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Forever after, Rudy&039;s memories of the journey to Quo were ral a part of that flat, brown, featureless world as the endless ripple of the dried grasses or the bleak, unbroken line where the dark planes of ground and overcast sky met in an infinity of cold and emptiness The wind blew from the north always, as bitterly cold as the frozen breath of outer space It streaold said, the sun had not shone in a thousand years and where not even the woolliest maht hundred miles of unbroken flatlands, to bite the flesh to the bone Ingold said that he could not remember a winter when it had blown so cold or so steadily, nor a time when the snows had fallen this far south Neither in his memory, he said, nor in the memory of any that he had ever spoken to

&039;If it&039;s usually even half this bad, it&039;s no surprise we haven&039;tas close to their wind-flattened fire as he could without the risk of self-iround that Ingold identified as a beastof soelbu &039;Even without the Dark Ones, this part of the country would be a hell of a place to try and &039;

There are those who do,&039; the wizard replied without looking up Wind twisted their fire into brief yellow ribbons that licked the dust By the restless light, only the prominences of his curiously reticent face could be les of the cheekbones, and the close, secretive h and too dry for regular far, but in the south and out in the deserts, there are colonies of silver miners; and here, close to the mountains, lie the cattle lands and the horse lands of the Realers

twisting at the leaves of the fresh-waterinto a strand, &039;as well they have to be&039;

Rudy watched hilow of the fire the shapes of the seeds, the petals, leaf and pod and sta the plant in his old had told him about its curative properties &039;Are we still in the Realold said &039;The great landchiefs of the plains owed allegiance to the High King at Gae - in fact, as a legal entity, the Realm stretches to the Western Ocean, for the Prince-Bishop of Dele takes - took - his laws fro the Alketch border have carried on a long battle with the Empire to the south, and I doubt that the breach will be healed, whatever Alwir&039;s policies lint of crystal blue between the shadows of his hood and the ht reddish gold on his long, straight eyelashes &039;But as you can see,&039; he went on, &039;the plains the stick and poked at the tiny fire &039;How come? I mean, I see all these animals, antelope and bison and jillions of different kinds of birds You couldin this part of the country&039;

&039;You could,&039; Ingold agreed mildly &039;But it&039;s very easy to die in the plains Have you ever seen an ice storet them in the north Once in the lands around the White Lakes I found the remains of a herd of h snow The beasts had been literally ripped to shreds by the inferno of the winds I&039;ve heard stories that the cold in the centre of those stor animals will be frozen solid so swiftly that they do not even fall, but stand, turned to ice and half-buried in snoith the flowers they were eating frozen in their , out of a clear sky&039;

&039;That would sure kill the property values,&039; Rudy assented with a shiver But so he had read, or had heard read to him Wild David&039;s Body Shop in Fontana came back to him, with himself slouched in the eruptedof David&039;s old swivel chair, leafing through decayed copies of the Reader&039;s Digest while a crowd of the local bikers argued profanely about what they wanted him to paint on the tank of somebody&039;s Harley

&039;And if you haven&039;t seen the effects of an ice storold continued, &039;at least you have seen the work of the White Raiders&039;

An almost physical memory returned to Rudy in a rush - the sweetness of the opalescentof nausea in his throat The drift of sy air, the bloody ruin of what had been a huold, like a grey ghost in the pewter light, his robe beaded with dew and a tag of bloody leather in his hands, saying to Janus, &039;This is the work of the White Raiders&039;

Rudy shivered &039;Who are the White Raiders? he asked

The old ed &039;What can I tell you of them?&039; he replied They are the People of the Plains, the kings of the wind They say that once upon a tihthe rim of the ice But they haunt all the northern plains now and, as we have seen, have begun to invade the river valleys at the heart of the Realht, the donkey Rudy had named Che Guevara snorted and sta ears laid back along his head Distantly, Rudy caught the howling of prairie wolves &039;You know,&039; he said with forced casualness, &039;I don&039;t think the whole time ere on the road down from Karst I ever actually saw a White Raider

I knew they were following the train, but I never saw one&039;

&039;Well, they&039;re old s, in any case You did see one The Icefalcon is a White Raider&039;

Of course, Rudy thought, more surprised by the fact that the Raiders didn&039;t resemble the Huns or the Sioux than he was to learn that the Icefalcon was a foreigner a the dark-haired, blue-eyed people of the Wath And now that he came to think of it, the Icefalcon wasn&039;t of Bishop Govannin&039;s Faith; at least he&039;d only sniffed in disdain at Gil&039;s question on the subject Rudy reain and shuddered

&039;That&039;s the chief reason Alwir sent hi aside his herbs and rising &039;Of anyone, a Raider would have the best chances of surviving the journey&039; He picked up his staff, preparing to make his usual brief inspection of their cauard duty

&039;Yeah, but if he&039;s the eneet to be a Guard?&039; Rudy protested uneasily, and Ingold paused in the act of turning away, a shapeless dark blur against the paler sand of the bank beyond

&039;What is an enemy? His scratchy voice see darkness &039;A great variety of strange people find their way into the Guards I&039;m sure if the Icefalcon wanted you to know, he would tell you&039; And though Rudy could not see hiht

Rudy shook his head in a kind of aold could be the least visible man he had ever met, seen when he wanted to be seen and otherwise all but invisible It wasn&039;t that he was shy, Rudy knew The wizard observed the world like a hunter from an unseen blind; concealment appeared to be his second nature Rudy wondered if all wizards were like that

He huddled, shivering, next to the tiny fire The cold of the night was so intense that he could feel only a little of the fire&039;s warmth, even at a distance of twelve inches Already in the treeless plains, as scarce, and they were burning brushwood and buffalo chips Unlike the ave off a steady, cherry-red glow, and the heart of the fire was like a rippling aes took shape under his idle attention - the jewelled darkness of Aide&039;s roo around the flaht or a single note of leah he was fairly certain the tear was not for him, but for the fate of the heroine of her book, Rudy still ached to go to her, to be with her and coe in the fire this way, not wanting to spy on her But his longing to see her, to know that she was all right, had proved too old knew

For that e of a woman he loved in the fire?

Sudden wind lashed at the fire, tearing the ie from its heart Like ripped silk in a cyclone, the fire twisted first one way, then another And Rudy realized that the as not from the north

It caht-blinded, at the sky; but by the time his eyes adjusted, he could see only the chaos of darkness He started to rise, and a voice said quietly behind hiht, he saw the flutter of trailing lint of eyes Wind stirred at the fire once lassy green stare and picked out the shape of Ingold&039;s cloak Turning his eyes skyward again, Rudy saw the sky, a sinuous ripple ofbacks The Dark Ones rode like a cloud, north against the wind

Rudy realized his hand had gone to his sword hilt and slowly released it as they passed on by His heart was haularly, his flesh cold &039;We were lucky,&039; he whispered

&039;Really, Rudy&039; Ingold stepped fro to do with it&039;

&039;You mean you made us invisible?&039;

&039;Oh, not invisible&039; The wizard settled down by the fire and set his staff within easy reach of his hand &039;Merely persistently unnoticed&039;

&039;Hunh?&039;

Ingold shrugged &039;Surely you&039;ve had the experience of not noticing someone? Perhaps you turned your head, or wereelse, or dropped your keys, or sneezed It is very easy to arrange for that to happen&039;

To all of the a little awesoold smiled &039;Of course&039;

Rudy shivered &039;You know, those are the first Dark Ones we&039;ve seen on the plains?&039;

&039;Understandably&039; The wizard fished in his many pockets and located the yellowed crystal in which he ont to seek the is far away &039;I have reason to believe those Dark Ones have followed us since we left thethe road across the plains&039;

&039;Youfor us?&039;

&039;I don&039;t know&039; The wizard glanced at hilow of the fire &039;Because if that were so, it would mean that they know that we have lost contact with the wizards at Quo&039;

&039;But how could they?&039;

Ingold shrugged &039;How do they know anything?&039; he asked &039;How do they perceive? What is the nature of their knowledge? They are utterly alien intelligences, Rudy, strangers to the very pattern of huht&039;

Rudy was silent for athat the easiest way for them to knoe&039;ve lost contact with Quo is if they knohat happened to the wizards there&039; He looked hesitantly across the fire &039;You understand?&039; &039;I understand,&039; the oldI do not knohat has befallen Quo, nor how the Dark Ones have contrived to hold the wizards under siege there But if Lohiro were dead, I would know it I would feel it&039;

&039;Then what do you think has happened?&039; Rudy insisted

But to that Ingold had no answer

Neither had those they asked, the few straggling bands of refugees that theyiron wind For days at a tih a universe of brown, rippling grass and shallow sheets of water -water pocked like hammered silver by rains, or rey ice But twice in those first feeeks, Ingold and Rudy encountered the deci cold and fear and darkness The stories those s that crawled down cold chis that ripped doors froes, or blasted down stone walls with the wrath of all the devils of the night; and of chill, directionless wind and the scatter of stripped bones upon the ground

&039;And wizards? Ingold asked of those circling the lo of the diht

&039;Wizards&039; A fat, heavy-muscled woman with a face like a leathery potato spat scornfully into the fire &039; Lot of good their wizardry did them or any of us I talked to a student out of Quo They&039;re all gone, hidden, locked up in a ring of spells, and they&039;ve left us to fend for ourselves We won&039;t see theold said, wrapping together and stowing away his packets of medicines He had returned the band&039;s hospitality within thethe wounds either incurred in battle against the Dark or the White Raiders, or the effects of exhaustion and exposure &039;When was this?

She shrugged &039;Months gone,&039; she said &039;He spent a night with us We buried his bones andNever knew his na patriarch of the clan rureenish eyes, so coarded the alone and ard in these bitter tiles and the Eold paused in surprise &039;Where did you hear this?&039;

The big man shook his head &039;Stands to reason,&039; he said Far out over the plains rose the thin silvery chorus of wolves crying thetheir distance; nearby an ox lowed in fear and jingled its tether chain There are no Dark in the Alketch, they say But I&039;d sooner die free than live there&039;

&039;What do you mean, there are no Dark in the Alketch?&039; Rudy asked, startled

&039;So they say,&039; the patriarch told hi the Eet slaves cheap&039;

The second band they met, many days later, was smaller, two men and a couple of skinny towheaded kids, all that was left of a village of silver miners froh tangles of fair hair and stole a hatchet and packet of cornold&039;s question of wizards, the older of them only said, &039;Dead, I reckon&039;

&039;Why do you say that? Ingold asked gently