Darwath 1 - The Time Of The Dark (12 page)

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.

The first sensation in Gil's mind, as she stepped from the dark slot of the postern door into soft pearl daylight and bone-chilling morning cold, was relief. She had made it, somehow, through the bizarre terrors of the night; she had lived to see dawn. She could not remember when she had ever taken such conscious pleasure in simple daylight.

The second sensation was dismay. As she came out on the top step, the noise and stink hit her like a wall. People were quarreling, arguing, yelling at the tops of their voices, demanding where food could be found, squabbling over the possession of ragged and frightened animals, and clustering in an arm-waving group around the doorways of buildings already jammed to the rafters with refugees demanding admittance; others were milling around the half-drained town fountain, bickering over water in voices sharp with the anger bred of fear. The growing light showed Gil faces pale and taut, wary eyes shifting like those of rats. They were physically and mentally angling for a toehold of position in this slipping world. The ice-breeze of the mountains bore on its cold breath the drifting stench of untended waste.

Jesus, Gil thought, appalled, they're setting themselves up for cholera, plague… you name it. How much do these people know about sanitation and disease anyway?

And her third sensation, as she stood shivering at the top of the steps in the biting cold, was ravenous hunger. She gave the matter some thought. The Commander of the Guards seemed to be on Ingold's side, and could probably be talked into giving her something to eat on the basis of her connection with the wizard. She made her way down the steps, having to pick her path around a middle-aged man in soiled broadcloth who seemed to have set up camp on the lowest step with every intention of staying there, to where half a dozen men and women in the black uniform of the City Guards were readying the transport carts to join the convoy to Gae. They were evidently under the command of a tall young man with ivory-blond braids that hung to his waist, who was currently engaged in a heated argument with a knot of civilians in dirty homespun. The chief of the civilians was shaking his head emphatically, the Guard gesturing to the mob in the square. As she came close, he dismissed the men in disgust and swung around to face her, regarding her from under colorless brows with eyes as light and cold as polar ice.

“Can you drive?” he demanded.

“A horse?” Gil asked, startled, her mind going to cars.

“I don't mean geese. If you can't drive, will you lead on foot? Or ride the bloody thing. I don't care.”

“I can ride,” Gil told him, suddenly aware of why she was being asked. “And I don't fear the Dark.”

“You're a fool, then.” The captain stared down at her, those haughty white-blond brows drawing slightly together as he took in her alien clothes. But he said nothing of it, only turned to call to a grizzle-haired woman in a shabby black uniform. “Seya! Get this one a cart with riding reins.” He turned back to Gil. “She'll take care of you.” Then, as Gil started to go with Seya, he asked, “Can you fight?”

Gil stopped. “I've never used a sword.”

“Then if we're ambushed, for God's sake stay out of the way of those who can.” He turned away, calling out orders to someone else, as concise and cold as a hunting cat. The woman Seya came up to Gil, wry amusement on her deeplined face, her sword slapping at her soft booted feet.

“Don't let him fret you,” she said, glancing after his slim, retreating figure. “He'd put the High King himself to driving a cart if we were short, with never a by-your-leave. There, look.”

Gil followed the gesture of the woman's hand and saw Janus and Ingold standing in the middle of the ruckus at the foot of the steps, surrounded by quarreling drivers, gesturing Guards, and rickety carts. The tall captain was talking to them, gazing down the length of his aristocratic nose. Janus looked shocked, Ingold amused. The wizard swung himself up into the nearest cart, settled down on the driver's seat, and gathered the reins into his hands as deftly as a coachman.

The sun cleared the spiky peaks in the east as they were leaving the last houses of Karst behind them, brightening the scene without dispersing the white mist lying so thickly among the trees. Gil was mounted uncomfortably on the narrow harness-saddle of a fat roan, drawing a cart close to the head of the convoy. She could see that most of the vehicles in town had been commandeered, far more than could be provided with civilian drivers who were willing to return to the haunted city of Gae. Many were driven by Guards, and a thin, straggling line of them walked on either side of the train—men and women both, she saw, mostly young, though there were gray or balding heads visible up and down the line as well. They moved restlessly, and she could see the marks of strain and exhaustion clearly on their faces. These were the fighters who had borne the brunt of the defense of Gae.

As the light grew, Gil could make out little camps of refugees in the woods, straggling out along the road and far back among the trees. There were refugees on the road, too, men and women in wrinkled and dirty clothes, carrying awkward bundles of blankets and cooking pots on their backs, pushing makeshift wheelbarrows, or dragging crude travois. Now and then a man would be leading a donkey, or a woman drawing an unwilling cow at the end of a rope. Mostly they did not stop and gave only scant attention to the winding file of carts and their ragged line of escorts. They were too weary with flight and fear to have any thought but for the refuge ahead.

Eventually, the road dipped and bent. Beyond the thin screen of brown-leaved trees, Gil felt the wind freshen and change. She looked up to see the land fall away on one side of the road, to show her the city of Gae.

Recognition caught at her heart. It lay in the distance, surrounded by its many walls, held in the crook of the river's arm, facing out across a plain turned tawny gold with autumn and latticed with the white of the city roads. It was almost as if she had lived there, walked those close-angled streets, and known from childhood that skyline of turrets and branches. Against the morning sky, six spires of stone rose up, flying buttresses bereft of the walls they had supported, stretching like the bony fingers of a skeleton hand into the whiteness of the air.

“The trees are bare,” a man's light, breathless voice said beside her. “In summer it was a garden.”

She looked down. By her knee, pacing with the jogging of the cart, walked the pale-haired captain, his eyes reflecting the flat white light of the sky. She said, “I know.”

The light eyes shifted back to her face. “You're Ingold's far traveler.”

She nodded. “But I've been in Gae.”

Again there were no questions, only a docketing of information in his mind. He was spare and loose-boned; in the mingling shadows of the trees, she saw that he was younger than she'd first supposed—in his early twenties, possibly a few years younger than she was. It was the toughness, the sheath of self-sufficiency, that aged him—that and the long wrinkles scored by weather around his pale eyes. After a moment he said, “I am called the Icefalcon of the Guards.”

“My name is Gil,” she said, ducking as they passed beneath the overhanging branches of a huge oak. Gae was lost to them once more behind the woods of rust and silver and opal mist. The sound of the cart wheels mingled with the crackle of the dead leaves underfoot.

“In the old language of the Wath, gil means ice,” he said absently. “Gil-shahs—a spear of ice, an icicle. I had a hunting hawk by that name once.”

Gil looked down at him curiously. “Then your own name would be—Gil-something-or-other.”

He shook his head. “In the language of my people, we call the icefalcon Nyagchilios, Pilgrim of the Sky. Why did you come with us?”