01 THE TIME OF THE DARK d-1

by Barbara Hambly

  "Thank you." He smiled, and gravely studied the opening instructions inscribed on the top of the can. For a first time, he didn't do badly.

  "How could you see me?" she asked, sliding into her chair as he shook the foam off his fingers. "Even when it was a dream, even when no one else could-King Eldor and the Guards at the gate-you could. Why was that?"

  "It's because I understand the nature of the Void," the wizard said gravely. He folded his hands on the table, the blunt, scarred fingers idly caressing the gaudy aluminum of the can, as if memorizing its shape and feel. "You understand, Gil, that there exists an infinite number of parallel universes, meshed in the matrix of the Void. In my world, in my time, I am the only one who understands the nature of the Void-one of a bare handful who even suspects its existence."

  "And how did you learn about it, much less how to cross it, if no one else in your world knows?" Gil asked curiously.

  The wizard smiled again. "That, Gil, is a story that would take all night to do justice to, without advancing the present situation. Suffice it to say that I am the only man in perhaps five hundred years who has been able to cross the curtain that separates universe from universe-and having done so, I was able to recognize the imprint of your thoughts, your personality, that had been drawn across the Void by the mass vibration of worldwide panic and terror. I believe there are a very few others in your world who, for whatever reason, be it psychic or physical or purest coincidence, have felt, from across the Void, the coming of the Dark. Of them all, you are the only one with whom I have been able to establish contact. It was seeing you, speaking to you, and then having you materialize not only in thought but in body, that made me understand what is happening with regard to the Void."

  Outside, a truck rumbled by on Clarke Street, its sound muffled with distance and the night. Somewhere in the apartment building, a toilet flushed, a faint echoing gurgle along the pipes. Gil stared down at the table for a time, her eye automatically noting her own jagged black handwriting spelling out cryptic notes with regard to the upkeep of fourteenth-century bridges, then looked up again at the wizard calmly drinking beer across from her, his staff leaned against the wall at his side.

  She asked, "What is happening with the Void?"

  "When I spoke with you in Gae," Ingold went on, "I realized that our worlds must lie in very close conjunction at this time-so close that, because of the psychic crisis, a dreamer could literally walk the line between them and see from one into the next. This is both a rare and a temporary occurrence, a one-in-a-million chance for two worlds to drift so close. But it is a situation that I can use to my advantage in this emergency."

  "But why did it happen now, at the tune of crisis?" Gil asked, the harsh electric glare rippling in the embroidery of her gaudy sleeves as she leaned forward across the table. "And why did it happen to me?"

  He must have caught the suppressed slivers of uneasiness and fear of being singled out in her voice; when he replied he spoke gently. "Nothing is fortuitous. There are no random events. But we cannot know all the reasons."

  She barely hid a smile. "That's a wizard's answer if I ever heard one."

  "Meaning that mages deal in double talk?" His grin was impish. "That's one of our two occupational hazards."

  "And what's the other one?"

  He laughed. "A deplorable tendency to meddle."

  She joined him in laughter. Then after a moment she grew quiet and asked, "But if you're a wizard, how could you need my help? What help could I possibly give you that you couldn't find for yourself? How could I help you against-against the Dark? Who is, or what is, the Dark?"

  He regarded her in silence for a moment, judging her, testing her, watching her out of blue eyes whose surface brightness masked a depth and pull like the ocean's. His face had grown grave again, settled into its sun-scorched lines. He said, "You know."

  She looked away, seeing in her unwilling mind monolithic bronze doors exploding off their hinges; seeing shadows that ran behind her, inescapable as ghostly wolves. She spoke without meeting his eyes. "I don't know what they are."

  "Nor does anyone," he said, "unless it's Lohiro, the Master of Quo. It's a question whose answer I wish I had never been set to seek, a riddle I'm sorry I have to unravel.

  "What can I say of the Dark, Gil? What can I say that you don't know already? That they are the sharks of night? That they pull the flesh from the bones, or the blood from the flesh, or the soul and spirit from the living body and let it stumble mindlessly to an eventual death from starvation? That they ride the air in darkness, hunt in darkness, and that fire or light or even a good bright moon will keep them away? Would that tell you what they are?"

  She shook her head, hypnotized by the warm roughness of his voice, caught by the intensity of his eyes and by the horror and the memory of even more appalling horrors that she saw there. "But you know," she whispered.

  "Would to God I did not." Then he sighed and looked away; when he turned his head again, there was only that matter-of-fact self-assurance in his face, without the doubt, or the fear, or the loathing of what he knew.

  "I- I dreamed of them." Gil stumbled on the words, finding it unexpectedly more difficult to speak of that first forerunning dream to one who understood than to one who did not "Before I ever saw them, before I ever knew what they were. I dreamed about a-a vault, a cellar-with arches going in all directions. The floor was black and smooth, like glass; and in the middle of that black floor was a slab of granite that was new and rough, because nobody ever walked on it. You said they came from-from beneath the ground."

  "Indeed," the wizard said, looking at her with an alert, speculative curiosity. "You seem to have sensed their coming far ahead of its time. That may mean something, though at the moment I'm not sure... Yes, that was the Dark, or, rather, the blocked-up entrance to one of their Nests. Under that granite slab-and I know the one you're talking about-is a stairway, a stairway going downward incalculable depths into the earth. It was with the stairways, I believe, that it all began.

  "For the stairways were always there. You find representations of them in the most ancient prehistoric petroglyphs: vast pavements of black stone and, in the midst of them, stairs descending to the deepest heart of the earth. No one ever went down them-at least, no one who came back up again-and no one knew who built them. Some said it was the titans of old, or the earth-gods; old records speak of the places as being awesome, full of magic. For a long time they were considered to be lucky, favored by the gods-the old religion built temples over them, temples which became the centers of the first cities of humankind.

  "All this was millennia ago. Villages grew to towns and then to great cities. The cities united; states and realms spread along the rich valleys of the Brown River, on the shores of the Round Sea and the Western Ocean, and in the jungles and deserts of Alketch. Civilization flowered and bore its fruits: wizardry, art, money, learning, war. Records of that time are so scarce as to be almost nonexistent. Only beguiling fragments of chronicles remain, mostly in the Library at Quo, a teasing sliver of a civilization of great depth and richness, of sublime beauty and wisdom and truly foul decadence, a society that parented first wizardry and then the Church and the great codes of civil law.

  "I am virtually certain that some kind of tradition existed then regarding the Dark Ones, simply because the word for them was in the language. Sueg -dark- isueg -an archaic, personalized form of the same word. But they were only a vague rumor of shadow on the edges of the oldest legends-the misty memory of hidden fear. And if there was such a tradition, it did not connect them with the stairways themselves. So they remained, rooted in the abysses of time, an ancient mystery buried in the heart of civilization.

  "Of the destruction of the ancient world we have no coherent account. We know that it happened within a matter of weeks. That what struck, struck worldwide, we also know-a simultaneous siege of horror. But the horror and the confusion were so overwhelming that virtually no record was preserved; and since def
ense against the Dark generally entailed uncontrolled use of fire as a weapon, we lost what little information we might have had about their coming. We know that they came-but we do not know why.

  "Unable to fight, humankind fled and retreated to fortified Keeps, behind whose massive walls they led a windowless existence, creeping forth by day to till their fields and hiding when the sun went down. For three hundred years, absolute chaos and terror held sway on the earth, because there was no knowing where or when the Dark would come. Civilization crumbled, fading to a few glowing embers of the great beacon light that it had once been.

  "And then-" Ingold spread his hands, showing them empty, like a sideshow magician. "The Dark no longer came. Whether the cessation was sudden or gradual, we cannot be sure, for by that time few people were literate enough to be keeping accurate records. Little villages had grown up outside the Keeps; in time, new little villages appeared on the crumbling ruins of the ancient cities whose very names had been forgotten through the intervening years. There were wars and change and long spaces of tune. Old traditions faded; the very language changed. Old songs and stories were forgotten.

  "Three thousand years is a long time, Gil. You're an historian-can you tell me, with any accuracy, what happened three thousand years ago?"

  "Uh- " Gil cast a hasty scan over her memories of Ancient Civilizations 1A . Marathon? Stonehenge? Hyksos' invasions of Egypt? As a medievalist, she had only the foggiest impressions of anything prior to Constantine. What must it be like, she wondered, for the average Joe Doakes who hadn't been to college and didn't like history much anyway? Even something as hideous as the Black Death, an event which had grossly and permanently impacted western civilization, was only a name to eighty percent of the population-and that was only six hundred years ago.

  Ingold nodded, his point made. It occurred to Gil to wonder how he had known that her subject was history, but he went on, as she was beginning to find was his habit, without explaining. "For many years I was the only one who knew anything about even the old tales of the Dark. I knew-I learned-that the Dark Ones were not utterly gone. Eventually I learned that they were not even much diminished in numbers. And I heard things that made me believe that they would return. Eldor's father had me banished for speaking of it, which I thought small-minded of him, since sending me away could not reduce the danger-

  but perhaps he thought that I was lying. Eldor believed me. Without his preparations, I think we would all have perished the first night of their rising."

  "And now?" Gil asked softly.

  "Now?" The night was far spent; the lines of weariness etched into his scarred face seemed to settle a little deeper. "We are holding out in the Palace at Gae. The main body of the Army under the command of the Chancellor of the Realm, Alwir, the Queen's brother, has been in Penambra, where the raids were the worst. They should return to the city within days; but without a miracle they will be too late to prevent catastrophe. I have tried vainly to get in touch with the Council of Wizards in the Hidden City of Quo, but I fear they, too, may be besieged. They have retreated behind their defenses of power and illusion. Though I still have hopes that we can hold out long enough for Lohiro to send us aid of some kind, I would not want to wager the lives of my friends on that hope. The defenders at the Palace need me, Gil. Though I cannot do much, I will not leave them until it is beyond doubt that no effort of mine can save them.

  "And that," he said, "is where I need your help." She only looked at him, uncomprehending. "You understand," Ingold went on in that same quiet tone, "that by leaving it that late, I shall be cutting my escape very fine. In the last extremity, my only course will be to flee across the Void into some other world-this world. I can cross back and forth at will with relative impunity. Normally such a crossing is a shocking enough physical trauma for an adult. For an infant of six months, even under my protection, it can be injurious, and two such crossings in a short span of time could do the child real harm. I will therefore have to remain a day in this world, with the child, before I can return to some safer spot in my own."

  The light dawned. Gil smiled. "You need a place to hole up."

  "As you say. I need an isolated spot and a few creature comforts-a place to pass that time in obscurity. Do you know of such a place?"

  "You could come here," Gil offered.

  Ingold shook his head. "No," he said decidedly.

  "Why not?"

  The wizard hesitated before answering. "It's too dangerous," he said at last. He rose from his chair, moved restlessly to the flat rectangle of the window, and pushed the curtain aside, looking out, down into the apartment courtyard below. The greenish reflections of the courtyard lights in the waters of the swimming pool rippled over the old marks of alien battles on his face. "Too many things could happen. I have a great mistrust of fate, Gil. My powers are severely limited in your world. If something were to go wrong, I have no desire to try to explain my presence or that of the child to the local authorities."

  Gil had a brief, disturbing picture of Ingold, like some bearded refugee from the Society for the Preservation of Dungeons and Dragons in his shabby robes and killing sword, having a close encounter with the local police or the Highway Patrol. Despite her impression that the Highway Patrol would come off second best, she realized such a confrontation could not be risked. Not with so much at stake.

  "There's a place we used to go past on trail rides," she said, after a moment's thought.

  "Yes?" He turned back from the window, letting the curtain swish shut.

  "A girl I used to go to school with lives out near Barstow-it's in the desert, way the hell east of here. I spent a couple weeks out there two summers ago. She had horses, and we used to ride all over the back-hills country. I remember there was a cabin, kind of a little house, out in the middle of some abandoned orange groves in the hills. We holed up there one afternoon during a thunderstorm. It isn't much, but there's running water and a kerosene stove, and it's as isolated as you could want."

  Ingold nodded. "Yes," he murmured, half to himself. "Yes, it should do."

  "I can bring you food and blankets," she went on. "Just tell me when you'll be there."

  "I don't know that yet," the wizard said quietly. "But you'll know, at the time."

  "All right." Though Gil was normally a suspicious person, it never occurred to her to question him, and this did not even surprise her about herself. She trusted him, she found, as if she had known him for years.

  Ingold reached across the table and took her hand.

  "Thank you," he said. "You are a stranger to our world and you owe us nothing-it is good of you to help."

  "Hey," Gil protested softly. "I'm not a stranger. I've been in your world, and I've seen the Dark. I just about met King Eldor, as a matter of fact." Then she paused, confused at her blunder, for she remembered that the King and the wizard were friends, and that Eldor was almost certainly going to die before the week was out.

  But Ingold passed over her error like the gentleman he was. "I know Eldor would have been pleased to make your acquaintance," he said. "And you shall always have his gratitude, and mine, for... "

  Some sound in the night made him suddenly alert, and he broke off, raising his head to listen.

  "What is it?" Gil whispered.

  Ingold turned back to her. "I'm afraid I must go," he said politely. His voice seldom betrayed worry or fear-he might have been making his excuses because of a prior engagement for tea with the Queen of Numenor. But Gil knew that something was happening, across the Void, in the embattled Palace at Gae.

  He rose to go, the straight dark line of his mantle breaking over the sword at his hip. Gil thought of the danger and of the Dark waiting on the other side of the Void. She caught at his sleeve. In a voice smaller than she meant, she said, "Hey, take care."

  His smile was like the coming of the sun. "Thank you, my dear. I always do." Then he walked a few paces to the center of the kitchen and put out his hand to push the fabric of the universe aside
like a curtain. As he did so, he drew his sword, and Gil could see the cold light that burned up off the blade as he stepped into the mist and fire beyond.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was the goddam motherless fuel pump!

  Rudy Solis identified immediately the gasp and drag of the old Chevy's engine, automatically checked his rear-vision mirror, and scanned the dark, straight, two-lane highway ahead, though he knew there was nothing resembling a light in fifty miles. With all of Southern California to choose from, naturally the thing would decide to give up the ghost in the dead, endless stretch of desert and hill country that lay between Barstow and San Bernardino, miles from anywhere in the middle of Sunday night.

  Rudy wondered if he could make it back to the party.

  Be a lot of sorrow and tears if I can't, he thought to himself, glancing over his shoulder at the ten cases of beer stacked amid the shredded foam, old newspapers, and greasy articles of unidentifiable clothing heaped in the sagging back seat. The engine faltered, coughed apologetically, and chugged on. Rudy cursed the owner of the car, the seventh-magnitude rock-and-roll star at whose party he'd been drinking and sunburning himself into a stupor all weekend, and the buddies who'd volunteered him to make the beer run, thirty miles down the hills to Barstow; cursed them impersonally, and threw in a few curses at himself as well for being euchred into going.

  Well, serves 'em right. Next time they want somebody to buy their beer for 'em, they can damn well lend me a decent car.

  But the fact was that most people had arrived at Tarot's party on motorcycles, as Rudy himself had. And Tarot-who had started out life as James Carrow and was still known as Jim when not wearing his flameout stage makeup-wasn't about to lend his custom Eldorado to anybody, no matter how few cases of beer were left.

  Well, what the hell. Rudy shook back the long hair from his eyes and risked another glance at the unrelieved blackness of empty desert reflected in his rear-view mirror. Everybody up at that hundred-thousand-dollar hideaway in the canyons was so drunk by this tune that it was impossible to see what difference ten more cases of beer could make. If worst came to worst-which it looked like it was going to, from the sound of that engine-he could always find someplace in the hills to hole up in until morning and try to hitch a ride to the nearest phone then. There was a service road about ten miles farther on that he knew of, which would take him to a dilapidated shack in what remained of an old orange grove. Half-plastered as he was, he didn't relish the idea of trying to do anything about the engine tonight, nor was the thought of sleeping by the road real appealing. Rudy took a drink from the half-empty bottle of wine propped on the seat beside him and drove on.