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Firelight touched the rocks of the arroyo and shivered like rain down the strings of Rudy&039;s harp He respected Ingold&039;s dictuht, in the windy darkness of the desert, he was drawn to it, unwrapping it fros He learned them as he had learned the runes, each note in its sequence, each with its separate beauty and use

On the other side of the fire, Ingold was silent, as he had been silent going on five days now

On the whole, Rudy preferred the old man&039;s silence to his bitter sarcas politeness hich he had treated any offer of co what had happened at Quo If Rudy had even doubted that Ingold&039;s nature had its cruel side - which, he supposed, he must have, back in the days when he had been naive - he did not doubt now There were days when, if he had not been too afraid of the old o to hell and left hio in the midst of the winter-ridden plains

Winter had locked down over the eoing slow, the hunting poor Rudy didelse It was he who lay for hours in the brush blinds to shoot old seldom touched, he ashed the stains of Lohiro&039;s blood from the old old did eat, it was because Rudy forced him to; when he spoke, it ith an impersonal bitterness that bordered on conte further and further into so hirief and pain

And why not? Rudy thought, hisback to the

illusion- circled city on the shores of the Western Ocean, and the body of the golden-hairedlike a straw in the flames Who&039;s to say Lohiro didn&039;t have the answer? Who&039;s to say he couldn&039;t have given it to us, once the Dark Ones let go of his old didn&039;t sie at his having betrayed theold was staring into the flames that were multiplied a hundredfold in his bleak eyes He looked old, exhausted, and shabby, his long white hair fluttering around the sunken cheeks and brooding eyes Out in the darkness, the wail of a coyote curled, thin and hopeless, on the wind, the cry of a lost soul wandering dry and empty wastes The cloud-cover had broken, and the full moon stared down upon them from the riold saw in the blaze

Was it Quo as it had been in the war its heart? Lohiro&039;s eht to send the of the Dark? Or the Keep, black a stars, now that the wizards of the world could literally be counted on the fingers of one hand?

Ingold, Bektis, Kara, luainst all the forces of the Dark? What kind of chance has anyone got?

No wonder Ingold walked in silence, a tuhost on the desert road

Only occasionally would the wizard rouse hiive lessons in power that were, for days on end, their onlyelse, brittle and bitter and cruel He see or not; for him, Rudy felt, the lessons were si He would throw unexplained illusions into Rudy&039;s path, or deliberately wrap hi-spell and leave Rudy to search For two days he had blindfolded Rudy, forcing hihtless silence Without warning, Ingold had called forth blinding torrents of wind and rain and deadly flash floods in the washes, hich Rudy must cope or drown By scorn and sarcaser ht him the tricky and terrible secrets of divination by water and bone

Everything Ingold taught, he taught as a stranger For the rest, he could not be bothered to speak at all

Experiers formed chords, thirds and fifths The tones of the harp sounded true A wizard&039;s harp, he thought, brought from the wizards&039; city Did the spells that preserved it from harm keep it tuned as well? Cautiously, first withchords, he found his way through the saddest and

most beautiful of the Lennon-McCartney ballads, his ht and starlight on hands and strings The music was clean, pure, and incredibly delicate, like a star caught in crystal, and he hated his oardness and ignorance as unworthy of such beauty

In the desert the coyotes yipped again, a full-throated chorus in the windy night Rudy looked up and saw that Ingold had gone

The moon had set Rudy had no sense of the presence of the Dark, nor of any creature in the wastes of stone and cracked, parched clay, save those that made the place their home Che dozed on the end of his tether

Rudy set aside his harp and made a slow, careful exas of protective spells Ingold&039;s staff was gone So was one of the bows

Dogging a wizard by starlight was one of the less easy feats of this life But Ingold&039;s brutal training had paid off; Rudy picked up the turn of a branch and the scatter of sand that lay the wrong way to the wind, pointing a possible lead He belted on his sword and picked up the staff that had once belonged to Lohiro the Archs from a notch in the hills and the shape and roll of the land He stepped quietly away fro on the whole outfit Six feet farther off, he glanced back, and there was no trace of burro, fire, or packs to be seen

Hehis senses wide, he occasionally found a trace of the old man - a place where a kit fox had unaccountably veered aside, or the slight scratch in the dirt on a rock face He heard no sound, saw nothingin all the vastness of the frozen rocks, but twice his eyes returned to a humped black shadohere bare boulders broke the raw silver of clay flats It was off the course of Ingold&039;s trail He could see nothing of the wizard in that juiven hi life froht, he had gliold&039;s soul, and that he would never forget

Nevertheless, he had to get very close before he could be sure

He stalked Ingold like a drift of wind in the night, as he had stalked his friends the jackrabbits By this time he had a certain amount of experience as a hunter But before he could reach the rocks, he saw Ingold lint of a bitter eye in darkness Then the wizard turned away again, scarcely even interested

Rudy e on coht?"

&039;Is it any affair of yours?&039;

Rudy leaned on his crescent-tipped staff, annoyed at that steely arrogance &039;Yeah, I&039;d kind of like to know if the Dark Ones are gonna put the munch on you&039;

&039;Don&039;t be stupid We&039;ll find violets in this desert before we find the Dark Or

haven&039;t you been watching?&039;

&039;I&039;ve been watching&039; Their voices were pitched low for each other&039;s ears alone Their bodies blended with rock and shadow; an observer at ten feet would have passed theure I&039;m that much more clever than the Dark&039;

&039;What&039;s the old jeered &039;Do you think I can&039;t handle the Dark?&039;

&039;No, I don&039;t&039;

Ingold turned his face away and leaned his chin once more on folded hands and drawn-up knees

&039;I think if it caet eaten by the Dark,&039; Rudy went on coldly &039;That way you wouldn&039;t have to go back and tell Alwir the whole thing was a bust, and you&039;d still get credit for not being a quitter&039;

Ingold sighed &039;If you think I&039;d undergo so as unpleasant as that over someone as essentially trivial as Alwir, your sense of proportion is allanced up, then continued i &039;Yes, I was returning tonight&039;

Then why did you take a bow?&039;

Ingold was silent

&039;Or did you figure I could carry the ball from here?&039;

That&039;s your choice,&039; the old ot what you want -you&039;re a o back and play politics with Alwir You go back and spin out the illusion that your power gives you either the ability or the right to alter the outcoo back and watch the people you care for die, either by your own hand or through your da, and see what it does to you in sixty-three years But until you do, don&039;t sit there in self-righteous judgearded the old ht Hidden in the darkness of his drawn-up hood, Ingold&039;s face seeled bones, bruises, and scars a a desert heres are gone Whatever Lohiro ht have been able to tell us, if the Dark did in fact release hiold ended

Quietly, Rudy asked, &039;So what do I tell theed &039;Whatever you please Tell them I died in Quo There would be some truth in that, anyway&039;

&039;And is that what I tell Gil?&039; Rudy went on in a voice that shook with controlled anger

The old man looked up, fury and the first life that Rudy had seen in hi into his eyes &039;What does Gil have to do with it?&039;

&039;You&039;re the only one who can get her back to her oorld&039; It wasn&039;t until Rudy spoke that he realized the extent of his own anger &039;You&039;re the only one in the world who understands the gates through the Void And you were responsible for getting her here in the first place You have no right to be the cause of her being stuck in this universe forever&039;

He felt the rage that surged through the oldthe bleak passivity of self-torrief, Ingold&039;s anger was silent and all inside In a queer, stiff voice he said, &039;Perhaps it would be Gil&039;s choice to remain in the world&039;

&039;Like hell,&039; Rudy snorted &039;For ive a daot a life back there, a career she wants and a place in that world If she stays here, she&039;ll never be anything but a foot soldier, when she wanted to be a scholar; and she&039;ll stay that way until she gets killed by the Dark or the cold or the next stupid war Alwir gets the Keep into I care for that lady, Ingold, and I&039;ainst her will You haven&039;t got that right&039;

The wizard sighed, and the life see away even the bitter leaping of his anger He sank his head slowly to his hands and said faintly, &039;No, you&039;re right I suppose I o back, if only for that&039;

Rudy started to say so else, but let his breath out with the words unspoken Ingold&039;s anger puzzled him, and this sudden capitulation bothered hi of some bond of bitterness in the old th Now there was nothing

Quietly, he said, &039;I&039;ll be back at the caold nodded without looking up Rudy left hi his own invisible tracks, the double points of his pronged staff winking in the desert starlight Once he looked around and saw that the old uishable froainst the muted, uncertain shape of the land beyond As he walked back to the ca seen anyone so lonely or so wretched in his life

&039;You think there&039;s anybody hoht drenched the town before the the hills in back of the road The distant trickle of water and thick clusters of date pal sky, marked where the stream came down out of the hills Several houses had been blown apart by the Dark; but, by the look of them, it hadn&039;t been recently First quarter moon oj&039;autued to reinforce the buildings that re them into little individual fortresses covered on the outside frons, pictures, and religious symbols On the nearest one, a beautiful woman stood with her feet on the back of a crooked devil, her left hand raised against a swarm of inaccurate, fishlike representations of the Dark Ones, her right ar supplicants By the light of the waning and cloud-crossedand priht but the outlines of the figures strikingly clear For some reason, it reminded Rudy of the runes on the Keep doors

&039;Possibly,&039; Ingold replied, in answer to his question &039;But I hardly think they will unbar their doors at night&039;

&039;It&039;s you and hed, and started off through the shadows of the narrow streets, with Ingold drifting like a ghost at his heels The poison, Rudy thought, orking its way out of the old man&039;s system; if he seldo to when he did But Rudy missed his humour, the wry fatalised his nondescript face

When they reached the Church, however, Ingold surprised Rudy by leading the way around to the back, where a narrow cell was built on to the rear of the fortresslike structure He knocked on the heavy door There wasbars The door was opened quickly and quickly closed behind the priest had let thean, and then saw Ingold&039;s face In the soft aht, the blood drained froold fro man, puzzled

The priest whispered, &039;It was you&039;

Ingold frowned &039;Have we ly set the candle on the room&039;s small table &039;No no, of course not I - please be welcome in this house It is late for travellers -like yourselves -&039; He barred the door behind the &039;I a an earnest, young face for a rey robe of a Servant of the Church His head was shaved; but, by- the colour of his black eyebrows and sincere brown eyes, Rudy guessed his hair had been black or dark brown, like his own

&039;I ae,&039; Brother Wend said, babbling to cover up nervousness or fear &039;The only one now, I&039;m afraid Will you sup?&039;

&039;We&039;ve eaten, thanks,&039; Rudy said, which was true - and besides, he reflected, if things here were as bad as he&039;d seen theht all over &039;All we ask is a bed on your floor and stabling for our burro&039;

&039;Certainly - of course&039;

The priest ith him to put Che in the stables While Rudy bedded the donkey down, he filled the priest in on all the news he could - of the fall of Gae, the retreat to Renweth, Alwir&039;s arold was a wizard, nor indicate his oers Ingold, after the briefest exchange of amenities, had withdrawn to sit beside the shout the evening, as Rudy and Brother Wend talked quietly in the

shadows of the little rooold, as if trying to match the htened hi himself to sleep on the floor near the hearth when hurried knocking sounded at the door Without hesitation, Brother Wend rose and slid back the bolts to let in two sirls, eight and nine years of age, sandy-haired and hazel-eyed like the people of Gettlesand In a babbling treble duet they outlined a confused tale of yellow sickness and fever and their mother and their little sister Danila, and last su htened eyes Wend nodded, uests

&039;I o,&039; he said softly

&039;One or the other of us will let you back in,&039; Rudy proone, Rudy got up to bar the door behind hiure by the hearth

Ingold, staring into the fire, shook his head He seemed hardly to have heard

Rudy slid back into his abandoned blankets before they had a chance to grow cold and pillowed his head on the heavy volumes he&039;d carried from Quo - the only use, so far, that he&039;d seen for them &039;You know that kid froold shook his head

Rudy had carried on a lot of these one-sided conversations in the last three weeks Occasionally, he&039;d pursued theot an answer of soave it up When he closed his eyes, Ingold was still brooding over whatever it was that he saw in the flaht there, but had never asked

Hishad yielded, gli: Aide co her hair by the embers of her s to Tir, who crawled busily around the shadowy roo with her feet up in the di aloud while Gil took notes, surrounded by a clutter of books and tablets; seeing Gil look up and grin and ly, Aide in a passionate argu down her white, furious face while he stood with his ares followed Rudy down into darkness,with others: the empty Nest on the wind-blown desert to the north; the empty streets of Quo; the startled look in Brother Wend&039;s big dark eyes when he had opened the door; and the way he&039;d whispered in terror, &039;It was you&039;