The Time Of The Dark

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 eyebrows 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 Ingold 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 another 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 someplace 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 moaning 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, competing 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 whispered 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, wondered 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 moment, 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 fortress-like towers of what she guessed was a church, and the massive foursquare bulk of what was undoubtedly the Grand Market 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 moment 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 wood-smoke 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 between the serried pillars and endless jumbled mounds of personal belongings; men stood in clusters, gesturing, cursing, sharpening swords. Mothers called to children; grandmothers and grandfathers huddled next to pitiful bundles of possessions, elbow to elbow with one another in hopeless 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 firelight 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 upward 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 before 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 recognized 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," Ingold 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 anything 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 because 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 Icefalcon 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 prisoners 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 woodwind 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 graving 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 chattering 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 immobility, 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 murmuring went through those nearest the table-for the hall was crowded to the bursting-point, and the conference between 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 monstrous newel post of the granite stair, could see the glances men gave to Ingold. Fear, awe, and distrust; he was uncanny, 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 labyrinth 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 because there was no profit in it. When their prey flee there, thither they will come, to take them in open ground, scattered 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 obviously 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 yourself, 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 temporary; 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 Chancellor'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, refolding 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 survive 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 comfortable 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 immobile by the matched strength of their wielders. The tension between them concentrated to a core of silence unbroken 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 preserving, 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 sending 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 defenses 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 himself?... 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 accumulated weight of the sleeping child in her arms. People came as near as they dared-for she, too, was an outworlder 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-Govannin 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, moving 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.