Darwath 1 - The Time Of The Dark (21 page)

Behind her, Rudy said uneasily, “Months is a long time to play tag with the Dark, man.”

“I'm sorry,” Ingold said, but his eyes were on Gil.

Trembling with the effort, she let go of the rage. Without it to sustain her, all the tension left her body. Ingold drew her gently to sit on the bed beside him. She did not resist.

“I should have spoken to you before the council,” Ingold said quietly. “I was afraid that this would happen.”

Gil still could say nothing, but Rudy ventured, “You said something about that yesterday morning, when you were taking off for Gae with the Guards. About how, if the Dark showed up, we maybe couldn't get back.”

“I did,” Ingold said. "I feared this all along. I told you once before, Gil, that our worlds lie very close. Close enough for a dreamer to step inadvertently across the line, as you did. Close enough for me to step quickly from one world to the next, like a man stepping behind the folds of a curtain. In time this closeness will become less, as the conjunction between worlds comes to its end. At that time, Dark or no Dark, it will be safe enough for me to send you back through.

“I am aware of the Void, always and subliminally, as I am aware of the weather. The first time I crossed it, to speak to you in your apartment, I was aware of a weakening all through its fabric in the vicinity of the gate, that I had made. Even then, I began to fear. The Dark Ones do not understand the Void, but I think then they were first aware that it exists. And after that, they watched. The second time I crossed, escaping the battle in the Palace at Gae, I felt the single Dark One follow me across. The opening that I made caused a whole series of breaks in the Void. Most of them would not have admitted a human, but the Dark, with their different material being, were able to use at least one. That was why I tried to get you away from the cabin, Gil. But naturally, you were both too stubborn to go.”

“I was stubborn?” Gil began indignantly. “You were the one who was stubborn… ”

“Hey, if you'd told me the truth, man… ”

“I did tell you the truth,” the wizard said to Rudy. “You simply didn't believe me.”

“Yeah, well… ” His grumbles trailed off into silence.

Ingold went on. “I felt that sending you back yesterday would be marginally safe, with the Dark Ones fifteen miles off in Gae. But now it's out of the question. The single Dark One who crossed with me increased their awareness of the Void. And they know, now, that humans exist in the world on the other side.”

“How do you figure that?” The barrel staves creaked as Rudy changed position, bringing his feet up to sit crosslegged, leaning acid-stained elbows on his knees. “The one that followed you got fried on the other side. He never made it back to report.”

“He didn't have to.” Ingold turned to Gil. "You saw last night how the Dark Ones fight, the speed with which their bodies maneuver and change position. How the communication between them works I'm not sure, but what one learns, I believe, they all then know. If we weaken the fabric of the Void, so that several of them pass through behind you and Rudy—if, as I suspect it may be, their knowledge of events is simultaneous rather than cumulative—it would be only a matter of time before they learned to operate the gates through the Void themselves.

“As Guardian of the Void, I am responsible. At this time, I cannot endanger your world by sending you back.”

In the silence that followed his words, the drift of Janus' voice from the court below was faintly audible, along with the clear metallic tap of hooves on cobbles. Somewhere a dog barked. The light in the room faded as twilight drew down on the stricken town.

Rudy asked, “So what can we do?”

“Wait,” Ingold said. “Wait until the turn of the winter, when our worlds will have drawn apart far enough to permit safe crossing. Or wait until I can speak with the Archmage Lohiro.”

Gil looked up. “You've talked about him before.”

The wizard nodded. "He is the Master of the Council of Quo, the leader of all the world's wizardry. His understanding is different from mine and his power greater. If anyone can help us, he can.

“Before the Dark Ones broke forth at Gae, before the night I spoke with you, Gil, I spoke with Lohiro. He told me that the Council of Wizards, and indeed all the mages of the West of the World, were coming together at Quo. Wizardry is knowledge. Piecing together all wizardry, all knowledge, all power, we might come to a way to defeat the Dark. And until that time, he said, ”I shall ring Quo in the walls of air, and make of it a fortress that no darkness can pierce. Here we shall be safe, and from this fortress, my friend, we shall come in light.“ ” As he quoted these words, Ingold's eyes lost some of their sharpness, and his voice shifted, picking up the inflection and tone of another man's voice.

“And since that time, my children, I have heard nothing. I have sought… ” He touched the crystal that lay on the sill next to his elbow, and its facets flashed dimly in the light. “At times I think I can make out the shape of the hills above the town, or the outlines of Forn's Tower rising through the mists. But I have had no word, not from Lohiro nor from any of the wizards. They are surrounded in spells, ringed in illusion. And so they must be sought—and only a wizard can seek them.”

Gil said softly, “Then you'll be leaving us?”

Ingold's eyes flickered back to her, growing brighter and more present again. “Not at once,” he said. "But we will be leaving Karst. At dawn tomorrow, Alwir is leading the people south to the old Keep of Dare at Renweth on Sarda
Pass. You may have heard us speak of it in council—it was the old fortress-hold built against the Dark by the men of the Old Realms, many thousands of years ago, at the time of the Dark's first rising. It will be a long trek, and a hard one. But at Renweth you will be safe, as safe as you would be anywhere in this world.

“I shall be going with the train to Renweth. Though I am no longer considered a member of the Regents, I am still held to the vow I made Eldor before his death. I promised to see Prince Tir to a place of safety and that I will and must do, whether Alwir wishes me to or not. I am afraid, my children, that you have leagued yourselves with an outcast.”

“Alwir can go to hell,” Gil said shortly.

Ingold shook his head. “The man has his uses,” he said. “But he finds me—unbiddable. On the road to Renweth, Tir will be in constant danger from the Dark. I cannot leave him. But Renweth will be, for me, only a stopping place, the first stage of a greater journey.”

“Well, look,” Rudy said after a moment's thought. “If we went with you to Quo, couldn't you send us back from there? If it's so safe, it would be the one place where the Dark Ones couldn't get through.”

“True,” Ingold agreed. “If you made it to Quo. I wouldn't recommend the trip. In the height of the Realm's power, few people would venture to cross the plain and the desert in winter. It's close to two thousand miles, through desolate lands. In addition to the Dark, we would be in danger from the White Raiders, the barbarian tribesmen who have waged bloody war on the outposts of the Realm for centuries.”

“But you're going,” Rudy pointed out.

Ingold's blunt, scarred fingers toyed with the crystal on the windowsill. “And you might be safe, traveling with me. But believe me, your chances of seeing your own world again are far greater if you remain in the Keep of Dare.”

Gil was silent, her bony hands folded on her knee, staring into the murky gloom of the gatehouse. She tried to picture that fortress among the mountains, tried to picture weeks and months there alone, knowing no one, isolated as she had always been isolated. Her jaw tightened. “You will come back for us, though, won't you?”

“I brought you into this world against your will,” Ingold said quietly. He laid his hands over hers, the warmth of his touch going through her, warming her, as it always did, by its vitality. “If for no other reason than that, I am responsible for you. Lohiro may have a better answer than I can give you. It may even be that he will be able to return with me to the Keep.”

“Yeah,” Rudy said dubiously. “But what if you can't find the wizards? What if they're locked up so tight even you can't get in? What if—Suppose the Archmage is dead?” He hadn't wanted to say it, since Ingold seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lohiro was alive, but Ingold's frown was one of consideration rather than of anxiety or annoyance.

“It's a possibility,” Ingold said slowly. “I had thought of it, yes, but—I would know if Lohiro were dead.” The last of the twilight glinted on his bristling white eyebrows as they drew down over his nose. “The spells that surround Quo might mask it—but I think I would know. I know I would.”

“How?” Rudy asked curiously.

“I just would. Because he is the Archmage, and I am a wizard.”

“Is that why Alwir kicked you out of the council?” Gil asked, remembering the cold eyes of the Bishop and the way Alwir had spoken of Ingold at the gate below. “Because you're a wizard?”

Ingold smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. "Alwir and I are enemies of long standing. He never approved of my friendship with Eldor. And I fear he will never forgive me for being right about the dangers of coming to Karst. Alwir, as you may have guessed, has never thought much of the idea of retreating to the Keeps. The Keeps are fortresses, safe for the most part from the Dark, but limited in scope. To retreat into them will fracture the Realm beyond hope of repair and destroy thousands of years of human civilization. Such a fate is inevitable, in an isolated society, where transportation and communication are limited to the duration of the daylight; culture will wane, narrow-mindedness set in; the human outlook will shrink from urbane tolerance of all human needs to a kind of petty parochialism that cannot see beyond the bounds of its own fields. As you know from your own studies, Gil, private law begets a host of its own abuses. Decentralized, the Church will degenerate, its priests and theologians degraded into sanctified scribes and passers-out of the sacraments to a squabbling, superstitious peasantry. I fear that wizardry, too, will suffer, becoming more and more polluted with little magics, losing sight of the mainstream of its teachings. Anything that requires an organized body of knowledge will vanish—the universities, medicine, training in any form of the arts.

"Eldor was a scholar, and saw this; he knew what had happened before, through his own memories of the long years of superstition and darkness and the mean-minded fears of men to whom the unknown was always threatening. Alwir and Govannin see it coming, and know that once they let their hold on centralized power slip, nothing can get it back.

“And so, Quo could be our only hope.”

Rudy cocked his head curiously. “Didn't Alwir talk about some plan—about getting allies to invade the Nests of the Dark? Is that still coming off?”

“It is,” Ingold said thinly. “He has sent south, to the great Empire of Alketch, for help in this endeavor, and I do not doubt he shall get it.”

The flat, repressive note in his voice startled Rudy, who looked up from idly turning the crystal in his fingers, angling it to what remained of the waning light. “Sounds like not a bad idea,” he admitted.

Ingold shrugged. “It would not be,” he said, “but for two things. The first is that, deny it though we might, our civilization is all but broken. Even if we drive back the Dark, to what new world of Light will we come? I have seen in the crystal, and by other means, that the depredations of the Dark are far lighter in the south than they are here. The Empire of Alketch is a strong realm still. They can help us in Alwir's invasion; and then, when the remains of the forces of the Realm have taken the brunt of the casualties, they will be on the spot, ready to take the land left depopulated and defenseless in the aftermath. Alwir will have exchanged death for slavery—and there are varying opinions on which is the worse fate.”

The blue eyes glittered under the heavy brows. “I know Alketch, you see,” the wizard went on quietly. "The southern Empire has long coveted these northern lands. I know Alketch—and I know the Dark.

"Alwir finds a great deal to say about the number of things for which mine is the only word. He is right. About the Dark, mine is the only word, now that Eldor is gone and the sole male heir of the House of Dare is too young to speak. And I know that an invasionary force to the Nests will surely fail.

“I have been to a Nest. I have seen the Dark in their cities beneath the ground.”

The wizard leaned back against the wall behind him. The room was sinking in shadow all around. His voice was quiet, distant, leading his listeners to another place and time.

"A long time ago I was the local spell-weaver for a village, oh, way over in Gettlesand. It was a good-sized village, but not so large that the Lord of Gettlesand would think to look for me there. I was, in fact, hiding out, but that is part of another tale.

"The dooic run wild in tribes in that part of the country. They prefer the empty plains, but they do hide in the hills, and they have sometimes been known to carry off small children. One of the children of the mayor of my village had vanished, and I tracked her and her tribe of kidnappers for a night and a day, back into the hills. It was in a cave, in a ridge of foothills beneath a desert mountain range, that I first saw one of the Dark Ones. It was night. The creature dropped from the ceiling of the cave where it had been clinging and devoured an old male dooic which had taken shelter there. It was not aware of my presence.

"Now I had learned about Dark Ones in old books that I had read, and from the ancient legends handed down to me, like this jewel, from my master Rath. I realized this must be a surviving Dark One, and it occurred to me that isolated groups of these creatures, which had once overwhelmed mankind and then vanished from the face of the earth, might still be hiding in the fastnesses of mountain and desert. And because I am, and always have been, incurably inquisitive, I followed it back through the darkness, down tunnels so steep I had to cling to the walls and floor to keep myself from sliding headlong into the blackness. I remember thinking to myself at the time that the numbers of the Dark Ones had shrunk so badly that they lived thus for their own protection; a wretched remnant of a force that had once dominated the face of the world and changed the courses of civilization.