The Walls of the Air

by Barbara Hambly

  Then in the outer dark, that twinkle of pronged gold came again, with a stirring in the shadows along the beach. Rudy started to move, but a hand touched his wrist, stilling him, and he felt Ingold's lingers shaking.

  A distant flicker of moonlight shone on the crescent end of a staff and was echoed still more brightly on loose, fire-colored hair. The wind picked up the motion of a dark cloak, billowing it briefly behind the man who walked along the ocean's edge, his tracks dark, enigmatic writing in the sand behind him.

  Rudy knew their camp was wreathed in cloaking-spells fully as elusive as the walls of air that still circled the tomb of Quo, but the man looked straight toward them; in the moonlight, he could be seen to smile. The long stride quickened. Ingold's hand closed like a crushing vise on the bones of Rudy's wrist.

  A dozen yards from the camp, Lohiro broke into a run. Ingold was on his feet instantly, striding out to meet him, catching his hands in greeting. Moonlight showed the old man and the young together, and gleamed on silver hair and gold and on the gnawed skeleton that lay half-buried in the sand at their feet.

  "Ingold, you old vagabond," Lohiro said softly. "I knew you'd come."

  "Why did you stay?" Ingold asked later, when they'd drawn the Archmage into the circle of their fire. Lohiro glanced up from the meal of pan bread and dried meat he had been devouring. To Rudy's eyes, he looked thin and hunted; the sharp face was worn down to its elegant bones. •In the bright gold mane that fell almost to his shoulders, scattered streaks of silver caught the firelight. His eyes were as they had been in Rudy's vision in the crystal— wide and variegated blue, like a kaleidoscope, flecked all through with dark and light, and containing that odd, empty expressionlessness Rudy had noticed before. After seeing Ingold before the ruins of Forn's Tower, it made sense.

  "Because I couldn't get away." Lohiro laughed, briefly and bitterly, at the sharpness of Ingold's glance. "Oh, the Dark are gone," he reassured them, in a taut, ironic voice. 'They left the same night, clouds of them, their darkness blotting the stars. But I— It took the lot of us to weave the maze, my friend. One man couldn't pick that mesh apart."

  "Yet they left?"

  The skeletal white fingers gestured upward. "Through the air," he said. "Over the maze itself."

  Ingold frowned. "How could they? The mazes extend for miles above the town."

  Lohiro paused, then shook his head wearily. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

  "Were you taken by surprise?" Ingold asked quietly.

  The Archmage nodded. Behind him, his staff was stuck upright in the sand like a spear, the firelight glimmering off its points.

  "By the Dark Ones from the Nest in the plains as well?"

  "No." Lohiro raised his head, a little surprised at the question. "No, they had left their Nest to join the assault on Gae. Didn't you— Of course you wouldn't know." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "We knew they'd left the plains to attack Gae—oh, the night it happened, I think. We'd all been going crazy for weeks. We had councils, committees, and research throughout the watches of the night. .Teams of first-year students dug through the old records in the library. Thoth the Recorder turned out his most ancient documents, things so old they were held together by cobwebs and spells alone. It reminded me of that old joke about the miser whose favorite camel had swallowed a diamond." He shrugged. The points of his shoulder bones stood out sharply under the dark cloth of his robe. "But we turned up nothing much to the point. Only…" He hesitated, as if struggling with himself, and the dark, swooping brows were knotted in momentary pain.

  "Only—what?"

  Lohiro looked up again and shook his head. "It was very late. Thoth, Anamara, and I were still awake, but I think almost everyone else had gone to his bed. We'd all seen the fall of Gae, one way or another. There was a great heaviness over the town. Still, I don't think any of us were uneasy for our own safety. It happened—suddenly." He snapped his long fingers. "Like that. A great explosion—I've never seen the like. You saw what it did to the tower."

  Ingold nodded, and his voice was very tired. "Like the experiments Hasrid used to do with blasting powder," he agreed. "You remember the stone house he wrecked?"

  Lohiro grinned wryly. "That was nothing," he said, "compared to this. This was like—I don't know. It shook the foundations of the tower to its roots. I don't think I did anything, just sat there like a fool, and that probably saved me. Anamara ran to the door and threw it open… The darkness rolled over her like a big wave. I don't think she had time to make a sound."

  Ingold looked away, and Rudy could see by the amber glow of the fire every small muscle, from temple to jaw, thrown suddenly into harsh prominence.

  Lohiro went on. "I think Thoth called one burst of light—I don't know. Then…" He stopped, seeing Ingold's face. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking down at his hands. For a long moment the terrible silence was unbroken except for the surge of the waves on the shining wetness of the sand. "I didn't know."

  Ingold turned back to him. His face was calm, but something had changed in his eyes. "It's nothing," he said. "It never was." And Lohiro, catching his eye, half-smiled, reassured.

  Like a fine beading of diamonds, Rudy could see the sweat that suddenly glittered along the curve of the old man's temples.

  "And that was it," the Archmage continued quietly. "I threw the strongest cloaking-spell I could find around myself and went under the desk and prayed." His long fingers wound together, unconsciously caressing the strong bones of those too-thin hands. "The next second there was a roar as if the whole side of the tower were going out— which it was, of course—and from where I was, I could see nothing but a kind of dark hurricane as they ripped the room to shreds. There was nothing else I could do, not even come out and fight them, for the room was a buzzing blackness of them, swarming like monster bees. Through the break in the wall of the tower, I could dimly see that the whole town lay under a cloud, as if I looked down into a storm." Wind blew in from the sea, a sudden gust of it stirring the thick, shining hair. Lohiro shook his head and raised those tired, empty eyes to meet Ingold's. 'They never had a chance," he said softly. "I could see lights, fire. I could smell the power, thrown out into that storm and burned. But there were so many of the Dark—so many. Someone turned himself into a dragon. From where I lay, I could see it, like a giant red eagle surrounded by hornets. But mostly—they were taken in their beds so suddenly that none of them knew."

  The sea wind blew stronger, the voice of the waves imperceptibly louder on the offshore rocks. Rudy saw the clouds piling together to blot the blazing moon.

  "And after," Ingold said quietly, "why didn't you get in touch with me?"

  "I tried." The Archmage sighed. 'The makers of the maze are dead, but the maze lives. I've been trying to contact you for weeks."

  Ingold started to say something else, then stopped himself. By the firelight, he looked suddenly harsh and old, and the dark lines of bitter care cut like wire into his mouth and eyes.

  Darkness was drawing like a curtain over the beach as the moon was lost in swift, smothering clouds. Its dying light glinted on the white crests of the driven waves. Even in the shelter of the rocks, their small fire began to thresh wildly in the wind.

  "Yeah, but why couldn't you… ?" Rudy began.

  Ingold cut in. "What have you been living on?"

  Lohiro chuckled bitterly. "Moss."

  "From the Nest?"

  Lohiro nodded, his long, triangular mouth twisting unexpectedly into a wry grin. "Oh, there was a certain amount of salvage, if you wanted to fight the rats for it, I lived on that for a while. But I went down into the Nest of the Dark at last and lived on the moss, like their poor, wretched herds. Not that it's done me any more good…" He stopped again, wincing as if at sudden pain. The long hands shut on each other, bone crushing bone,

  "Yes?" Ingold asked softly.

  The changeable eyes flickered up at him, startled and empty. "What was I saying?"

  "About the moss."
>
  "Oh." Lohiro shrugged again. "Sometimes I wondered—

  I lived like a beast. Alone. In the dark, like a mole. There were times I thought I'd go mad."

  "Yeah," Rudy broke in. "But why didn't you… ?"

  "Rudy, be still!" Ingold snapped, and Rudy, startled at the hardness of the tone, relapsed into silence. Ingold was profiled against the dark sea, and Rudy saw the old man's nostrils flare slightly, as if in anger, or as if his breath had quickened in fear. But he went on calmly. "What about the herds of the Dark?"

  Lohiro's eyes shifted. "What about them?"

  "Were they down there?" The smell of the storm front moving in off the sea was suddenly strong, a cold rushing of winds.

  "No," Lohiro said after a moment. "No. They were gone. I don't know where or how. There was no trace of them."

  Ingold thought about that briefly, then leaned forward and picked up a stick of driftwood to poke at the fire. The embers leaped and the wind twisted at the ribbons of flame. "You were right about the dragon," he remarked casually. "It was caught in the maze as well. We had to kill it."

  "Do you know who it was?"

  "Hasrid, I think," Ingold said. "He always did like dragons."

  The Archmage nodded. "So he did."

  Puzzled, Rudy looked from face to face in the firelight. Unsaid things and sentences unfinished hammered at his consciousness; for no reason he could think of, he was suddenly afraid—afraid of Ingold, harsh and distant and drawn in upon himself, and afraid of the tall, slender Archmage, restlessly twining his long fingers as he sat on the very edge of the circle of firelight. Rudy was afraid of the tension that lay in the silence between them, of the things they were obviously not saying to each other, and of something he could not name. "Look," he said, "I'm going to go check out the town…"

  Ingold didn't even glance around. "Shut up and stay where you are!" He looked up from the fire to Lohiro again. "Although, mind you, Rudy did a good job helping me. He worked decoy as well as you did against the dragon we slew in the north."

  Lohiro nodded. "Yes," he said. "I'd forgotten that."

  Across the fire, their eyes met. The silence stretched like tensioned wire, straining toward its inevitable breaking point, bitter and undeniable. It flashed across Rudy's mind that he stood in hideous danger; but, as when he had stood paralyzed, gazing into the dragon's eyes, he could not have moved, had he wanted to. In the changeable brightness of Lohiro's eyes he could see nothing human. Nothing at all.

  Ingold said softly, "You never worked decoy in your life."

  The eyes were blank, empty. The Archmage's stillness was that of an automaton; the restless hands ceased moving, and the long, sensitive muscles of the face suddenly slacked. For an eternity, there were no sounds except the cold roar of the ocean and the ragged draw of Ingold's hoarse breath.

  Then Lohiro struck, blindingly swift. The metal crescent of his staff seemed to burn in the light as it lashed across the fire, aimed at Ingold's throat. Ingold's sword was in his hands. The old man parried from his knees and rolled to his feet seconds later as Lohiro rushed him, sand and cinders flying from the Archmage's ragged mantle, emptiness in his staring eyes. Immobile with shock, Rudy could only watch in horror.

  Ingold parried Lohiro's rush so closely that the crescent's metal point put an inch of red line on the outer edge of his right cheekbone. He caught the back of the crescent on the strong part of his own blade and continued the momentum of the rush, tearing the weapon from the Archmage's hands. It skidded away into the sand. Rudy cried out, in terror or warning, he did not know which, as Lohiro threw himself, empty-handed, toward Ingold…

  … and changed!

  The long, clever body seemed to melt into the billow of his wind-torn cloak, and his white, reaching hands appeared to multiply and become snatching claws. Without stopping his movement, he became a falling darkness of gaping, tentacled mouth that slobbered acid onto the sand and a spiny whip of tail snaking out to wrap itself around Ingold's body. Then the storm winds hit them like a freezing avalanche, caught that dark, tenuous body like an immense kite, and whirled it away into the howling night.

  The winds roared down around Rudy and Ingold, a universe of noise and spray. Slashed sand buried the fire. Rudy was still sitting, his mouth open in shock and horror, when Ingold reached him at a staggering run through the wild chaos of the elements and pulled him bodily to his feet. The old man paused long enough to grab his staff and Che's lead-rope, then shoved Rudy along ahead through the blinding hurricane toward Quo.

  Lohiro was waiting for them on the steps up from the beach. His face was as white as that of a glass-eyed corpse in the wild darkness of wind and magic, and his gold hair lifted from his brow in a fiery halo. Under the booming of the breakers, his voice was clearly audible, cool and amused. "Well, Ingold? Will you really slay me?" He started down the steps, his pronged spear at the ready. "Me?"

  Ingold whispered, "You above all, my son."

  With a swift, snapping movement, Lohiro reversed the staff, slamming its iron-shod foot like a club at Ingold's temple. The old man ducked, slashing upward and inward. Rudy saw white flesh and a thin streak of blood as the Archmage stepped away from the blade and chopped the staff down like an ax. Ingold caught the force on his pommel, drove the whining hardwood down past him, and struck along the shaft in the split second that the spear was entangled and his opponent's balance upset. Fire exploded between them, thrown from Lohiro's hand almost in Ingold's face. The old man staggered on the steps, his arm flung up to protect his eyes, and the younger one reversed the staff again, catching him under the knees and throwing him down onto the sand. In the same motion, Lohiro turned the staff and struck downward with it like a pitchfork at Ingold's throat. The movement was unbelievably quick and smooth, as deadly as a striking snake. But somehow the old man was not under the razor edge of the weapon. He rolled and parried, catching the shaft with his hands and bringing his foot up in his opponent's groin, hurling the Archmage bodily over his head and into the dark beach beyond. Ingold rolled to his knees, gasping, with fire streaming from his open hand…

  But Lohiro was gone.

  Ingold scrambled to his feet as rain began to slash from the black, boiling skies. Rudy ran to him, as if waked from a trance. Without a word, Ingold caught his arm and half-dragged him up the steps. Lightning roared into the sky above them, laying bare the bones of the deserted town and blinding the fugitives in its passing, the thunder shaking the world like the crack of doom. Rain plastered their hair to their cheeks as they fled along the water-sheeted colonnade, the pillars on both sides leaping into electric-blue visibility and plunging into darkness with the bursting of the lightning. The gusting wind tore at their robes as they ran, and the rain drenched them. Che was squealing and jerking against the lead-rein, in terror at the smell of electricity and power. Rudy wondered desperately what they'd do if the stupid critter succeeded in bolting with all their food supplies and the books Ingold had risked both their lives to salvage.

  Then light burned his eyes, the smell of ozone searing at his nostrils and his hair prickling with the crackle of the lightning. The ruined wall before them smoked with the blast. Turning, Rudy saw Lohiro behind them, with his empty eyes and mocking grin.

  Lightning illuminated Lohiro's raised white hand in the rain. Earsplitting thunder came simultaneously with a burning white explosion; a ruined doorpost near where they stood shattered, the splinters tearing the thick buffalohide of Rudy's coat. A rain squall veered, blinding him. Through it, the Archmage was a dim, watery form, his soaked gold hair lying slickly on his head, slowly advancing with his razor-pronged spear. Rudy shrank back, too afraid to run further, knowing that if lightning hit the pavement, they would all be electrocuted from the inch of water that flooded it.

  Between Rudy and the Archmage, Ingold stood, the blade of his sword gleaming eerily in the soaking darkness. The winds increased, hurling great sheets of horizontal rain. On the drowning pavement the two wizards circled, feeling
each other out. Thirty inches of blade, Rudy thought dizzily, to six and a half feet of dark, iron-hard wood. Slick footing and blinding rain. Ingold edged to the right, feinting, testing; Lohiro swayed like a snake. There was a swift gesture of Lohiro's long, white fingers and Ingold's quick counterspell, followed by the murmur of stillborn thunder and the acrid stink of ozone.

  There were two Lohiros. Rudy saw the second one step, catlike, from the shattered doorway not three feet from him; with swift and deadly silence, the double plunged the pronged blade at Ingold's unprotected back.

  Che reared, screaming in terror at the apparition. Rudy yelled wildly, "INGOLD, LOOK OUT!"

  The wizard whirled. Half-blind in the wind, Rudy drew his own sword and slashed at that second Lohiro, only to have the figure flicker out of existence. He saw Ingold twist too late away from the razor crescent and stagger back, hand to his side. There was a whine of air as the Archmage reversed the staff in his hands again and the crack of the wood against the old man's skull. Rudy stood for one instant in paralyzed horror as Lohiro reached down and wrenched the sword from Ingold's nerveless hands. The Archmage bent over the crumpled body with a look of chill, pitiless satisfaction in his inhuman eyes. Then, with an inarticulate cry of fury, Rudy flung himself at the Archmage, heedless of the consequences. His sword seared through the blinding curtain of rain, but met only darkness and the fading echo of Lohiro's mocking laugh.

  Rudy turned and scrambled back to where Ingold was struggling to rise from a pool of rain and blood. Che had already bolted through one of the dark doorways. Rudy pulled the old man erect, collected the sword where it lay a few feet away, and half-dragged, half-carried him to shelter inside.

  It was one of the few buildings in Quo still blessed with a roof. Rain and wind crashed against the piled ruins of the storeys above, like the pounding of the mad sea. Rudy was shivering with fright and exertion as he laid Ingold down on a drift of moldering leaves and the soaked and matted remains of books. He called a faint glimmering of witchlight; by its gleam, he could see two skeletons crumpled in another corner of the room.