The Walls of the Air

by Barbara Hambly

  Ingold's face was corpselike in the ghastly light, white with shock and pain and the effort to remain conscious. Rudy could see where the points of the spear had torn into his side when he'd turned at the distraction of Rudy's yell.

  Just as Lohiro knew would happen, God damn it, Rudy thought furiously, working to pull off Ingold's mantle so he could get at the wound.

  "Don't," Ingold whispered desperately.

  "You're hurt, man," Rudy muttered. "I've got to…"

  "No. I'm a healer, Rudy. I'll be all right." The old man was gasping for breath, his hand groping to press his bleeding side.

  "You're gonna goddam bleed to death…"

  "Don't talk like a fool." Ingold's eyes opened, a stranger's eyes again, hard, glittering, and furious. His breath came hoarse and ragged, but already Rudy could see the flow of blood slowing between his burned fingers, "What possessed you to bring me inside?"

  The arrogance in his voice touched off Rudy's own temper. "I had to get you to shelter! You were bleeding like a pig!"

  "And whose fault is that?" Ingold snapped. 'To be taken in by one of the cheapest tricks known to man, and a poor version of it at that."

  "Well. I'm sorry!" Rudy yelled, enraged. "Next time I'll let you fight your own goddam battle!"

  Equally furious, Ingold slashed back at him. "And if you don't have the wits to realize—"

  They both looked up as the witchlight faded. Rudy sensed the spell, then, the same strong force that had drained his power in the haunted woods. In the growing darkness, he felt Ingold's power reach out, trying to kindle light. It met with that same inexorable strength. By wizard sight he saw the old man sit up, then heard the rasping intake of breath at the pain. Outside, storms of hail clattered on the pavements. A blinding crack of lightning illuminated the swirling of wind-driven rain and silhouetted the tall, angular form in the black arch of the doorway.

  Witchlight flickered into the room again, bluish and shadowy, playing like St. Elmo's fire over the linen-fold paneling, the charred ruins of chairs, and the glinting bullion in the decaying curtains. It threaded Lohiro's dripping gold hair with quicksilver and lost itself in his staring, inhuman eyes. The long, triangular mouth quirked up into a grin at the sight of the two bloody and sodden fugitives huddled in their corner. He came slowly down the steps into the room.

  Rudy fumbled to draw his sword, but Ingold shoved him back. "Don't be stupid." The old man dragged himself to his feet, his own blade burning with a sudden, cold light.

  Look who's talking, Rudy thought, as the wizard staggered and caught his balance on the remains of a twisted chair. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.

  Whether the stagger was a deliberate fake, Rudy didn't know, but it drew Lohiro. The prongs flashed inches from Ingold's eyes. But the old man caught the crescent with his pommel, driving the spear down and past him to stick into the wood of the floor. In the same movement, it seemed, he slashed along the haft. Lohiro released his hold on the weapon and sprang clear, empty-handed.

  Ingold rushed him, the blade of his sword burning as it slashed. Then, to his horror, Rudy realized why the old man had been angry to find himself in shelter—why he had called the storm in the first place. Out of the danger of the winds, Lohiro's body changed, his form melting into the form of the Dark. Dodging the whining arc of the blade, the Dark One nickered aside and fell, not upon Ingold, but upon Rudy.

  There was no time to draw his sword. Rudy flung himself flat on the floor against the wall and covered his head, choking on the smell of stone, mold, blood, and acid in the darkness that seemed to engulf him. A shower of pebbles and dead leaves was kicked over him, and he felt the edge of a ragged mantle brush his face. Somewhere in the darkness, metal whined very close to him. When he looked up, it was to see Ingold standing above him, the crimson stain spreading over his side again. Five feet away, Lohiro was pulling his spear free of the floor. He was smiling, but there was still nothing in his eyes.

  The Archmage moved in again, light on his feet, agile as a cat. The mind might have been taken over by the Dark, but the body and its training were his own. And he was fresh, Rudy thought—fresher, anyway, than Ingold, who had the long labor in the library and the slaying of the dragon behind him. Also, the Archmage wasn't conscious of trying to kill a man who had been his friend.

  Rudy glanced up at Ingold. Red-rimmed eyes glittered in the black-bruised hollows of flesh. There was no pity in them, no remorse. Like Lohiro, Ingold was a machine that existed for the kill.

  He ducked a feint to the eyes and the lightning head-blow that followed, then twisted out of the way as the prongs gouged upward at groin and belly. Lohiro evaded the old man's rush, falling back to his own distance and driving in again. The prongs of the crescent glittered, catching Ingold's blade and scissoring it viciously from his hands, the metal flashing as it struck the far wall. Ingold took a step back, his hands empty.

  Lohiro struck like a gold puma. Rudy never saw Ingold's hand move, but he knew it must have done so, for Lohiro, though the floor at his feet was clear, tripped and staggered in his rush. In that gained second, Rudy pulled his own blade from its scabbard and tossed it to Ingold's ready hand. If the wizard had been less exhausted, he might have been faster, but the Archmage sidestepped the rush and regained his balance. A muffled explosion of sound cracked between them, throwing Ingold back against the far wall of the room, and the spear whined in again, the crescent driving into the panels to pin Ingold's sword hand to the wood. Then the Dark One, who had been Lohiro the Archmage an instant before, struck in along the spear haft. In the closing gap between the darkness around the Dark One and the old man pinned to the wall, Rudy had a confused glimpse of Ingold's left hand reaching across his body to pull his dagger from his belt; in the inky shadows, he saw the glint of its needle point. Then he heard a cry, somewhere between a shriek and a moan, and for an instant, Rudy wasn't sure who had cried out or why.

  The darkness retreated. Rudy saw Ingold again, flattened against the wall, his sword hand still pinned and his eyes shut, his face glittering with sweat. Slumped against him, slender white hands clinging to his shoulders for support, Lohiro's long body was already buckling at the knees, the gold head bowed next to Ingold's face. Slowly he slipped downward and crumpled at the old man's feet.

  Ingold dropped the bloody dagger and reached across his own body to dislodge the pronged spear. By the time Rudy got over to them, he was on his knees, gathering the Archmage's bleeding form into his arms.

  Lohiro's eyes opened, blinking dazedly up at the face above his. "Ingold?" he whispered, then coughed, bringing up a trickle of blood. In the witchlight, his face was ghastly, bathed in sweat and suddenly pinched-looking, as if the flesh were falling in on the bones. Even to Rudy's inexperience, the wound was obviously mortal.

  Ingold said nothing, only sat with his head lowered, his face hidden in shadow.

  The Archmage whispered, "… lied. Dark here—below." He tried to draw breath and coughed again, a hideous gurgling sound. Bony fingers picked restlessly at Ingold's sleeve. "Trapped… maze. Coming." He gasped, choking, and a spasm of pain passed across the thin, fox-like features. "Healer… you can heal me… They've let me go. Free."

  Softly the old man said, "I'm sorry, Lohiro."

  "Didn't mean… they took… made me." He choked again, fighting for air with a horrible wheezing. His fingers clamped hard over Ingold's soiled mantle, shaking at it, like a tugging child. "Heal… you can. They let me go."

  Ingold's voice was a murmur for the dying man's ears alone. "I'm sorry. They might be able to take you back, you see."

  "No," Lohiro gasped; for a moment, his face twisted again, with anger as much as with pain. Then that passed, and he coughed, bringing up more blood. "Don't know," he whispered. "Stupid… I never could… beat you. They take you… but they don't know." He coughed again, struggling to draw himself up. Over Ingold's shoulder, Rudy could see that the younger wizard's chest bore a dark, glistening river of blood. "They want you,"
he went on, his voice fading. "You…"

  "Why?"

  The blue eyes closed and gold lashes showed sharply against white skin that was already growing waxy. Lohiro rolled his head from side to side, his face convulsed with pain. "One of them," he whispered. "Became one of them. They are not many… they're one. They want you…"

  "Why?" Ingold demanded.

  Lohiro went on as if he had not heard. "I know… But stupid. I'm sorry. I know…" he whispered. "The moss… the herds of the Dark…" He coughed yet again, as if gagging on blood. "… the ice in the north…"

  The gold head lolled back. A moment later the long, white fingers slipped down from Ingold's sleeves and the nimble, bony body became a dead weight in his arms. For as long, Rudy guessed, as it would take to count to a hundred, Ingold sat in the darkness, cradling the friend he had slain. Then he laid the body down gently and got to his feet, his face harsh, terrible, and as empty as that of a stone image.

  "Come," he said quietly. "If the Dark are below, they'll be after us now." He disappeared through a doorway, to return a few moments later leading Che. He found and sheathed his sword, while Rudy collected his own weapon and the gold-pronged spear Lohiro had carried.

  Outside, the storm continued unabatedly, rain and wind slashing the town with redoubled fury. Ingold pulled up his hood, shadowing his face, and wrapped over it his sodden muffler with its trailing ends. Then he paused, turning back, gazing at Lohiro's body. It lay crumpled in the shadows where the Archmage had fallen, blood pooling on the leaf-strewn floor.

  For a long time Ingold stood so, as if fixing some memory in his heart. Then, without warning, the twisted body of the dead Archmage burst into flame, the red-gold light showing clearly the sharp-boned face, the long, elegant hands, and the bright hair now transmuted to real fire. The pyre roared ceiling-high, a spreading column of heat that licked the rafters, its glare illuminating Ingold's calm, almost disinterested face and tortured eyes. Rudy watched until the body began to blacken, flesh curling from the bones in the midst of those topaz veils of heat, then turned away, unable to bear the sight The room was filled with the odor of charred flesh.

  After a time, he heard Ingold lead Che up the stairs, and he followed them out into the rain.

  Thus they slipped from Quo like thieves, under cover of the hurricane winds. The Dark they left trapped within the walls of air. They left also in that town the ruins of the world's wizardry and the hopes of magical aid for humankind. Toward morning they made a cold camp in the hills above, and Rudy slept the profound sleep of total exhaustion. He woke in the afternoon to see Ingold sitting as he had last seen him, knees drawn up and arms linked around them, staring sightlessly down at the ruins by the gray ocean and weeping without a sound.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Firelight touched the rocks of the arroyo and shivered like rain down the strings of Rudy's harp. He respected Ingold's dictum that he should not play it, but night after night, in the windy darkness of the desert, he was drawn to it, unwrapping it from its bindings and testing its twenty-six strings. He learned them as he had learned the runes, each note in its sequence, each with its separate beauty and use.

  On the other side of the fire, Ingold was silent, as he had been silent going on five days now.

  On the whole, Rudy preferred the old man's silence to his bitter sarcasm, or to that blistering politeness with which he had treated any offer of comfort regarding what had happened at Quo. If Rudy had even doubted that Ingold's nature had its cruel side—which, he supposed, he must have, back in the days when he had been naive—he did not doubt now. There were days when, if he had not been too afraid of the old man, Rudy would have told him to go to hell and left him—except that there was nowhere else to go in the midst of the winter-ridden plains.

  Winter had locked down over the empty lands. The sky and ground were alike made of iron, the going slow, the hunting poor. Rudy did most of the hunting, as he did most of everything else. It was he who lay for hours in the brush blinds to shoot meat that Ingold seldom touched, he who washed the stains of Lohiro's blood from the old man's robe and patched the tears in his mantle. When Ingold did eat, it was because Rudy forced him to; when he spoke, it was with an impersonal bitterness that bordered on contempt. He seemed to be drawing further and further into some remote part of himself, walling himself into his private hell of guilt and grief and pain.

  And why not? Rudy thought, his mind turning back to the illusion-circled city on the shores of the Western Ocean, and the body of the golden-haired mage blackening like a. straw in the flames. Who's to say Lohiro didn't have the answer? Who's to say he couldn't have given it to us, once the Dark Ones let go of his mind?

  If, of course, they really did let go.

  And if Ingold didn't simply let him die when he could have saved him, out of rage at his having betrayed them all.

  Rudy glanced across the fire once again. Ingold was staring into the flames that were multiplied & hundredfold in his bleak eyes. He looked old, exhausted, and shabby, his long white hair fluttering around the sunken cheeks and brooding eyes. Out in the darkness, the wail of a coyote curled, thin and hopeless, on the wind, the cry of a lost soul wandering dry and empty wastes. The cloud-cover had broken, and the full moon stared down upon them from the rim of the broken-toothed western hills. Rudy wondered what Ingold saw in the blaze.

  Was it Quo as it had been in the warm beauty of that last summer, unaware of the horror underlying its heart? Lohiro's empty eyes? Things that could have been, had Ingold thought to send them warning of the Dark? Or the Keep, black amid the snows under remote and freezing stars, now that the wizards of the world could literally be counted on the fingers of one hand?

  Ingold, Bektis, Kara, me, and Kara's mother, Rudy enumerated glumly. What the hell kind of chance have we got against all the forces of the Dark? What kind of chance has anyone got?

  No wonder Ingold walked in silence, a tumbleweed ghost on the desert road.

  Only occasionally would the wizard rouse himself to give lessons in power that were, for days on end, their only means of communication. But his teaching was like everything else, brittle and bitter and cruel. He seemed to care very little whether Rudy learned anything or not; for him, Rudy felt, the lessons were simply a means of temporarily forgetting. He would throw unexplained illusions into Rudy's path, or deliberately wrap himself in a cloaking-spell and leave Rudy to search. For two days he had blind-folded Rudy, forcing him to rely on his other senses as they marched on in sightless silence. Without warning, Ingold had called forth blinding torrents of wind and rain and deadly flash floods in the washes, with which Rudy must cope or drown. By scorn and sarcasm and vicious invective, he pushed the younger man to learn stronger spells and taught him the tricky and terrible secrets of divination by water and bone.

  Everything Ingold taught, he taught as a stranger. For the rest, he could not be bothered to speak at all.

  Experimentally, Rudy's fingers formed chords, thirds and fifths. The tones of the harp sounded true. A wizard's harp, he thought, brought from the wizards' city. Did the spells that preserved it from harm keep it tuned as well? Cautiously, first with melody alone and then with groping chords, he found his way through the saddest and most beautiful of the Lennon-McCartney ballads, his mind and body bending to the harp, his eyes to the firelight and starlight on hands and strings. The music was clean, pure, and incredibly delicate, like a star caught in crystal, and he hated his own awkwardness and ignorance as unworthy of such beauty.

  In the desert the coyotes yipped again, a full-throated chorus in the windy night. Rudy looked up and saw that Ingold had gone.

  The moon had set. Rudy had no sense of the presence of the Dark, nor of any creature in the wastes of stone and cracked, parched clay, save those that made the place their home. Che dozed on the end of his tether.

  Rudy set aside his harp and made a slow, careful examination of the camp. It was safe and secure within its rings of protective spells. Ingold's staff
was gone. So was one of the bows.

  Dogging a wizard by starlight was one of the less easy feats of this life. But Ingold's brutal training had paid off; Rudy picked up the turn of a branch and the scatter of sand that lay the wrong way to the wind, pointing a possible lead. He belted on his sword and picked up the staff that had once belonged to Lohiro the Archmage, taking his bearings from a notch in the hills and the shape and roll of the land. He stepped quietly away from the camp; then, turning back, he laid a word of warning on the whole outfit. Six feet farther off, he glanced back, and there was no trace of burro, fire, or packs to be seen.

  He moved through the windy darkness like a ghost. Casting his senses wide, he occasionally found a trace of the old man—a place where a kit fox had unaccountably veered aside, or the slight scratch in the dirt on a rock face. He heard no sound, saw nothing moving in all the vastness of the frozen rocks, but twice his eyes returned to a humped black shadow where bare boulders broke the raw silver of clay flats. It was off the course of Ingold's trail. He could see nothing of the wizard in that jumbled outcrop of rock. But long meditation had given him a sense of dividing life from lifelessness. And once, on another windy desert night, he had glimpsed the shape of Ingold's soul, and that he would never forget.

  Nevertheless, he had to get very close before he could be sure.

  He stalked Ingold like a drift of wind in the night, as he had stalked his friends the jackrabbits. By this time he had a certain amount of experience as a hunter. But before he could reach the rocks, he saw Ingold move, a single turn of his head and the glint of a bitter eye in darkness. Then the wizard turned away again, scarcely even interested.

  Rudy emerged from the concealing shadows. "You planning on coming back to camp tonight?"