The Walls of Air

by Barbara Hambly

Chapter 9

  At firs! there was only utter stillness and the low, incessant moaning of the wind. Rudy was aware of diffuse dappled light, the smell of cut mesquite and blood, and the damp cold of earth beneath his bruised cheek. He sighed and choked his breath short at the pain in his cracked rib. He tried to move and couldn't. To hell with it, then, he decided, and lay still. His head ached, but without the hallucinatory confusion of last night's chaotic dreams. Horses, noise, and the slow, graceful flight of a detached arrow against a twilight sky merged together in his mind, but his last clear memory was of that monstrous mountain of writhing, screaming flesh plunging down into the pit on top of him, blotting out the last of the light. He took two very slow, very careful breaths and did a mental stocktaking of his body, isolating it limb by limb, as Ingold had shown him how.

  First, he was alive, a circumstance that rather surprised him. His head ached, and he had a massive lump on one side. His left leg felt weak and painful, but no worse than it had yesterday, and he thought, though he couldn't be sure because he could not move his hands to check, that there were a few more ribs cracked. And that brought up the last point - he couldn't move his hands.

  They were tied behind him.

  For a few moments, he wondered if the White Raiders had merely tied him up and left him for the scavenger rats. But a drift of smoke reached his nostrils from the other side of the cut brush that walled him in, and he heard the muted nicker of horses. He lay face down in some kind of brush shelter; that much he could gather, but his face was turned toward the wall, and all he could see was the tangle of grey-leafed twigs and the chain of ants that crawled inoffensively along them. He wondered if he was alone, but didn't particularly want to give

  himself away by looking.

  He listened instead, letting his mind grow quiet and his breathing still. He found that this emptying of the thoughts was easier after the days he had spent in the loneliness of the desert. All things receded except his sense of hearing. Slowly the sounds came to his listening ears -the soft scritch of dry grasses in the wind, the clicking of dead leaves, the infinitesimal whisper of feet passing close to his shelter, and the silken, crinkling shear of a skinning knife separating hide from flesh, accompanied by the sudden strong renewal of the blood-smell. Skinning the mammoth? There was a faint stirring of a garment nearby, and the thin creaking of leather as the guard at the door of his shelter shifted his weight. So there was a guard.

  Rudy extended his senses, sending them like runners along the ground, blindly seeking by touch the nature and bounds of the camp. Some sounds made no sense to him soft little shaving noises and then the muffled tap of rock on wood. He became aware of more feet and the smoke and wood smells of a fire being stirred. A gust of wind chilled through the camp, bearing a distant scent of snow, and he heard a kind of glittery clinking sound that he thought was familiar, like a wind chime made of bones.

  For some reason, the sound frightened him.

  Soft feet swished in the sand, with a smell of feral grime and sweetgrass. He heard another, almost soundless creak of leather as a second guard stood up. He heard no voices maybe they talked in sign? - but he knew the roof of the shelter was too low to stand under. They would both be outside. He turned his head cautiously to be sure and saw two pairs of soft-booted legs visible through the low arch of the shelter's opening; beyond was the ghostly flickering of a pale daytime fire. On the other side of the fire stood a glass-festooned magic-post, its streamers twisting faintly in the wind, like a scarecrow set to frighten away the legions of Hell. In front of it, a woman warrior with long barley-coloured braids was driving stakes into the ground for a sacrifice.

  Rudy had a bad feeling about whom they'd elected for that.

  Stay calm, he instructed himself over a blinding rush of panic. Ingold taught you an undoing-spell, and it worked fine back at the camp. Nevertheless, it took him three tries that nearly cut off the circulation in his wrists before he finally felt the bindings slip and was able stealthily to work his hands free. His ankles were bound as well, but it was quicker to work the knots loose by hand. He kept his movements to a minimum, aware of the guards still standing outside. He felt almost smothered with apprehension. He knew already what he had to do.

  They'd taken his knife and sword, along with his cloak and gloves. But if he could get to the horse lines undetected, to steal two for himself and cut the rest loose, he stood a chance of getting clear away - and mounted, maybe making it all the way to the Seaward Mountains after all. Even covered by a simple illusion-spell, he knew it would be impossible to sidle between the nearer guard and the one standing by the front door, but the shelter was merely a kind of yard-high pup tent made of cut mesquite, open at the front and only loosely covered at the back. He could hear nothing close by.

  The illusion-spell was simple, as all illusions were. Stinkbug, Rudy decided. Harmless, black, little, trundling along minding its own stinkbug business. Who the hell looks at a stinkbug? He had practised illusion under Ingold's critical eye and had been rather proud of the results. To wear an illusion was to feel against his skin a wind made of cold fire, a soft, glimmering cloak of misdirection that made him appear, as so many things in this world appeared, to be something he was not.

  He pushed the brush aside and slipped through.

  If he hadn't been standing in the middle of the camp, he would hardly have known a camp was there. It was situated in a sagebrush flat, and the brush shelters blended with the surrounding mesquite, identical in positioning and size. From where he stood, only one fire was visible, but he could smell others, made of smokeless wood and half-buried in sheltered

  holes, as Ingold habitually made fires. There were White Raiders in evidence, men and women both, though the women, Rudy saw at once, were like Gil - virgins of war, clothed and armed like the men and as cold-eyed as combat troops. They were dressed alike, in close-fitting tunics and trousers of wolf or cougar hide, the greys and golds merged with the colours of the ground. Some of them wore close-fitting coats of wolf or buffalo hide. All of them were armed with knives, bows, and a form of bolo. In front of several shelters, he saw spears stabbed into the ground, the shafts ready to hand. As he'd seen before, the magic-post stood in the centre of the camp. An old man was decorating it like a Christmas tree, with strings of bone and braided grass, broken glass, and flowers, and at its foot a woman was sharpening a long skinning knife. Beyond lay the horse lines, the mustangs grouped so as to resemble to the casual eye a wild herd grazing.

  With utmost stealth, Rudy the stinkbug began his walk across the open ground of the camp.

  He moved slowly, staying within the parameters of the illusion. He passed a guard talking to one of the women outside his former prison at a distance of a few feet, and neither gave him a glance. High and pale, the silver disc of the sun had appeared, for the first time in many days, and the shadow that it threw on the dirt was an insect shadow, perfect of its kind. The chill desert winds tangled in the braided ropes of the magic-post, fluttering the petals of the winter roses twined through the eyes of the skulls. The Raider finished twisting feathers around the crossbeam and stepped back. He was an old man, his hair so white as to be almost blue and his face like an age-blackened oak burl. Rudy stopped to let him pass.

  But he didn't pass.

  Rudy's blood turned to ice water in his veins. The ancient warrior was looking down at the ground where the illusion of the stinkbug would be, and there was a hint of puzzlement in that leathery, impassive face. Then, without removing his eyes from. Rudy, he took a step or two toward one of the shelters and

  signed to a man and woman nearby to come. They did, bringing spears.

  Rudy broke into a cold sweat. Hey, come on, you can't suspect an innocent little bug. . . But of course, now that he remembered, the Icefalcon was suspicious of everyone and everything. Rudy walked as much faster as he dared, circling to get around the old man. But the three Raiders held a quick, silen
t conversation in finger signs and half-whispers, then moved in front of him once more. This isn't fair! Rudy thought frantically. He looked about for something to use as a weapon. He made one last try to get around them, and the old warrior stepped across his path again.

  Rudy's nervousness triumphed. The illusion crumbled as his concentration broke, and the white-haired Raider jerked back, startled, as Rudy seemingly materialized from the air. That one instant of surprise gave Rudy his chance. He grabbed a stick of wood from the ground, and it blazed into the etfld illusion of white fire in his hand. As the Raiders closed in, he slashed with his fiery club at the man's face, broke through the line, and ran for it.

  The camp boiled into life around him, lean, pale shapes seeming to appear from nowhere in pursuit. Rudy dodged through them at a staggering run, hearing the soft thunk of an arrow and feeling the sting of the barb skim his ankle, still swinging his flaming club at the men who tried to head him off. They fell back from the burning weapon. One of the horse guards grabbed him from the side. Rudy writhed around to knee him in the groin and struggled free to run again. He caught the nose rope of a shying mustang as hands closed on his left arm. Whirling, he laid about him with the stick, and the circle widened for an instant. That instant was all he needed. He scrambled awkwardly aboard the horse's back, thanking God the thing wasn't really tall and slashing at the Raiders on all sides. He saw his chance, turned the mustang's head out toward the open desert, and dug in his heels.

  The mustang reared once, dropped its nose, and bucked him

  ten feet into the chaparral.

  The impact with the ground was unbelievable. It slammed the breath from his body, and the broken ribs stabbed his side like knives. He tried to roll to his feet, but a stone-headed spear drove into the ground beside him, pinning the slack of his dark tunic to the earth. The shadows of the Raiders fell across him, and the next spear came down straight at his chest.

  It missed. Thrown at a distance of less than ten feet, it swerved suddenly, impossibly, in midair, wobbled, and smacked him harmlessly broadside. The Raiders froze, pointing past him with whispers of alarm at something far out in the brown distances of the desert.

  It's the ghost, Rudy thought in despair, twisting his head around to look. But he saw only a dark robed figure that seemed to melt out of the wind and the silence, a fierce-eyed and familiar old vagabond who came striding toward the camp as if he owned the place. One Raider, the man who had shot the charging mammoth in the eye, fired an arrow at him, It missed by yards. Rudy almost wept with relief.

  Ingold stopped beside him and jerked loose the spear that pinned him. A scarred, blunt-fingered hand reached down to drag him to his feet, and a familiar voice rasped, 'What did you turn yourself into?'

  'A stinkbug, for Chrissake!' Rudy sobbed. 'How the hell were they suspicious of a lousy stinkbug?'

  In the shadows of his hood, Ingold's eyes had a dry glitter. 'Have you seen any stinkbugs since you've come to this world?'

  Rudy was silent.

  Ingold went on. 'There are none - as you would have known, had you been paying attention to what goes on around you. ' He glanced from Rudy to the White Raiders, who were fanning into a circle around them, spears pointing, as they would surround a cave bear. He held the spear he'd pulled slackly in his hand,

  point- down, and made no move toward sword or weapon of any kind. 'And even so,' he continued, as if they were alone and safe, 'you could have used a simple cloaking-spell to leave the camp by the back way and head out into the brush, without a fireworks display like the one you just put on. You didn't need the horse, Rudy. And now, of course, since we've made ourselves as conspicuous as we possibly can without actually murdering someone, that is out of the question. '

  The circle tightened around them, a bristling hedge of stone and steel points, like the teeth of a shark. Ingold watched the warriors without making a move.

  'I'm sorry,' Rudy mumbled.

  The wizard's voice grated. 'You and I may be a great deal sorrier before all is said and done. '

  A slight sound made Ingold focus his attention behind him. Several of the Raiders fell hastily back. Rudy could feel the tension in the wizard, the leashed power, the blazing potential that customarily hid behind that mild, unassuming facade. The Raiders seemed to feel it, too. At least none of them appeared prepared to try to rush him.

  Then the circle shifted, and a tall Raider stepped into the centre of the ring, raising his hands to show himself unarmed.

  He was a magnificent Viking of a man in his forties, pale braided moustaches hanging down to the pit of his throat. His eyebrows were tufted like those of a lynx, curling upward and outward; beneath them, his eyes were as cold as frozen amber. The bleached grey-gold of his cougar hide garments was unrelieved by any mark of rank; but without question, he was the chief of the Raiders. He wore that majesty like a cloak.

  Chill eyes that deduced the coming of herds or the threat of a storm in the bend of a single grass blade studied Ingold and Rudy for a moment in silence, pale in the white fans of wrinkles that scored the dark-dyed skin. When he spoke, his voice was a foghorn bass, and he spoke with a sonorous accent in the tongue

  of the Wath.

  'You are wise men?'

  'I am a wise man,' Ingold replied drily. "He merely knows spells. '

  The cool eyes shifted briefly to Rudy, evaluated the distinction, and dismissed him. Rudy felt his face grow hot and wished he could truly disappear or return to his stinkbug shape and trundle off into the desert, never to be seen again.

  'I thought that so it might be,' the Raider said. 'Seldom does Yobshikithos the Arrow-Dancer miss his aim, but it is said that wise men are sometimes difficult to hit. ZyagarnalhotepamI, Hoofprint of the Wind, and you are come among the Twisted Hills People, out of the land among the White Lakes. '

  'You are far from your homes,' Ingold said gravely. 'Do the mammoth then leave the northern plains, to draw you this far to the south?'

  The foghorn voice rumbled, 'Where we ride, we ride. The lands of all the plains and of the desert are ours, ours to use without leave of mud diggers from the river, wise though they may be. But you,' he went on, with a gesture of one scar-creased hand, 'you read our magic-post on the road these ten nights gone, not merely to see it and flee away, as do the people of the Straight Roads. Are you, then, that wise man whose name was known in the south many years ago, the Desert Walker, who was friend to the White Bird and his tribe?'

  Ingold was silent for a moment, as if the name, like the stones of the desert or the shackle-gall on his wrist, brought back the taste of another life and another self. 'I am that Desert Walker,' he said at last. 'But I must tell you, Hoofprint of the Wind, that the White Bird died of knowing me. '

  'I was a friend to that White Bird,' the chieftain said quietly. 'And men die, whether known by you or not, Desert Walker. ' Bleached lashes veiled the glint of his eyes. 'But if you are that same one and the White Bird spoke truly unto me, good it is for us all that my people did not kill you, but only waited for me to come. '

  'Fortunate it is for your people,' Ingold returned gently, 'that they did not try. '

  The gold eyes met the blue in arrogant challenge, but after a moment the mouth beneath the braided moustache curled in appreciation. 'Yes,' he said softly. 'Yes, truly you are that same Desert Walker who stole the White Bird's horses. . . '

  'I never did!' Ingold protested in quick indignation.

  '. . . and made a certain bet regarding the horrible birds. . . '

  That wasn't me. '

  '. . . and lost?'

  'I won. And besides,' Ingold went on smoothly, 'it was all many years gone, and I

  was a most young and foolish Desert Walker in those days. '

  'You who are old and wise enough now to come striding into the camps of war, in the time when there are evil ghosts abroad upon the lan
d?'

  As if summoned by the speaking of the name, winds rattled in the glass and feathers of the magic-post, the white sunlight winked from the spinning metal, and the wild rose petals tore loose to lie in the grass like sacrificial blood. There was a stirring among the Raiders; a head or two turned, not toward the post, but toward the emptiness of the desert. Yet there was nothing there, nothing but the arctic cold.

  Ingold leaned upon the spear. 'Tell me of these evil ghosts,' he said.

  Zyagarnalhotep regarded these two ragged pilgrims from the lands of his enemies for a moment in silence, as if gauging what each of them was worth. Rudy had the uncomfortable feeling that they were far from out of it yet. But the chief only said, 'Come. Eat with me, you and your Little Insect who knows spells, and we will speak of this thing. '

  Hoofprint of the Wind's shelter was larger than others in the camp, but, like most of them, indistinguishable from a thicket of mesquite at more than a few feet away. The faintest drift of smoke marked its fire, with a whiff of meat cooking. Ingold unerringly picked out the concealed entrance and led the way into the dugout room. 'Is it safe?' Rudy asked softly, with a worried glance back at the warriors still grouped and talking quietly outside.

  'Is anything you've done for the past four days?' Ingold replied tartly. 'Sit down and let me see your leg. '

  The place was narrow and low-roofed, intensely gloomy, and smelling of crushed sage, dirt, and wood-smoke. Bison and mammoth furs strewed the floor, and Rudy eased himself down on to one of these while Ingold sorted through the various pouches and packets he habitually carried concealed about his person.

  Another horrible suspicion assailed Rudy. 'Hey -

  Ingold glanced up.

  'It wasn't all a test, was it? I mean, to see how well I'd get along on my own?'

  'It was not,' the wizard stated drily and began to unwrap the crusted bandages on Rudy's ankle and calf. 'For one thing, you aren't fit to be tested on anything yet, and a test of this sort would be tantamount to murder. When I have call to murder my assistants, I do so deliberately and after fair warning. For another, I should have failed you the moment you went haring off out of camp into a storm without stopping to ascertain whether I had really vanished or not. '

  'Yeah, but I-' The sense of what the old man said sank in. 'Hunh?'

  Ingold sighed and sat back on his heels. 'It's the oldest trick in the book, Rudy,' he explained patiently. 'If you want to separate two partners, one of the quickest ways of doing so is to throw a cloak ing-spell of some kind over one of them when the other one's back is turned. You were asleep, weren't you? I thought so. The other partner is

  bound to go pelting away in the opposite direction, yelling his friend's name, without stopping to make a careful search of the place or even take a second look. Merely a few minutes unguarded would have suited their purposes. The storm only made the situation worse. '

  They - who?' Rudy winced as Ingold applied the thin paste of powdered herbs and water to the half-healed mess of his scabbing wound.

  The old man looked up at him again and dried his hands on a corner of his patched and fraying mantle. 'The Dark Ones,' he said sombrely. The same ones, I think, that have followed us from Renweth. There weren't many of them, but there were enough to keep me pinned in a cave in the bank till morning. I'm going to need another piece out of your sur-coat, Rudy. We haven't anything else to bind this with. '

  Rudy obliged him, reflecting philosophically that at this point a few more tatters made little difference. He knew he looked like some gorily exaggerated beggar out of an Ingmar Bergman movie, with his filthy rags, long hair, bruised face, and four days' worth of black stubble on his jaw. Ingold looked little better, worn out, filthy, and shabby, like a St. Francis after a bar fight. The last four days hadn't been easy ones on him, either.

  'It wasn't neglect that kept me from tracking you and catching you up immediately,' Ingold went on, bending down to rewrap the wound. The Dark pursued me for two nights, and I couldn't afford to be far from shelter. I ended by killing most of them - which is the reason I believe that they came from Renweth and have pursued us all along. '

  Rudy said, 'Hunh?' and then yelped with pain as Ingold's fingers probed gently at his damaged ribs.

  'Sit still and this won't hurt. '

  'Like hell it won't. How do you figure that about Renweth?'

  'It is always difficult to count the Dark, Rudy. ' The wizard paused in his ministrations, kneeling before him in the murky darkness of the shelter, his face grave in the gloom. 'But there were surely fewer on the second night than the first, and fewer still on the third. If the Dark can communicate among themselves and there had been others within call, there would have been more, not less. Hence their anxiety to separate us, rather than risk further decrease in their numbers by an open fight. ' He turned back to his medicine bag. Those ribs are only cracked, by the way. I'll mix a gum plaster to hold them still while they heal, which they should do in a few weeks, provided you don't try any more spectacular feats like this afternoon's. I was also hampered in my pursuit of you because I had to keep track of Che. '

  'Have you still got Che?'

  'Yes,' Ingold replied mildly. 'At the moment he's concealed up my sleeve. ' Seeing Rudy's expression, he grinned suddenly for the first time since they had met. 'He's hidden out in the desert, not far from here,' he explained 'I couldn't lose him I certainly didn't plan on journeying to the Seaward Mountains, grubbing for forage all the way. We're in too much of a hurry for that. Besides,' he added, 'the Bishop would

  excommunicate me twice over if I lost her donkey. '

  Rudy pulled the frayed remains of his surcoat back into place and tangled with the lacings, cursing the man or woman in this universe who had never invented zippers. 'Ingold, listen,' he said after a moment. 'You say the Dark didn't bring in reinforcements. I was four days out in the desert alone and I never saw the Dark Ones at all. ' Ingold nodded, and Rudy had the curious feeling for a moment that the old man could read those solitary hours printed like the tracks of a piper on sand in the lines of his face. 'And you know what else? I never saw this ghost thing, either. '

  'No,' Ingold said quietly. 'Neither did I. ' Meticulously, he gathered together his herbs and medicines, his hands deft and his face in shadow as he spoke. 'And the odd thing is that I never even felt its presence. I spent last night sitting awake in the darkness, without fire, watching, hearing, and feeling, as wizards can, the threads and fibres of the air for miles over the desert, seeking the smallest sign that the Dark Ones might still know where I was. But there was no trace of the Dark, and no trace of -anything. No breath, no sign, no spirit moving over the sands, except those night-walking creatures that are one with the being of the earth. '

  Rudy nodded, understanding what Ingold had done. As he himself had extended his senses to reconnoitre the camp beyond his prison shelter of brush, so Ingold had done on a vastly greater scale. He had sought and understood the shift of every spear of wind-moved weed, every harsh little scattering of kicked sand, and every scent that rode the airs of night, with the web of his awareness thrown like a net over hundreds of miles, seeking danger in the night - and finding none.

  'But in that case,' Rudy asked, 'where or what is the ghost?'

  This do all my people ask,' a bass voice rumbled. Looking up, Rudy saw that Hoofprint had entered the shelter, bending his tall head beneath the low pitch of the roof. He was surrounded by the greasy aura of woodsmoke and stewed game. The warriors who entered behind him, lesser chiefs of the war band, Rudy guessed, bore a tightly woven basket plastered inside and out with hardened clay and filled with chunks of steaming meat. Others carried smaller vessels filled with some kind of green, sharp-smelling mush. Rudy took a second look and saw that some of the smaller vessels were the skulls of dooic. Others, judging by the shape of the cranium and the absence of a sub
orbital ridge, were not.

  The lesser chiefs settled down in a group a little apart, sitting on the furs and talking quietly among themselves in their own tongue. Rudy overheard a drift of it now and then, a spare, quiet murmur, modulated like the sigh of the wind, half-augmented by signs and marked by subtle changes of inflection. Only Hoofprint of the Wind came to sit with him and Ingold, bringing meat and mush and a bottle of some kind of drink that had a nasty sweetish backtaste and an insidious alcoholic content.

  'Now,' the chief said, when they had eaten and the semidarkness of the shelter was deepening with the coming of evening outside. 'You wise men, who read all the papers of the mud diggers beyond the mountains, what is this ghost that is more terrible than the Eaters in the Night, wise man?'

  'More terrible?' Ingold asked softly. Rudy heard in the mellow, grainy voice not

  only apprehension but overwhelming curiosity. Pointed to its lair, Rudy thought, he'd investigate it or die.

  'So must it be. '

  'Why? Have you seen it?'

  There was a movement of denial and the glint of silver on a thick, gleaming braid.

  'Then how do you know that it is more terrible?'

  The Raider shrugged, a slight gesture reminiscent of the Icefalcon's curt movements. They flee before it,' he said. 'All the holes in the ground from which they rose up have they deserted and they come no more to this part of the plain. If this thing has eaten up the Eaters, now that they are gone, will it not destroy us also? When the chosen prey of a thing dies out, will it not turn to other? We know nothing of this thing and never have we seen it. Yet why have the Eaters gone? From what would such creatures flee? Have you heard the name of this thing, Desert Walker, in all your lore?'

  'No,' Ingold said. 'I have heard nothing of this. When did they depart, the Eaters in the Night?'

  Hoofprint of the Wind paused in thought, counting backward in time. Outside, the wind grew to a shrill-voiced violence with the dropping of the ground temperature; a few inches above their heads, the hide roof of the shelter rattled angrily on its moorings.

  'It was the time of the first quarter moon of autumn,'the tall barbarian said finally, and Rudy, gifted with the dark-sight of a mage, saw Ingold look up suddenly, a strange eagerness illuminating his lined face. 'Yes,' the chieftain went on. They rose in the last full moon of the failing summer, far away in the north, and hunted across the lands of us, the Stcharnyii, the Chasers of the Mammoth, the People of the Plains. And we moved south, the Twisted Hills People, the White Lakes People, the Lava Hills People, and all the others of the Stcharnyii. We have hunted the deserts, picking little bugs from the ground as the dooic do. And now the Eaters in the Night have gone away and rise no more from their holes. But what has driven them forth, Desert Walker? What is this ghost that they fear? For now it has come here and driven the Eaters forth out of their holes, even in the desert. We have camped the night beside such a hole, and they came not in the night. Now what shall we do if this thing will choose to hunt us!'

  Ingold sat quietly for a time, as if he had turned to stone. But Rudy could feel the tension in him, like a current of electricity, and could hear it when he spoke, under the deep, scratchy calm of his voice. 'When the deer depart, the lion does not feed on the grasses on which they fed,' he said softly. 'Nor does the hrigg, the horrible bird, eat the bugs and lizards that are the prey of its prey. It may be that humankind has nothing to fear from this ghost. But tell me. Hoof-print of the Wind, where is this hole where you spent so calm and dreamless a night?'

  'From here,' the chieftain of the Raiders said, 'we could be there tomorrow, riding swift horses. ' His amber eyes gleamed a little, like a beast's in the dark.

  Beside him, Ingold asked casually, 'And have you not swift horses?'