The Walls of Air (Darwath #2)

The Walls of Air (Darwath #2) Page 14

Night walked the halls of Dare's Keep, bringing darkness and the soft stirring of sleepers, through cell on cell and corridor on corridor of those ancient and storied mazes. There was stillness, except for the uneasy breath of the moving air, and silence, except where, here and there, sleepers would wake with cries from hideous and identical dreams.

The small gleam of the lamplight gilded the round globes of a sandglass and licked with tiny flames on the scrollwork at the fancy end of Gil's silver hairpin. The worn wax of her tablets glowed a creamy yellow where the light touched, and the intricate fretwork of the tablet's narrow frame gleamed mahogany red, like old claret. Around her, the study was silent.

This was the new study, to which she and Aide had carried the increasing quantities of tablets, parchments, and artifacts scrounged from the lab levels below. The lamplight picked out shapes on the table: polyhedrons, milky white or crystal grey, a scattering of faceted jewels, odd, tubular mechanisms of gold and glass, and strangely shaped entities of metal and wood, some hard and angular, others sinuous, shaped to the hand. There were stacks of wax tablets and piles of dirty, mildewed, overwritten parchments - the stuff of failed scholarship, the jigsaw puzzle whose message, Gil feared, would be delivered the hard way.

The message was now, to her, very clear. She'd tracked it like a long-forgotten spoor through her notes, tangling on old words, old spellings, changes of dialect, and the language itself. The correlation was not invariable, but it was there. Not all Nests had had the citadels of wizardry built near them in the early days when the healers and seers and loremasters had held power, in these northern realms, comparable with that of the mighty Church of the south. But all citadels of wizardry - and

the cities that had grown up around them - had been built somewhere near the Nests.

Gil threw her silver stylus aside and began to pace the room. Her shoulder ached, the muscles violently complaining of the renewed rigours of practice; her hands hurt, blistered from the sword hilt, her fingers so stiffened that it was hard to write. Her hair fell in a sweaty straggle around her face, to hang in a sloppy braid behind. And her head ached, blinded by fatigue and worry and fear. She knew how Ingold must have felt, trying desperately to contact Lohiro and unable to do so, forced to baby-sit the convoy down from Karst when he could have been on his way to Quo already. And, she reflected wryly, getting damn little thanks for his trouble.

Why do I care? she wondered desperately. Why am I concerned, why do I fear this way for him and grieve with him in his grief? This world is none of mine 'and I'll be returning to my own, to a place where the sun shines and there's always enough to eat. Why do I hurt this way?

But as Ingold always said, the question was the answer. Always provided, she added wryly, you want an answer that badlv.

'Gil?'

She looked up. Minalde blew out the touchlight she carried and stepped through the thin veil of its smoke. She looked white and tired, as if from exhausting labour. As she stepped into the tiny circle of the lamplight, Gil could see she had been crying.

There was no need to ask why. Gil knew there'd been a Council that evening, and Aide was still dressed for it, the high-necked black velvet of her gown sewn with the gold eagles of the House of Dare that glittered as if she had been sprinkled with fire. The braided coils of her hair flashed with jewels. This was Aide as Queen, and very different from the girl in her thin peasant skirts and worn bodice who hurried so eagerly through the corridors of the Keep.

She brought up a folding chair and sat down, mechanically stripping the rings from her fingers and her ears, her face as unmoving as wax. Gil sat opposite her, watching in silence, toying self-consciously with her curlicued silver hairpin.

After a long time Aide said shakily, 'I wish he wouldn't do this to me.' Her trembling fingers dropped a ring, a signet carved out of a single blood ruby.

'How did the Council go?' Gil asked gently, to get her talking.

Aide shook her head, pressing her folded hands against her mouth to keep it from trembling. Finally she steadied her voice. 'I don't know why it keeps on hurting me when he gets like this, but it does. Gil, I know I'm right. Maybe I am wanting -

wanting to eat my cake and still have it to look at, at the expense of our allies. But they can afford to feed their own troops. We can't, not if we're going to have enough seed in the spring to mean anything. And yes, I know we had trade commitments to them for corn and cattle, but those were made years ago, and everything's changed. And yes, I know I'm trying to welsh out of a bad debt when the going gets tough, but God damn it, Gil, what can we do?' Her voice rose, cracking, skimming almost unnoticed over the first swearword Gil had ever heard her utter. 'But I'm not going to buy our way out of those debts by signing away part of the Realm! I've learned enough from you and Govannin about legal precedents for that. If I sign that treaty...'

'Wait a minute,' Gil said, trying to cut the rising flood of fury and pain and guilt. 'What treaty? What part of the Realm do they want you to sign away?'

The words broke the flow of Aide's emotions as a rock breaks the coming of a wave, reducing its force. She sat still for a moment, her white fingers stirring at the little heap of jewels before her, like miniature coals dyed with reflected flames of crimson, azure, and gold. 'Penambra,' she said finally.

'Penambra!' Gil cried, horrified. 'That's like selling New Orleans to the Cubans! That seaport's the key to the whole Round Sea. If you sign it over to the Alketch, they'd hold that whole coastline!'

Aide looked up hopelessly. 'I know,' she said. 'And I know it's flooded and there's nothing there but the Dark and ghouls and ruins. It's worthless to us; we can't hold it if we don't get a - a bridgehead at Gae. Alwir says that would be paying the Emperor of Alketch in counterfeit coin, and we can always take it back. He wants a bargain with Stiarth at any cost.'

'You didn't sign, did you?' Gil asked worriedly.

Aide shook her head. 'Afterward, he said I'd ruined us all.' She sniffed and wiped at her nose, the fine-carved nostrils red and raw. 'He said I'd condemned us to rotting here in the Keep while the Realm was hacked apart piecemeal between the White Raiders and Alketch, all because I wanted to cling to - to the pride of being Queen...'

The slight quavering of her voice told its tale. Alwir's accusations generally had theirdrop of truth, enough truth to plant doubt in his opponents' minds as to their own motivations. As a girl, Minalde had preened herself about being Queen pride was part of the office. And, being Aide, she had probably felt guilty about it and maybe even handed her brother the wedge by admitting it to him. Bastard, Gil thought dispassionately.

'Well, look,' Gil reasoned. 'If Stiarth gets his nose out of joint and pulls out completely - which he won't, since the Emperor would love to have somebody else fight his battles for him what have we lost? The whole scheme of invading the Nests is a gamble to begin with.'

Aide's cheeks got very pink, and she looked away quickly. That's what he said,' she murmured. That I - I wanted to ruin the expedition.'

'Why?' Gil asked, more startled than sympathetic. A lack of sympathy was one of her less endearing traits, she told herself bitterly a moment later.

Aide leaned her face on her hands. 'He says that Ingold's poisoned my mind. And maybe he's right. A year ago...'

'A year ago you had somebody else to carry the ball for your people,' Gil said roughly.

Aide shook her head miserably. 'Gil, he knows more about this than I do.'

'Like hell! He knows a lot, but he knows only what he wants to know, and that's the truth.' When Aide neither moved nor spoke, Gil went on more gently. 'Look -have you eaten anything this evening?... Then your blood-sugar level's bottomed out hours ago. I'll scrounge something for you in the barracks, and you should have a glass of wine and go to bed.'

But Aide still didn't move. Almost in a whisper, she said, 'He cared for me, Gil. He used to care for me.'

He cared for you the way a man cares for a twenty-dollar screwdriver, Gil thought coldly, because it's a good tool. But since that was what lay at the heart of her friend's wretchedness, she did not add to it by saying so. Instead she asked, 'How did Maia take it?'

Aide looked up, her eyes suddenly almost frightened. 'He was furious,' she said softly. 'I've never seen him so angry, not even when Alwir turned them away from the gates. He never showed it, not while Stiarth was there, but afterward... He's usually so gentle. Govannin will use that against Alwir.' She shook her head again tiredly. 'So that's one more thing,' she went on. 'I can't cause schism in the Keep by siding with them against him. I don't know why I'm still upset about it...'

You're upset because he wants you to be, Gil thought sourly, then turned, her quick ears catching the soft tap of feet in the passage outside. 'Who's there?' The walk was that of a woman, not one of the Guards.

'Gil- Shalos?' A grimy little blear of flame appeared in the dark doorway, shining on an unkempt twist of dark-red hair. 'They say my lady Aide's here.'

'Come in, Lolli,' Aide sat up straighter in her chair as the big Penambran woman came quietly into the room. 'How's Snelgrin?'

It never ceased to surprise Gil how even the most humble of the Keep's inhabitants seemed to accept Minalde as Queen and friend at once. She'd seen Aide making her rounds of the Keep by day, usually with Tir on her hip, sitting on the benches by the pools along the watercourses of the Aisle, talking to the women as they did their washing. Gil had come into the barracks of the Guards, or those of the troops of Alwir's household, and found Aide sitting deep in sympathetic conversation with some scarred old veteran of a dozen sacked towns.

'My lady, he's not good,' Lolli said quietly. 'I had to come and see you. You know about people, about sickness, maybe?'

Aide shook her head.

'But you're learned? You've read books?'

'Some. A little. But I couldn't...'

'I've spoken to Maia, but he had no answer for me. And that Bektis, that wizard... Begging your pardon, my lady, for he's of your House, but he couldn't so much as charm away warts, much less - this.'

'What?' Aide asked gently. 'What's the matter with Snelgrin? Is he ill?'

'No!' the woman cried in despair. 'He's fit as a fiddle, he's strong - but he's different. He changed, after that night.'

'If he spent the night outside,' Gil remarked in a quiet voice, 'it's no surprise.'

'No,' Lolli insisted. 'Bektis may say that, but not like this.' Her brown eyes sought Aide's, pleading for her to understand. 'It - sometimes there are times I think it ain't Snel there at all. That it ain't him.'

'What?' both girls cried in approximate unison, and Aide asked, 'How can you tell?'

'I don't know! If I knew, it would be easier.' Lolli buried her face in her big, red-knuckled hands, and her voice came muffled through her palms. 'He forgets things, things he should know, like - like passages around the Keep, or why he was out that night. Sometimes he just wanders. I don't know what to do, my lady! And he won't hardly speak. Only now and then, and it's - different.'

Gil's eyes met Aide's over the bowed red head. 'Shock?' she asked softly, and Aide nodded.

'It's not just the shock of it.' Lolli raised her face to them, her eyes pleading. 'It's not just the night he went outside, waiting for the Dark to have him. When he touches me...' A look of loathing passed across her face, her lips squaring back from her teeth in shuddery horror. 'I can't stand it. We haven't been married but a few weeks, and we only wanted to be happy. Now it seems I can't stand for it to touch me. It isn't him, and, by God, I don't know what it is. Oh, Snel,' she whispered hopelessly. 'Snel.'

Aide's hands rested on the woman's shoulders, rubbing the taut, quivering muscles. Lolli lowered her head again, sobbing quietly under Aide's touch like a frightened beast. For a long time there was silence, broken only by her moans, but something in the quality of the silence prickled Gil's hair, as if she felt herself being watched. Gold slivers of light moved in the tangled copper hair and picked out the knuckles of Aide's hands and the deep iris blue of her eyes as her gaze crossed Gil's. Her look was troubled, seeking advice.

'Lolli,' Gil asked after a moment, 'where is he now? Where's Snel?'

The woman only shook her head wearily. The Lord, He knows,' she murmured. 'Walks all the time, nights. Just walks. Dead eyes in a dead face. He's my husband and I loved him, but I won't be alone with him in bed.'

'No, of course not,' Aide agreed. 'Listen, Lolli, are you still in the same cell you were, up on the fifth level? Then what I suggest you do for now is move. Take your things and find another cell, preferably with someone else. Do you think Winna would let you sleep on her floor for the night?' She named the girl who was the head of the Keep herdkids, in whose company she and Gil had often seen Lolli. 'I'll ask Janus to have his Guards keep an eye out for Snel, and when someone finds him, Gil and I will talk to him. Maybe it's just that he's still strange from the shock. It was only a day or two ago...'

'Two days,' the woman whispered. 'And two ghastly nights.'

'Come.' Aide reached under Lolli's arms and coaxed her to her feet. 'You need rest now.'

Aide's just had a political knock-down-drag-out and been cursed by the one man whose opinion of her she took as her own, Gil thought wonderingly, and she's still got sympathy and more to spare for other peoples' marital problems. Following in the wake of the two other women, with lamp in hand to locate the rabbit warren of the orphans, Gil could only shake her head in amazement at the young Queen's capacity for helping others.

At this hour the corridors were deserted, the cells that lined them silent. Gil shivered, oppressed by that terrible darkness, at the same time wondering at herself. She had walked deep-night watch many times and never before felt the weight of this eerie dread. Twice she started, turning in her tracks like a frightened cat, but the lamplight showed nothing in the massed shadows behind. Still she found herself prey to a curious sensation of impending horror and shrank from every blind turn of the twisting passageways.

The orphans' compound was up on the fourth level. Lamps had been lighted there. Winna, a girl of seventeen, sat among the heaped blankets in a ragged nightdress, trying vainly to comfort a sobbing child of not much more than Tir's age. Other children huddled sleepily around them, upset and uneasy, as all children were in the face of a nightmare. Winna looked up quickly as her second in command, Tad the herd kid, admitted the newcomers.

'What is it?' Aide asked.

Winna shook her head. 'It seems to be the night for nightmares, that's all. First Lydris, then Tad, and now Prognor.'

'I didn't have a nightmare,"Tad protested, anxious to set himself off from his inferiors.

'No,' Winna corrected, 'you're too old for it to be called a nightmare - but a bad dream, anyway. How can I help you, Aide?'

Here was another one, Gil thought, who, with all her own griefs, had concern to spare.

Winna listened gravely to Aide's whispered explanations and Lolli's less coherent fears, nodding her head and stroking the fair hair of the child in her lap. The pale

faces and wide eyes that floated disembodied in the thick shadows of the room were those of the orphans whose parents had perished in the ruins of Gae and the massacre at Karst. Peter Pan's Lost Boys, Gil thought; tough little survivors of the ruin of the world. As she and Aide left, her last sight of the cell was of Winna chivvying a place among the children for Lolli to sleep, and Tad and some other child volunteering to share their blankets.

'What do you think?' Gil asked as she and Aide headed back into the darkness of the mazes. The single bobbing flame of their lamp threw monstrous gargoyle repetitions of them in the walls behind, trailing them like inept spies.

Aide shook her head, her fingers working loose the main coil of her hair, the braided knots of it falling like skeined silk over the blackness and fire of her gown. 'I don't know,' she said quietly. 'But Lolli's afraid. Is it possible that the mere fear of the Dark could have driven Snelgrin mad?'

'It's what I was afraid of,' Gil said. 'And believe me, the idea of a madman wandering around the Keep at night does not do wonders for my sense of well-being.'

'And you're armed,' Minalde added. 'I think the next thing we should do is talk to Janus. But if Snelgrin is mad, what then? Do we lock him up? Feed him through the winter on rations that could cut into the spring seed? Have someone cut his throat, like -' She broke off, but Gil could finish the sentence. Like the Icefalcon cut Medda's. Medda, whose mind the Dark had devoured, had been Aide's nurse from childhood. On the road from Karst to Renweth, no one could have looked after a stumbling zombie, and there would have been no point'to it. Aide knew this, and had known it at the time. But Gil realized that she had never forgiven the Icefalcon for being the one assigned to the job.

'Is he dangerous?'

'I don't know. Is there a way to find out?'

'Sure,' Gil said cynically. The authorities in my part of the world used it all the time. If a man flipped out, they'd wait till he actually killed somebody, then lock him up. Otherwise they couldn't know for sure.'

Aide stared at her in disbelief. 'You're not serious.'

'Cross my heart.'

'That's abominable!'

Gil, who'd had a grandmother murdered by known drug addicts in a parking lot for the contents of her purse, shrugged. 'Yeah.'

They passed a makeshift stairway that led to the upper levels, the hole where it pierced the ceiling hung with laundry to catch the rising drift of warmer air. There was no light from above, but the next stairway, also a rickety wood one, leading down, admitted a faint glimmer of candlelight from a curtained cell door, and a man's voice singing a lullaby. The girls climbed down, the darkness of the corridor below yawning like a well to receive them. As the winds of the ventilation stirred at their long hair, Gil felt it again, that sense of impending evil - shivering horror like a

subsonic note, just below the level of perception. She remembered what Winna had said about three of the children having nightmares.

'Aide,' she asked quietly, 'can you feel anything?'

'Like what?' Aide stopped. The shadows of the hallway closed around them.

'Just stand still a minute.'

Perhaps forty seconds trickled by. The silence was as audible as the drawing of breath in a room that should be empty. Gil felt an intruding consciousness of the vastness of the Keep and of the darkness filling its halls and cells. Aide shivered. 'No,' she said. 'Let's go, Gil. What do you feel?'

'I think the Dark are in force outside,' Gil said. 'It felt like this the night of their attack. Rudy felt it, and so did Ingold. Tad told me later he'd had nightmares that night.'

Aide looked around quickly. 'What about the gates?' she whispered. 'Will they hold?'

'I think so. Ingold's spells are still on them.' But remembering the terrible darkness of that roaring tunnel, Gil shuddered nonetheless. More than anything else now, she wanted Ingold back at the Keep for his power against the Dark and for the simple strength of his presence, his power against her own fears.

'Where would Janus be?'

'The barracks.' They were walking again, hurrying past doorway after dark doorway, around blind corners concealing yet more darkness, then down another flight of stairs, this time of the original stone of the Keep, broad and black and smooth. The green eyes of cats flashed in the lampflame, swift, gliding movement beyond the circle of light. Gil found herself fighting the panic urge to draw her sword. 'We should wake Alwir and tell him, too.'

'Yes.' Aide moved along quietly before Gil, holding the lamp, its flame leaping in answering glitters of gold from the embroidery of her gown. 'He should not have long gone to bed. And if the Dark are outside - Oh!' she gasped as they turned into the main corridor of the Royal Sector and saw something small and white that moved determinedly toward them at floor level. 'You little beast, you!'

Even down the length of almost pitch-black corridor, Gil could recognize Tir, crawling with his usual terrapin-like fixity of purpose toward the nearest precipice. He could not quite walk yet, but he had mastered the technique of escaping his cradle. Only his white gown showed through the darkness as a bobbing blur, like a bunny on a dark night.

Then they saw movement in the darkness behind him.

At first Gil wasn't sure - a man, she thought. He had something in his hand, and he had emerged without a sound from the room that was Minalde's. She never knew how she saw his eyes in the dark, but she did.

By the time Aide screamed, Gil was halfway up the corridor, her sword in her hand. Blurredly, she recognized Snelgrin, and saw that what he had in his hand was a hatchet. He must have seen her coming and heard Aide's screaming, but those fixed, empty eyes were on the baby a few yards in front of him, and he moved quickly. Gil wasn't sure how she managed, but she caught the hem of Tir's gown and bowled him out of the way against the corridor wall as the hatchet cracked sparks from the stone floor where he had been. Too close for blade work, she turned the sword in her hand and pommelled the man across the face with the weighted grip. She saw his nose break and the flesh gape open, but the dead eyes never blinked. Cold and paralyzing fear went through her. She tried to step back, but he caught her by the hair, his strength making nothing of her weight, and she felt her head hit the wall with a crack. Tir was screaming now, too, wild, shrill screams of terror, as Snelgrin turned back toward him with his hatchet, his empty face all glittering with blood.

Someone wrenched the sword from Gil's stunned hands. Like a berserker, Aide fell on the man, hacking inexpertly but fiercely in burning rage. Snelgrin staggered back, raising his arms jerkily to protect his face. People were pouring into the corridor, voices shouting, lights jigging crazily over the walls. Tir's screams spiralled through the darkness like a drill. As if in a fever-dream, Gil saw the thickset Snelgrin swat Minalde out of his way as if she had been a moth, duck his head, and race blindly into the darkness that swallowed him.

Gil scrambled to her feet and ran to gather Tir from where he huddled, shrieking, by the wall. He appeared to be unhurt. Then a wild-haired madwoman with blood trickling from her cut lip tore him from Gil's arms and crumpled slowly to the floor, clutching him to her breast.

'Aide,' Gil whispered, putting her arms about the girl, 'he's okay, he's fine. Are you all right?'

The dark, tangled head nodded, and somebody grabbed Gil roughly by the arm. 'What is it?' Alwir demanded, his face drained of blood. Behind him, his troopers came milling into the corridor, not all of them dressed, but all of them armed. Stiarth was there, the smell of woman still on him, hurriedly wrapping himself in a night robe, his dignity much impaired.

'Snelgrin,' Gil said shortly. 'He's mad.'

'Who?' the Imperial Nephew demanded.

'The man who was outside that night has gone mad,' Gil explained breathlessly, as Alwir went to his knees to gather his sobbing sister into his arms. He made no attempt to lift her, only held her as she clung to him in storms of hysterics.

'But why?'

'Because...' Gil began, and stopped, her mind leaping to other things. Scarcely aware that she spoke aloud, she said, 'He's gone to open the gates.'

'What?'

But she had turned and was fleeing down the black corridors like a madwoman.

How well does Snelgrin know the ways of the Keep? she wondered, dodging blindly through the tangled mazes that weeks of investigation had made as familiar to her as the freeways of home. Will he risk cutting through the Aisle to save time? Will Melantrys be able to stop him at the gate? How mad is Snelgrin? Is he ahead of me, she wondered, or behind me now?

There was no time to think. She ducked through an empty cell that she knew had a ladder down to the Aisle, heedless of her horror of heights or her knowledge that the wood of the thing was several hundred years old and crumbling with dry rot. It's the closest, she told herself grimly, and the most you can do is break your leg on the floor.

The wood crunched faintly in her grip, and the ladder swayed drunkenly under her weight. The Aisle was a void of air around and below her, through which she could faintly hear voices calling, feet running, and the thin, distant cries of a terrified child. Training had improved her reflexes; when the rung cracked under her foot, she automatically jumped clear, landing lightly and turning, listening to the darkness.

No footfalls. No panic flight. Torches burned by the gates, but there was no sign of the captain of the watch. Had she run to join the hunt? Gil wondered. God help us, she'd be right to do so. The idea of a homicidal madman wandering the labyrinths of the Keep was almost as terrifying as the thought of the Dark breeding there. If he went up instead of down, he could live for years on the fifth level without anyone seeing him at all.

Except his victims, Gil thought.

Yet she was certain he had not gone up. From where she stood now by the Church doors, she could see the gates, tiny and infinitely distant in their flickering halo of torchlight. Not quite knowing why, she broke into a run again.

She was halfway up the Aisle when she saw him. He must have learned the mazes of the Keep well, for he slipped from a doorway to the right of the gates, his face still gouted and sticky with his wounds. She could see that he still had his hatchet and now carried a heavy axe as well. Crouching like an animal, he twisted the locking rings and pulled on the inner doors. They opened easily on their soundless hinges. He pushed them fully wide, shoved something under the right-hand door, and swung the axe. Metal clanged on metal.

My God, he's wedging it open!

Gil shouted, an incoherent animal sound of fury, and threw herself those last hundred feet.

Snelgrin looked up, his body still bent. Sparks flew from the iron as he drove the last few blows at the wedge. Gil had a confused vision of his face, the expression all the more terrifying because of its oddness, as if a being without facial muscles were trying to counterfeit expression. Drool slobbered from the slack mouth. The man uttered a wheezing grunt and turned to plunge back into the pitch-darkness of the gate tunnel moments before Gil reached him.

Can it see in the dark? she wondered as she sprinted up the steps and hurled

herself into the darkness at his heels. But with the inner gate wedged open, there was time for neither speculation nor delay.

She knew where the locking rings were on the outer gates, and her hands grabbed flesh there. She'd felt his strength before, and now in the utter blackness it was terrifying, overwhelming. Hands ripped at her, pushing and tearing; she felt the axe scrape her leg as she scrambled to catch hold of his arms and body. She was yelling, shouting wildly in the darkness, praying the other Guards would show up before she was overpowered. The heavy body thrashed against hers, breath rasping hoarsely in her ears, the stink of his unwashed jerkin filling her nostrils. For a moment, they were locked in unequal combat; then she felt herself falling; the breath was driven from her, and an avalanche of flaming stars seemed to roar before her eyes. As if those blinding constellations actually gave light, she could see Snelgrin's face twitching, piglike, above her own, the eyes popping with surprise. There was an arrow driven through his Adam's apple. He choked, pawed at it, and made soundless gobbling motions, sweat gleaming on his face. He staggered a step or two to maul at the locking mechanisms of the shut outer gates, and another arrow appeared as if by magic through his temple as he turned his head.

Ten points for somebody, Gil thought and fainted.

Everyone in the Keep seemed to be around her when she came to. The roaring of voices was like the sea in a narrow place, pouring through the bare bones of her aching skull. The torchlight was blinding. She shut her eyes again and tried to turn her face away.

A wet towel was laid over her forehead. Annoyed, Gil tried to strike it aside, and a bony hand grasped her wrist. 'Easy, child,' the paper-dry voice of Bishop Govannin whispered. Gil tried to rise, rolled over, and promptly vomited. The hard hands caught her shoulders and steadied her without a word.

'What happened?' Gil asked when she finally could speak. Her head felt light, her body ached. Her face, she found, was covered with the scratches from Snelgrin's fingernails where he'd clawed her. She hadn't even felt that during the fight.

'Snelgrin is dead.' The skeletal fingers pushed aside the clammy straggle of hair from Gil's forehead. 'As we all would be by this time, had you not followed him.'

Beyond the Bishop's grave, narrow face, Maia of Thran swam into being in the torchlight, his longbow still strung in his crippled hand. 'Snel vanished through the gates just as I emerged from the Church,' he said. 'I was afraid I would not get in range in time.'

'Yeah, so was I. ' Gil looked around. It wasn't everyone in the Keep, just most of them, who crowded around her. All the watches of the Guards were there, it seemed, with most of the Red Monks, Alwir's whole private army, and most of Maia's. Melantrys' face was cut, and a lump the size of a walnut was forming on her left temple. Stiarth of Alketch now wore a kind of flowered sarong, and Alwir had his velvet cloak over his nightshirt, looking rather crumpled and human in his bare feet with their well-kept toenails. And apparently three-quarters of the men, women, and children of the Keep had all turned out in nightshirts if they had them and scantly draped in bedding if they didn't. Gil saw Tad, Bendle Stooft's rotund widow, and

Winna with her yellow hair hanging in plaits over her back. And all were talking.

Janus came back from the gate. Caldern and Bok the carpenter were still trying to hammer the wedge free with a counterwedge driven in from the other side. Snelgrin's body had been hauled out of the passage. His face lay where the torchlight could fall on it, but its expression was nothing human. Gil turned away, feeling she would be sick again.

She heard Bektis' voice, speaking low and swiftly. 'I am sure of it, my lord. The Dark are gathered outside in force. The emanations of their wrath must have driven him mad...' She turned her head and saw him standing with Alwir. Bektis was immaculate in his grey velvet gown, with every hair of his waist-length silken beard in place. Interesting, she thought. Alwir came pelting to the battle, even if he did have to do it in his nightie, while Bektis hung tight in the Royal Sector until the all-clear sounded. Probably with a bed across the door. Well, well.

'No,' a soft voice said behind her, and she looked up, to meet Maia's eyes. The Bishop of Penambra sat back on his heels, watching Alwir, Bektis, and Govannin begin to squabble in the orange circle of the torchlight. 'Snel never recovered from the night he spent outside the gates, did he, Gil-Shalos?'

Gil shook her head. 'His wife spoke to us.' 'She spoke to me as well,' the Bishop said. He glanced over at Lolli, his dark eyes gleaming in the shadows. When he and his people had come to the Keep, he had resumed the Church fashion of shaving his face and head; Gil had only recently become used to seeing that long, narrow, hollow-cheeked face without its tangled black beard. 'She is a Penambran and, like me, knows what it is to sleep outside and await the coming of the Dark. I thought it might have been because he was alone... but I knew Snel, a little. He was a man absolutely without imagination. It takes a degree of sensitivity to be driven mad. But I did not know.' He folded his crippled hands on his knees and rested his chin upon them, his long body rolled into an ungainly ball of bones as he sat on his heels. Gil leaned back against the wall behind her, her head aching, her whole body shivering with reaction.

The Bishop of Penambra went on in a lower voice. 'Bektis, of course, is useless as a healer of minds. But I have heard that Ingold Inglorion is good at such things. It is heresy for me to say so.' He grinned with his white teeth. 'But I regret his absence.'

'You and me both, friend.' Gil sighed. He looked at her curiously for a moment, then turned his eyes again to the sprawled body with its puckered, elongated expression and vacant eyes. 'It is well known that the Dark devour the mind,' he said softly. 'But this is the first time that I have heard that they can put something else in its place.'