The Walls of Air Page 0,2

instead of moon or stars, the darkness was lighted by torches that flickered on either side of the dark steel of the

gates. The dim orange flame defined a small double circle on the smooth blackness of the polished floor and touched fiery echoes in bolt, brace, and locking ring.

Where the two halos of red flame merged, a man stood, his rough white hair fringed by the fire in a line of burning gold.

She called out softly, 'Ingold!'

He turned and lifted an inquiring eyebrow. Gil pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders and pattered up the broad steps to the gate. Since she had crossed the Void in his company, to come unwillingly to this other universe, she couldn't remember a time when she had been warm.

'Yes, my dear?' he asked, in a voice like raw whiskey and velvet. The face revealed by the restless light had never been more than nondescript, but sixty-odd years of existence had given it an extremely lived-in look, seamed and wrinkled and mostly hidden behind a close-clipped, rather scrubby white beard. When she stood beside him, her eyes were level with his.

'What is it?" she asked him quietly.

He only said, 'I think you know.'

She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the dark steel of the gates. Here the horror was stronger, a sense of brooding malevolence in the night. Here she felt the strange, chill terror, the irrational sensation of being watched from across unknowable gulfs of time by a malign and incomprehensible intelligence. They've come,' she whispered, 'haven't they?

Ingold rested a hand gently on her shoulder. 'I think you had better go arm.'

Her eyes dark in the wan bluish witchlight, Minalde watched Rudy dress. 'What's wrong?' she whispered.

'I don't know.' His voice was low, so as not to wake the royal infant who slept in his gilded cradle in the shadows on the opposite wall. 'But I think I'd better be getting back.' After a

month in this world, the alien clothing was more or less familiar to him, and he no longer felt self-conscious in the homespun breeches and full-sleeved shirt, tunic, knee-length boots, and gaily embroidered surcoat he'd scrounged off a dead nobleman after the great massacre by the Dark Ones at Karst. But he still mourned the simplicity of jeans and a T-shirt. He buckled on his sword and leaned across the tumble of variegated silks to kiss the girl who watched him so silently. 'Will you be at the gate in the morning to see us off?

His hands framed her face. She caught his wrists, as if to hold him to her for a few minutes longer. 'No,' she said quietly. 'I can't, Rudy. It's a long way to Quo and a dangerous road. Who knows if you'll even find the Hidden City or the Archmage, once you reach the end?' Her blue eyes shimmered suddenly in the pale phosphorescence of the witchlight. 'I never could stand goodbyes.'

'Hey!' Rudy leaned-over her again, his hands gripping her neck and shoulders, the dark hair spilling heavily down over his fingers as he drew her mouth to his. 'Hey, Ingold's gonna be with me. We'll be okay. I can't imagine anyone or anything crazy enough to take on that old geezer. It won't be goodbye.'

She smiled crookedly up at him. 'Then there's no point in making much of it, is there?" Their lips met again, gently this time, the loose strands of her hair tickling his face. 'Go with God, Rudy, though the Bishop would die in her tracks if she heard me say that to a wizard.'

Through their next kiss Rudy mumbled something about the Bishop. 'Which probably wouldn't do her any harm,' he added as their mouths parted. He reached up tenderly and brushed the tear from her cheek. In all his twenty-five years, he couldn't remember anyone, man or woman, who had ever been concerned about what he was going to do. Why did it have to be a girl in another universe? he wondered. Why did it have to be a Queen? Another tear stole down her cheek, so he whispered, 'Hey, you look after Pugsley while I'm gone.' His way of referring to Prince Tir, the last heir of the House of Dare, made

her laugh in spite of herself. 'All right.' She smiled shakily.

'We'll find the Archmage and his Council,' Rudy whispered encouragingly. 'See if we don't.' He kissed her once more quickly and turned and fled, the bluish feather of light dying behind him.

In darkness he hurried