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Unlike the old did not merit for light of the gates, two figures detached the down the dark steps to halt, suddenly shy and confused, at the bottom

Rudy&039;s eyesto leap frohtless, up the snowy path So her braided black hair in fire, his heart ha so loudly in his breast he wondered if everyone in the Keep could hear it, and desperately telling himself, It&039;s a secret Our love is a secret that no one must know He felt he would stifle if he spoke, so he only stood, gazing into the cornflower deeps of her eyes

He was broken froold flung one ar kiss of welcome, to the cheers of the Guards assenized the with a sizeable bunch of civilians who had quite probably defied a specific Church directive and turned out to welcoesture, but he earnestly wished them all in Hell and the steps vacant but for himself and the woman before hi back froer through his body, and the light of it was echoed in her eyes But,else in her face that curious sense of security of a wo that her man would return

&039;He&039;s been shut up with Stiarth of Alketch all day,&039; Gil said,

still pink with confusion &039;You guys don&039;t rate&039; She disengaged herself froive Rudy a chaste, sisterly peck on the cheek &039;But I&039;ht, fve been holanced down at her unsurprised eyes and said, &039;I guess you know, hunh?&039;

She nodded and glanced back at where Ingold stood, Kta still in tow, talking a roup of others To half of theend - he could still see it in their eyes They were a ragtag and bobtail crew, gathered around those three Rudy recognized Kara&039;s mother - Nan, somebody said her name was -a withered little white-haired wo voice, one of the very feho didn&039;t seeold Kta was another - he was bea toothlessly at all and sundry and Thoth was the third But the others, from the fat little man in a brocade turban and overeirl-child in castoff rags to the scholarly black gentleaudy old with an awe that bordered on worship

&039;And, Ingold Ingold, listen!&039; Minalde cried suddenly Her dark-blue eyes ith enthusiasotten that she had ever been terrified of the old ht his sleeve eagerly, her face like a child&039;s at Christs!&039;

&039;The old laboratories are here, intact,&039; Gil added, carried away, and Rudy was draith theed into an excited duet, accos we don&039;t understand&039; &039;And Gil&039;s been digging up the records&039; &039;Air ducts and water puirls, Rudy thought, airls who&039;ve turned the place inside out and old and I traipsed all the way to Quo and did not find at all

&039; and Aide has the inherited memories of the House of Dare,&039; Gil finished in triuin with&039;

Ingold looked curiously at the younger girl, so like a flushed, eager schoolgirl with her braided hair and thin, gaudy skirts &039;Do you?&039;

Aide nodded, suddenly shy &039;I think so I recall things that I see, but they aren&039;t - they aren&039;t visions, like - like Eldor had&039;

There was the slightest break in her voice, and Ingold passed over it without giving a sign that he had noticed &039;A woman&039;s ht of that aspect before &039;I don&039;t know A man&039;s, I suppose, if they come from Dare of Renweth And they&039;re lessbeen somewhere before It was Gil&039;s scholarship that helped us ,&039; the wizard said softly &039;Interesting&039; He looked for a irl, the child-wife of his dead friend, shoulder to shoulder with Rudy now, her hand seeking his, half-hidden by the folds of her skirts Ingold&039;s brow kinked swiftly, as if with passing pain, but it sain; he turned back to Gil and put his arular shoulders &039;And where have you put all this?

By this time, Janus and the Guards had come down the steps to join them, and it was Janus who replied They&039;ve taken over the rooms, at the back of the barracks It started out as Gil-Shalos&039; study when she outgrew the storeroom; it&039;s quite a co only last week,&039; Gil inforroup trooped in a body up the steps and through the dark, echoing passage of the gates &039;Dakis the Minstrel was the first, then Grey and Nila the weather-witches&039;

&039;And Bektis was absolutely livid,&039; the htedly over the narrow span of a bridged watercourse &039;I thought we should surely lose him toapoplexy&039;

Eyes followed them as they crossed the dim reaches of the Aisle, idle or curious, hostile or sy, perhaps, the number of Guards that walked with them, or ere the civilians in the crowd Theyaround theold stopped, startled at the chaos that prevailed in the wizards&039; cohtened out yet,&039; Gil apologized

&039;It co the long, narrow room Fleeces, skins, and crates sees; staffs leaned in corners like rifles in an armoury; makeshift shelves had been set up, stacked with dilapidated books The bluish witchlight slid like silk over the round body of a pearwood lute and winked on the angles of white and grey glass polyhedrons that were scattered across the table, the floor, and everywhere else Parchments, wax tablets, dusty chronicles, and scrolls of yellowed paper littered every horizontal surface in sight, and over one of the rooreat pile of homespun brown cloth, and with it a tiny satin pincushion sparkling like a

The wizards had evidently made themselves very an

But Thoth broke in &039;Let them rest, child, and eat&039; His voice was as harsh as a vulture&039;s, slow and heavy He glanced once at the crescent-tipped staff that Rudy leaned in a corner and looked

back down at Ingold &039;You found Quo, then?

Ingold shut his eyes and nodded tiredly &039;Yes,&039; he said

&039;And Lohiro?&039;

&039;Dead&039;

Thoth&039;s eyes flickered to the staff, to the bundles of books that Rudy and several volunteer helpers were placing on a sed face of his friend &039;So,&039; he said

Ingold&039;s eyes opened He studied the other man&039;s narrow face &039;What happened, Thoth? Lohiro said you had been killed&039;

&039;No&039; The Recorder of Quo laid a long, bony hand on Ingold&039;s shoulder &039;The others yes Your girls have been telling arding the fortunate places of ancient times These were siold nodded wretchedly

&039;But deeper, since they had access to things to which you did not&039;

Only those who stood nearest heard Ingold whisper, &039;I should have guessed&039;

&039;Perhaps,&039; the tall wizard said evenly &039;But you are wrong if you suppose that Lohiro did not have such knowledge&039;

Ingold looked up quickly; though all reason for fear was past now, the reflection of it suddenly aged his sunken eyes

&039;Froht the oldest of the records for reference to the Dark - largely without result,&039; Thoth continued &039;The records there did not go much farther back than Forn&039;s time, but your reat centres of the wizardry of old - see pattern Shortly after Lohiro and the Council closed Quo to all, I went to him with my suppositions, and he,

Anamara, and I searched the town and the Seaward Mountains for miles We suspected that a Nest lay under the tower itself, under the subfloors of the old vaults, though we could find no sign of it Still we three spelled and respelled the foundations of the tower Believe old, not even the winds of the Dark could have risen through the cracks in the floor, had we not been betrayed&039;

Those strange eyes rested for a ard face &039;It e were spelling the mountains, I think, that Lohiro first spoke of the Dark as being of asingle essence We found little concerning thehspells of opening on volu for so - to little avail But Lohiro watched in Anaht at Penath lay in their numbers and in their movements He said that what one of them learned, they all then knew He said this was clear when they left their northern Nests in the plains to join the assault on Gae

&039;At first, he spoke of it only in terms of the le Dark One slip through its windings But later, as cities and towns fell to the Dark and we found ourselves no nearer to an understanding of theainst them, he said that we must, at all costs, learn what their nature, their essence, was He said that until one of us studied them by transforold&039;s face hite That was madness&039;

&039;So I told him,&039; the Recorder said drily &039;But remember also that our backs were to the wall There had been talk of going forth from Quo willy-nilly, to battle them without plan and ultimately without hope Lohiro said that it would beone, but he did not feel hiold Proud and desperate You knoas ever one to throw his

whole strength into a battle Perhaps he thought that his own death was the worst that could befall

&039;Then Gae fell We watched it in Anamara&039;s mirror;you and Eldor and all the others cornered in the flaht, close on to dawn Lohiro left us sitting in the library, and my heart was so heavy I did not mark whether he went upstairs to his own study or down I think it old We sought you in the crystals throughout the daylight hours, Anan of you We ht as well have been dead&039; Ingold sighed &039;I had passed the Void I was in another universe entirely, I and Prince Tir Did Lohiro seek me?&039;

Thoth shook his head That I do not know None of us saw hito Karst, wherethe refugees gathering We knew the Dark would strike there and that the only wizard within hundreds ofof this when darkness fell&039;

The old Recorder fell silent again, his queer yellow eyes grown distant and pale In the flickering witchlight, others had gathered around, silent, hardly breathing Ingold&039;s mouth was taut, his face drained of blood as if froain the ruin of that small and peaceful city, sroild over coloured stones, and heard the hushed ru of the sea

&039;I do not knohat time that day Lohiro took the form of the Dark,&039; Thoth went on quietly &039;I only know that in the deeps of the night ere still gathered in the tower, talking of as best to do Then the walls shook with the echoes of a blast that sounded as if the foundations of the tower itself were ripping asunder, as if the earth beneath us were exploding I think I rose, but no one else had ti open, and I saw Lohiro fralass; behind him lay such a store - he held the Master-Spells over us all&039; He shook his head &039;And it was over

&039;I think Anaht hiht against the darkness But I knew there was no hope if Lohiro had taken into himself the essence of the Dark So, as that terrible ind of power fell upon the roorass snake, the lowliest and swiftest creature I could think of My perceptions of what happened after that are not human perceptions I knew only darkness and cries, fire and bursting lights The tower crumbled around us Lohiro faded into one of the Dark and whirled away into the night Froreat coluic Hasrid was a dragon Others took different forht, but Lohiro&039;s power and the Dark confounded them all But none of that was important to me then I was a serpent, with only a serpent&039;s fears and hungers I was cold and I hid in the rubble until dawn&039;

There was silence again In the dies in tears - for the Arches they had been on, and for the dream of that vanished city to which they had once all aspired But Ingold&039;s tears had been shed in the Seaward Mountains, and he looked only empty and exhausted, as he had looked in the desert

Thoth&039;s golden eyes returned to an awareness of the present &039;Have you ever spent tiold nodded No one else moved

Then you will understand that, after that, ti it took me to leave the Seaward Mountains, I do not know The eaters of little insects do not count days In part of my mind, I kneas a man and a wizard, but there was very little inI hid in the rocks andnothing But I must have knoas a man, for I travelled slowly east, and I was far out in the desert when the yearning came to me to seek the Keep of Dare in Renweth at Sarda Pass It was a , far beyond what a snake could feel or accoo there only as a man So a man I became

&039;I did not know,&039; he finished quietly, &039;that the call cahed &039;Perhaps it were better had you kept your belly to the ground, serpentle line, as fine as a pen-scratch in the corner of the long, wry mouth, briefly indicated a smile &039;It is easier to live off the land so,&039; Thoth replied, &039;but the corave a horror of the road runner bird&039;

&039;Yes,&039; Ingold agreed res for many years&039;

&039;Eh,&039;a thin voice creaked, Nan the ife appeared suddenly in the circle, her pale eyes sparking with et you soe? Or you so until you fall down froer?

&039;Mother!&039; Kara said, shocked &039;That&039;s -

&039;I knoho it is, girl,&039; the old lady snapped sharply &039;And I&039;war stories about how brave they all were&039; Her bent back forced her to twist her neck to look up at the that all she needed was a peaked black hat and a brooravely &039;Your care for our coruuessedaround again, shaking her wooden spoon at the down over her bony shoulders and her eyes glittering in her haglike face &039;Heart indeed!&039; she cackled &039;Wizards have no heart And I tell you true, for I&039;m one and I haven&039;t any more heart than a shrike&039; With that she flounced out of sight

&039;She&039;s right,&039; Ingold said hed

&039;Alwir subsidizes the Wizards&039; Corps, the same way he does the Guards,&039; Gil explained as Kara, her irl served them oatbread and stewfroh table - I suppose because the food&039;s better - but I expect both he and Alill be along later&039; She grinned across the rooed on a pile of bison andPrince Tir, sharing the wizards&039; rough-and-ready feast Fire flickered onthehearth, the roo over the assorted features of the very odd crew assembled there

At Aide&039;s side, Rudy felt that, with very littlelike a cat It was the first time in over two ht&039;s sleep without four hours of guard duty first; he was bathed, shaved, and stationary, and the novelty of that was pleasant enough He ith the wo his own kind at last, after a journey he had never thought he&039;d survive It would be odd, he ht Aide&039;s under the furs She glanced sideways at hiht, Aide looked different, more sure of herself - less pretty but ed, too,hedecided,glancingoverat the thin girl sitting like soold&039;s chair She was softer, soh physically she was like a leather strap Her eyes were gentler, but there was a firm line to her e that she could never unknow

Well, what the hell, he thought We&039;ve all changed Even old Ingold

Maybe one day the old ain the amused serenity hich he had once viewed the world Quo had broken so inside him that Rudy sensed was only partially healed After his first flood of greetings and inforhout supper, he had spoken very little This was not to say the roo noises had died down, there had been news to exchange, stories to tell, and adventures to recount,Rudy, Gil, and Aide

Now and then the oldwhat this strange rabble was good for, though that would cooody wives and tea leaf readers, the two-and-thirty second-raters who had happened to le austere survivor, one wizened old hermit, and one punk airbrush-jockey who&039;d stumbled into the old would have to ith, all the ic left in the world for his coht

&039;Now,&039; Ingold said finally, in thehis hand, which had come to rest easily on Gil&039;s shoulder &039;Show me these marvels you have found&039;