Barbara Hambly - 03 The Armies of Daylight

"Tir's asleep." In the grate, the log broke and crumbled, the sudden spurt of golden light showing Aide's lashes beaded with amber tears. "I'll send someone to Maia's church to fetch him if you want."

The King moved his head slightly, dissenting. "No. Look after him. Ingold promised me he would."

"And so he did," she murmured.

His hands moved restlessly, then stilled again in hers. "Ingold-where is he?" he muttered.

She hesitated and cast an agonized glance at Rudy.

"He's at Gae," Rudy said softly.

"Ah." Eldor frowned suddenly, as if at something forgotten. The effect on the rucked, scarlet flesh was horrible. "I struck him," he murmured finally. "Tell him -I am sorry."

"He knows."

Eldor sighed and shut his eyes. "You spoke of love," he said at length, "and of truth. A man may love a kitten, or a child, or a woman. My kitten, do you love this boy?"

"I love you," Alde whispered, and the burned, red fingers twitched, waving her back from him.

"You need not kiss this face to prove it."

"A woman never loves a man's face, Eldor." She leaned forward and touched his lips with hers.

They twisted into the ghastly mockery of a grin. "A brave kitten. A brave woman, maybe... Do you love this boy?"

Aide was silent for a long time, holding his hand, listening to the slow drag of his laboring breath. She finally said, "Yes. I do. I don't know how it's different, but-I love you both."

"A woman may worship a hero," the King whispered, "and love the man whom she was born to love. I was fond of the kitten and I might have loved the woman. But I never met her. I wronged her-and perhaps myself as well."

"There is time," Alde said softly and bent to kiss his lips again.

The door opened quietly, and Gil entered, the wizard Thoth leaning on her shoulder. The old man looked weary and ill, his hairless face and head as white as a skull's above the black folds of his grimy robes, but the gold eyes had lost none of their haughtiness. Silently, Wend bowed his head. The Scribe of Quo had a bitter turn of invective when he chose.

But Thoth only shook off Gil's supporting arm and moved to the side of the bed. His light fingers searched Eldor's wrist, then his forehead, the deep-sunk eyes narrowing to slits, as if the old man listened to the King's dreams. Then he said, "Leave us. No-" He shook his head as Wend rose thankfully to go. "I'll need-" He paused. The chilly amber eyes widened, resting for a long moment on his betrayer's white face. Then, without change of inflection in his harsh voice, he said, "I would like your help, little Brother. But not," he added acidly, "if it means an unseemly display of redundant contrition."

Wend blushed hotly and wiped his eyes.

Thoth turned his enigmatic gaze on Minalde, who had risen likewise. "Perhaps, my lady, you had best stay as well."

The Icefalcon was waiting for Gil and Rudy in the hall. "If he dies," the Raider commented callously as the door was closed behind them, "he shall have none to thank but himself." His glance rested briefly upon Gil's scabbed, discoloring face, filthy tunic, and crusted boots. "Good work," he added. "You have bones to braid in your own hair now, my sister."

"He was out of training," Gil commented, and winced as the bandages on her side pulled when she moved her arm. "Christ, I'm tired."

The Icefalcon moved her gently into the light of a solitary glowstone in a niche and looked critically at the cut in her arm. "That should be seen to," he said, and she nodded.

"Gil- " Rudy caught at her sleeve as she turned to follow the Raider back to the barracks. She looked back at him, and he saw again how bad she looked, cut up and exhausted from the fight and from the long night of searching through the Keep. It's a helluva thing to do , he thought, to somebody who's just about running on empty; and poor thanks to her for saving my life .

"Gil," he said, "I have to talk to you."

"If it's to thank me, don't worry about it," she said fretfully as he drew her into a deserted cell near Elder's chambers. "He sure as hell had it coming."

Rudy shook his head. "I can't thank you enough," he said simply, "so it would be stupid to try. If I knew what to say, I would. It's-Gil, I'm leaving the Keep tomorrow morning."

She shrugged tiredly. "I don't think you'll have to."

"Not because of Eldor."

She frowned, brushing the hair out of her eyes, wincing again at the pain. "The Dark," she said, picking that single memory from the tangled events of the night. In the faint, grubby light that leaked into the room from the passage, Rudy thought she looked like a couple of teaspoons of warmed-over death. "You said they were headed for Gae. You know why, don't you?"

Rudy swallowed. Absurdly, he remembered a cartoon he'd once seen of a wife removing a Band-Aid from her husband's hairy arm and asking, "Do you want it in one agonizing rip or in a series of excruciating jerks?"

He knew that Gil was of the one-agonizing-rip school.

"I think Ingold's still alive."

Gil closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again and asked conversationally, "What makes you think that?" Only her worn, sharp face got whiter, and her mouth tensed, as if against the agony of a wound.

He went on, stumbling painfully over words. "I told you about what happened at Quo-about Lohiro. Well, all the way across the plains to Quo, Ingold kept saying that he didn't think Lohiro was dead. He said he'd know it. Partly because of the Master-spells and partly because there's a-a link between student and teacher. I think it's a link that works both ways.

"Ingold made me a wizard, Gil, and I love that old man like a father-more than any father I ever remember. I know he's alive. But the Dark have had him for weeks now. When he comes back-if he comes back-it won't be him."

She was crying without sobs, the tears sliding like ice water down her still face. She started straight ahead of her for a long time, only the rigidness of her mouth betraying the wrenching grief within. When she finally spoke, her voice was even, detached. "But he still has the Master-spells over you, doesn't he? And over every other wizard in the world. And his are the spells that bind the Keep gates against the Dark."

Rudy nodded miserably, thanking God for Gil's brutal quickness of mind that made it unnecessary for him to explain what had to be done or why.

"And what's more," she went on, as if she were speaking of a stranger, "you and I are probably the only people who would be able to detect anything wrong."

"Yeah," he agreed in a strangled voice.

Gil pressed her hands briefly to her face, so that her scarred fingers covered her mouth. From behind them, her voice was muffled and thin. "Oh, Rudy," she whispered, and was silent then, gray eyes gazing blindly into space.

"I'm sorry, spook."

She shook her head. "He was afraid of it all along, you know," she told him quietly. "He said something about it to me once, but I didn't understand. He said that they didn't want him because of something he knew, but because of what he was. With him on our side, we could fight a defensive war. With him on their side-we're gone."

Rudy said nothing. Outside in the hall, the day's traffic bustled back and forth, voices of the people calling anxious rumors to one another, feet hurrying on errands, far-off children's voices crying. With all its smoky air and endless, lightless mazes, its bleak, grimy cells and inescapable odors of unwashed clothes and cooked cabbage, the Keep of Dare was the last sure sanctuary humankind had.

"You think they're mustering for an attack, then?"

He looked back at Gil. Her hands were hooked in her sword belt again, her face like rain-streaked bone. "I think so." He paused, then said, "He's a helluva wizard, Gil. I'll need someone who can handle a blade."