Barbara Hambly - 04 Mother Of Winter

The white brows pulled down over his nose, and pain returned to the deep-scored lines of his face. "There's a mountain called Saycotl Xyam, the Mother of Winter; the last great peak of the Spine of the Serpent, the cordillera of the continent, that sinks into hills for a time and rearises as these mountains and the Bones of God in Gettlesand. Saycotl Xyam guards the plain of Hathyobar, the heartland of the Empire of Alketch, where the Emperor's city of Khirsrit rises on the shores of the lake of Nychee. They say the glaciers on its shoulders have never melted in all of human knowledge, in all of time. The mountain itself is said to have a core of ice, though none have been there to see."

"They're there," Gil whispered, and Ingold's eyes returned to hers. It seemed to Rudy that they both stared at the same thing, both looked into the same blue depths of jewel, understanding one another-what Ingold had seen in the Dark Ones' dreams and she in her own poison-tainted blood. Understanding to the cores of their souls.

"Yes." His lips moved; there was no sound.

"Three mages making images with the music of the flute."

"Yes."

"Their magic..." She started to say something else, then shuddered and averted her eyes, as if from something she could not bear to see. When she spoke again, it was only to say, "And you're gonna have to go down there, aren't you?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"The Alketch?" Enas Barrelstave puffed out his heavy cheeks and scowled solemnly, the high ruff of his shirt giving him the appearance of a very pink pudding balanced on an elaborately folded napkin.

As the finer fabrics of the age before the Dark deteriorated with time, Gil had pointed out to Rudy how the hereditary nobles-the lords and bannerlords-had become more conscious of keeping the well-off commoners in the Keep from dressing like them; Barrelstave's shirt ruffles were drawing an angry glare from Lady Sketh, who had intruded herself into the Council as her husband's permanent "guest."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question."

"Out of the question?" Rudy's voice scaled up in disbelief.

"We're talking about a... a force of magic that's going to destroy the world as we know it, and you're saying out of the question?"

"I still don't see how-even if such beings as you say Lord Ingold described to you do exist, for which I'd like to see a little more proof-" Lord Sketh began, and his wife dove in to finish his sentence for him.

"I still don't see how a volcano erupting in Gettlesand is any threat to us here."

"We have to have some priorities," Lapith Hornbeam added reasonably. All around the long pine conference table, flanked by black-drummed columns that ran the length of the big chamber, the various representatives of the Keep nodded agreement. "Yes, if there is such a problem, I agree that it has to be taken care of, but you must concede right now that it's more important to acquire stock. Parties can be sent downriver beyond Willowchild to gather hay, but my mother has come up with a plan-"

"I don't have to concede anything of the goddamn kind!"

"How does he know about these things in the Alketch, anyway?"

"It isn't that we don't believe him," added Philonis Weaver, of the second level north, a kindly woman who didn't look like she was going to survive the next frost, much less the next Ice Age. "It's just that there are critical things that we need now, things that only a wizard can provide. We need to have someone who can tell us if another of those terrible storms is on the way-"

"Oh, surely not!" Lady Sketh interrupted. "There's only been one of them, and now that it's over, and summer is approaching, it's unlikely there'll be another."

"I can goddamn guarantee you," Rudy said in exasperation, "that there's gonna be more ice storms, and no harvest, and nothing to eat, unless Ingold takes care of what's causing this!" He glared around the Council chamber, uneasily aware of the way Barrelstave's glance crossed that of Lord Sketh, and the speculative way in which both of them watched Tir.

"Well, perhaps you could inform Lord Ingold, when he returns," Lord Ankres said in his slow, dry voice, "that... when does he return?"

"I personally move," Bannerlord Pnak added angrily, "that when he does, he be reprimanded for deserting us in the first place. He has his responsibilities, after all-" "Which he should have taken into account-'' "Second to that motion-" "Now, my mother's plan-"

"Yikes and double yikes." Rudy closed the door to the Council chamber softly behind him and fell into step with Gil. The illusion he'd left in his place should keep most of them thinking he was still present for at least forty minutes if nobody spoke to it, and on their record it was unlikely anyone would.

"I take it they didn't think much of letting Ingold go south." Gil kept close to his side, sheltered by the umbrella of his illusions. They crossed through the white splotches of glowstone light and through inky shadow where those with business in the Keep jostled shoulders with them, unseeing.

"They're idiots!" Rudy remembered to keep his voice to a whisper, but his gesture nearly took the hat off Treemut Farrier, passing along the corridor with a basket of eggs.

The Council had spent all day yesterday arguing about whether to expropriate and socialize all the illegal chickens that had survived the storm-eggs were being traded for everything from better-situated cells to sexual favors-and in the meantime the Wickets and Gatsons and Biggars had hidden their hens all over fifth level north. "If Ingold doesn't stop Los Tres Geezers down south from screwing with the weather, they'll lose everything to the next ice storm and we're gonna be under six feet of slunch by this time next year!"

"If Lord Sketh, or Barrelstave, can manage to turn the guards or any sizable percentage of the Keep against Minalde while Ingold is away," Gil remarked, "you're going to be in trouble a lot sooner than that." She shifted the bundle under her cloak, heavier this time than last night-Rudy didn't want to know about how she'd gotten hold of that much food. "You've heard what they're whispering to the Guards-that Ingold could have stopped the storm if he'd wanted to. Or could have saved those kids. God knows what idiots like Biggar are putting around on fifth north." The haunted look that had been in her eyes was more pronounced now, and she'd acquired a trick of looking at her hands, of feeling her wrist and elbow joints nervously, as if seeking something she didn't want to find. "It's easy now, because people are scared. Hell, I'm scared."

And she sounded scared, he thought. But not of the Fimbul Winter or the mages under the ice.

On the steps of the Keep they stepped aside in time to avoid being knocked over by Scala Hogshearer, storming away from an altercation with a couple of the other girls of the Keep. One of them was holding her wrist and shouting furiously, "She bit me! She bit me!" and the other collecting broken beads scattered on the steps; Rudy could only guess what that was all about.

The day was a bright one, thin warmth returning to the shards of the spring. Nearly everyone was clearing the ruined wheat from the fields, preparing for a second sowing-late, but still just feasible in these upland fields.

That had been the topic for another heated discussion in Council-whether to sow the seed or hold it to feed the population through autumn and winter to come. "And they've got no guarantee Ingold is right." "Whaddaya mean?" Rudy demanded, furious. "Ingold saw that stuff!" "Ingold says he saw it," Gil pointed out. "If you weren't a wizard yourself, would you believe him?" "Hell yes!" He said it because he had to, even though he knew he was wrong and dumb as the

words came out of his mouth. She cocked a brow at him and said nothing. The bitten side of her face was toward him; he couldn't see whether the other side smiled. Ingold was waiting in a copse of hemlocks just out of sight of the watchtowers at the Tall Gates. He looked better than he had last night, as if he'd gotten some sleep and the food had helped. "You were right," Rudy said as the old man sorted through the packs they'd brought: blankets, as much food as they could collect, a minimum of spare clothing, a few medical supplies. "Those yammerheads were talking about locking you up when you got back, trying to figure out goddamn 'securities' to make sure you didn't run off again."