shall be turning them back the last day down the foothills as it is. After that it will be weeks before we can get out.'

'Wouldn't it be worth it?' She glanced around, as if at the bleak world beyond the windowless walls of the Keep. 'If you could make contact with him, he could start on his way here tomorrow and you'd cut your time in half.'

'Maybe,' the wizard said quietly. 'If we find the room again. And if the crystal there is actually a means of communication, rather than simply observation. And if the image that you saw, Rudy, was not merely the echo of events long gone, or part of the illusions that surround Quo. Divination by crystal is by no means sure. You remember the Nest of the Dark in the valley to the north of here, Gil. By fire and crystal, it is still shown as blocked up, when you and I have been there and have seen that it has been open for years. And after all that,' he continued sombrely, 'we may still have to set out on this journey, when deep winter has locked down upon the plains. But I will ask you this, Gil...'