The Walls of the Air

by Barbara Hambly

She looked back down the Pass at the churned, muddy slop of the frozen road, the spatchcocked landscape of sterile black and sterile white, and the gloom of the woods that even deer had deserted. In the distance, the camp smoke made a little white streak, like a finger smudge in the murky air. "Where were they from, do you know?" she asked Seya.

  The Guard shrugged. "Penambra, maybe. The monk who talked to Alwir had a deep-south accent. Probably some of them had been wandering around in the valleys for weeks."

  Maybe Alwir was right, Gil thought as she climbed the muddy path and started back through the woods toward the Keep. The vast quantities of corn, wheat, and salt meat stored in the top two levels of the Keep, or secreted in the mazes of cells in Church territory, looked to be a lot, until one realized that they would have to last some eight thousand souls through the winter. It was only early October. Whatever forage Janus could find in the valleys below was an unknowable quantity. Perhaps it was necessary that she and the other Guards had been a party to denying food and shelter to emaciated children and to leaving them for the Dark. It was the other side of the warrior's coin. The clean joys of warfare were part of a larger picture, and what to her was a way of life was to others above her simply an instrument of policy.

  But, she reflected, she was hardly alone in that. In her light, tuneless voice she began singing "A Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One," and the Gilbert and Sullivan melody floated on the drift of an alien breeze through the dark, stony woods of another universe.

  The road circled a stand of pines, and the smells of the Keep reached her from afar, the stinging woodsmoke, as women rendered used fat and ash into soap, and the warm reek of cattle. Children's laughter mingled with the confused bleating of sheep and goats, with the ringing of an ax in the woods, and with the sound of a deep bass voice lifted, like Gil's, in song. Half-frozen mud squished under her boots as she picked her way around that last turning of the path. And there it lay before her, its sleek walls sheened by the pallor of the dull sky.

  It wasn't as big, maybe, as the monster high-rises Gil was familiar with as a child of the twentieth century. But the Keep was well over half a mile in length, hundreds of feet in breadth, and close to a hundred feet in height. Enormous doors were dwarfed by the monolith in which they were set. Its teeming inhabitants swarmed the broad steps and trampled snow at its base. Black and enigmatic, the Keep of Dare guarded its secrets.

  What secrets? Gil wondered. Who built it, and how? She was aware that it lay far beyond the technology of the present age, with its constant soft currents of air and dark, ever-flowing streams of water. Was it raised by magic or only by superb engineering?

  And her infinitely distractible scholar's mind scouted the thought: Who would know?

  Eldor, maybe. In a long-ago dream she had overheard the dead King speak of the memories he had inherited from the House of Dare, whose founder, Dare of Renweth, had raised those midnight walls. But Eldor had perished in the destruction of Gae. His son, Altir? The memories had been passed to him, to make him the target for the malice of the Dark. But he was an infant, too young to speak. Lohiro? Maybe. But the archmage was hidden at Quo, and it would be weeks before he came to the Keep, if he ever did.

  Gil considered. Ingold had said that records did not go back to the time of the building of the Keep. The chaos of the first incursion of the Dark into the realms of humankind had been followed by centuries of ignorance, social dislocation, famine, and violence. But how far back did they go? And did they carry in them some memory of an oral tradition, like Merlin and his dancing giants who reared Stonehenge? What was in the wagonloads of Church records that Bishop Govannin had risked civil war with Alwir for on the road down from Gae?

  A flicker of movement caught her eye and drove that thought from her mind. Someone was slipping through the trees to her right—someone who was furtive without being particularly skillful about it. Gil got a brief glimpse of a peasant's fluttering rainbow-colored skirts, all but hidden in the dark swirl of a cloak. She wondered if it •was any of her business.

  The shadow flitted from tree to tree, working through the woods above the road. Probably headed for the refugee camp, Gil guessed. That's the only thing in that direction. At least somebody's showing a little compassion, for all the good it's likely to do.

  In that case, it was her business. There was barely time to make it there and back before darkness fell. Gil paused in the road and, for the benefit of the fugitive, snapped her fingers and cursed as if she had forgotten something, then turned and hastened back. Once out of sight of the watcher's probable course, she doubled back through the rocks at the road's edge and scrambled her way to higher ground. She slipped between two shaggy-barked fir trees to wait, her dark cloak blending with the gloom of the shadowy afternoon, the white quatrefoil emblem of the Guards on her shoulder like a patch of snow on wet-darkened wood. In time she saw that cautious figure emerge from the trees, hurrying along the path above the road, keeping a wary eye on the backtrail, and huddling for warmth in the folds of a black fur cloak. The hood had fallen back. A great jeweled clasp glittered like Stars in the raven knots of hair.

  It was the cloak Gil recognized. Only one woman in the Keep had a cloak like that.

  "My lady!" she called out, and Minalde stopped, eyes startled and wide. Gil stepped from between the trees.

  "Please go on back," Alde said hastily, brushing the stray ends of her hair away from her face. "I'm not going far, and…"

  "You'll never make it there and back by dark," Gil said bluntly.

  "I—I'm not going to the refugee camp." The younger girl drew herself up, standing on her dignity. Her expression reminded Gil of her own younger sister when she lied.

  "And you shouldn't be going there alone," Gil went on, as if she hadn't heard.

  Alde would never make the big leagues as a liar. "But I have to," she protested. "Please don't stop me. There's plenty of time…"

  "They're camped outside the Vale, down at the Tall Gates," Gil stated unequivocally. "It will be dark in a little over two hours. And besides…" She took a step toward Alde , and the girl fell back, like a deer on the edge of flight. Gil stopped herself and spoke more softly. "And besides," she continued gently, "if they learned who you were, you might never make it back at all."

  "They won't know," Alde insisted, still keeping her distance. "I'll be all right."

  Gil sighed. "You can't know that." She took another step, and Alde retreated warily.

  Rudy had said once that Minalde's crazy courage was equaled only by her stubbornness. Gil saw now what he meant. "At least don't go alone," she said.

  Alde flushed a little and began contritely, "You don't have to…"

  "Christ knows, somebody should!" Gil turned on her heel and started back toward the entrance to the Vale, cutting through the snowy woods. "This way's quicker, and we can circle to avoid being seen from the watchpost on the road." Alde followed in her wake without a word.

  It took the girls a little over an hour to reach the camp. As Gil had surmised, the newcomers had taken over the Tall Gates, ancient watchtowers that in former times had guarded the principality around the Keep from the smaller, less organized realms of the valleys below. As the Realm had spread, the towers had ceased to be a frontier and had been allowed to fall into ruin. As ruins they remained, vine-grown cliffs of mortared stone dominating the narrow neck of the muddy road, strongholds only of bird and beast.

  The girls were met on the road by a thin, gray man— who had once been very fat indeed, to judge by the sack-like wrinkles of his deflated chins—carrying a spear and wearing over a scarecrow assortment of rags a soiled cloak of gold-frogged velvet. Alde gave their names as Alde and Gil-Shalos, from the Keep of Dare, and asked to speak with his lord.

  Ankle deep muck pulled at their feet as they crossed the square before the northern watchtower. The place smelled like a privy, wreathed in a perpetual haze of woodsmoke. The pitiful flotsam of flight littered the ground. Meager bundles of possessions, str
ay cook pots, and little heaps of firewood were scattered over the dirty snow. Men and women sat huddled miserably around their fires or moved among them slowly. The place seemed very quiet, except for the weak, persistent crying of a child. Gil felt ashamed of her cloak, her strength, and the marginal ration of food she'd wolfed down at noon. Beside her, Alde looked very white.

  Their escort halted before a brush shelter. In the shadows at the back of it, Gil thought she could discern a small, stiff figure, lying completely covered by a ragged quilt; a man sat on a bed of cut pine boughs near the open end of the shelter, quietly holding the hands of two boys who with tear-blotched faces slept huddled at his side. He looked up inquiringly as the shadows of Gil and Minalde fell across the light.

  "M'lord?"

  The man got slowly to his feet, careful not to wake the boys, and limped from the shelter. Gil recognized him at once as the monk who had spoken for the refugees when Alwir had turned them away at the gates of the Keep. "Yes, Trago?" Dark eyes sunk into leathery hollows moved past him to Gil and Alde , then rested for a moment on Alde 's face. "Yes," he said quietly. "You may go, Trago. Get someone to stay with the boys, if you would."

  Trago saluted and moved away through the camp.

  The man turned back to them, and Gil noticed how waxy his skin looked under the black tangle of unkempt beard. "I am Maia of Thran," he introduced himself in that same quiet voice. "Bishop of Penambra." Alde started to speak, startled, and he smiled suddenly, his teeth very white in his beard. "I believe my predecessor assisted at your wedding, my lady," he said. Color flooded into Alde 's cheeks that no cold could account for. He continued gently. "I was captain of his Guards." He inclined his head to her, a sign of reverence to her rank. There was no irony in his voice as he said, "Welcome to what is left of the city of Penambra."

  "I'm sorry," Alde said quietly. "Please don't think I came—idly, or—or—"

  "I do not," he replied reassuringly. "But I assume that, as you did come incognito and without retinue, your visit is less than official."

  Only a fool could have watched the interplay between Alwir and his compliant sister at the Keep gates yesterday and remained ignorant of how the land lay, Gil thought; and this tall, gaunt scarecrow in his ecclesiastical rags did not look like a fool. It was within a few percentage points of certainty that he knew that Alde had come here without the Chancellor's approval or knowledge.

  Alde raised her eyes to meet his. "I'm sorry," she said again. "But I couldn't not come."

  "I understand," Maia said, "and I thank you for your compassion." He glanced around them at the camp. Men in the muddy rags of uniforms were making arrows by the warmth of smoky fires; women were tending children as best they could. There was the ripe smell of carrion cooking, the bubbling of thin soups, and the grating, persistent wailing of a child. "Still and all, I don't advise you to come again. As legal ruler, I can still hold most of us from turning bandit. But by your next visit I may be dead or ousted. Tomorrow you may find yourself dealing with anyone. The Dark have taken a very heavy toll."

  Alde 's voice was timid. "Is Penambra truly destroyed, then?"

  "Truly," the Bishop said quietly. "Close to nine thousand of us left the city with wagonloads of goods, food, and all that we could carry away. You know Penambra— a city of bridges, built on a hundred islets in the bay. Rains flooded the town and trapped us in the cellars; and the Dark haunt those cellars, even in daylight. Half our provisions were lost to floods and half our people to the Dark before we even got clear of the town. Through the delta it was the same. The lands are flooded by the unseasonable rains and by the Dark, who have broken the levees on the rivers. What used to be the richest part of the Realm is deserted or peopled by ghouls who live by plundering the houses of the dead. It lies under terror of the Dark. They carry off as many as they kill outright. Did you know that?"

  "Yes," Alde said. "I knew."

  He looked at her closely, then nodded. "If you know that, my lady, and are still among us, you are more fortunate than I had thought."

  He folded long, bony arms. A singularly gentle man, Gil thought, to have been commander of the Church troops. A group of ragged warriors passed them, changing the camp guards, lank, dirty men and women with bows and axes. They saluted him as they walked by.

  Maia sighed. "So. People spoke of the Keep of Dare, the old hold up at Renweth. In some places, enclaves of farmers have made little Keeps, fortified buildings along the river. Your brother is not the first to turn us away. But even those don't seem to be proof against the Dark. We've found their fortresses smashed like eggshells, the defenders dead or wandering mindlessly. We've been beset by wolf packs, or dog packs hundreds strong. There was even a rumor of White Raiders in the valley… At times on the march here I felt it was the end of the world." White teeth gleamed briefly through the tangled beard. "In some ways I think the end of the world would be a simpler matter to deal with. If what the Scriptures tell is true, at least that would be quick."

  "Oh, but it has been quick." Alde looked around her at the desolate camp, her jewels glittering in her hair as she moved her head. "This summer all of us were sitting on our terraces, watching the sun in the leaves and dreaming of sledding and parties at the Winter Feast. Now, before the night of the Winter Feast, we may all be dead. That's quick."

  Something in the black humor of this amused him, for he chuckled. "Possibly. Possibly." The gray sky darkened overhead; he drew the rags of his cloak a little tighter about him. "But to have come here and to be told that there is neither food nor space by one with that monolith of the Keep at his back and his fat merchants in their ermine cloaks all around him… I do not know what I expected, my lady. But not that."

  Alde said nothing, but Gil saw the fire of shame burn her face.

  A girl came running through the mucky confusion of the camp to the shelter by which they stood, calling, "M'lord! M'lord Bishop!" He stepped toward her, and she said, "Troops, m'lord. From up the road."

  Maia cast one quick look at Alde , meeting her blank surprise. Then they all hastened to see.

  Before they reached the road, Gil could hear the sounds of the troop clearly over the unnatural silence of the camp. Behind the clinking of brass scabbard buckles, the soft slurp of boots in half-frozen slush, and the light jingling of mail shirts, she heard the whuffling breath of overworked horses and the creak of harness-work and wheels. The land on which the watchtower stood overhung the road, and the brink of it was jammed with silent, ragged watchers, but they made way for the Bishop and the two girls. Down below, Gil could see the troops hastening through the twilight—Janus on his stocky bay gelding, his red hair hidden by mail coif and helm, his eyes darting to take in every possible danger of the camp and the crowding woods beyond, Alwir's troops in their scarlet livery, leading the horses that drew the empty wagons, looking uncomfortable and ashamed as they passed before the hungry eyes of those to whom they had denied food and shelter, and the double file of Red Monks walking guard, faceless in their masking helmets. The men and women around Gil watched this show of force pass by in silence; only one child in the back of the crowd cried out, asking if those men were going to give them food.

  Beside her, Maia said softly, "They are fools to set forth anywhere this late in the day."

  Alde shook her head. "They had planned to be gone at noon. I don't know what delayed them."

  Gil did, but held her peace. The latest quarrel between Alwir and Govannin had left its marks; though the force around the empty forage-wagons looked formidable, she would have doubled it, had it been up to her. She, too remembered the farms burned by the Raiders.

  The Bishop of Penambra did not move until the last wagon and the last of the rearguard had vanished into the obscurity of the snowy woods. Then he said, "So they do not only harvest—they glean also, so that those who follow after must make a meal off the chaff."

  Alde glanced up at his tall figure, her face flushed with shame. She stammered, "We—we have need of all we can fi
nd. Alwir is raising an army, sending to the Emperor of Alketch for troops. They will burn out the Nests of the Dark at Gae, and so establish a place of safety from which we can reconquer the earth from the Dark."

  The straggly eyebrows raised, sending a whole laddering of wrinkles up the high forehead. "On several occasions the Empire of Alketch has been likened to the Devil, my lady, and it is true in this regard: they say that the Devil cannot enter any man's house unless he is first bidden, but afterward, no man may bid him to leave. I think your brother would profit to take in the seven hundred or so warriors left to me, who are loyal to the heir of the House of Dare, before he gives his bread to enemies."

  "My brother says…" Alde began. She stopped, too ashamed to go on.

  "Your brother is a man who keeps his own counsel," Maia finished gently. He reached out his big, bony hand with its two crippled fingers, to rest on the black, soft fur that fell over her shoulders. "I understand, my lady. But speak to him for us. Tell him he will need our swords. Tell him anything. We cannot hold out here long, and there is no place on the face of the earth left to which we can go."

  "I will tell him." Alde looked up into the gaunt, waxy face towering above her own.

  "Speak for us," Maia said, "and if ever you should need them, my lady, you may count on our swords and our hearts."

  "We can't just leave them to starve!" Alde said fiercely. The twilight of the lonely road had closed down around them. Evening lay like a veil over the dark trees. " Alwir can," Gil pointed out "He wouldn't!"

  "He's already done it. To bring in the Penambrans without starving our own people, Alwir would have to institute some kind of rationing system. Govannin will never stand for that."

  "But she's the Bishop!" Minalde insisted passionately. "She's the head of the Church!"

  "Sure," Gil agreed coldbloodedly. "You think she's going to welcome another Bishop into her bailiwick? And a commoner at that?" Gil had learned enough of the name structures in the Wathe to recognize what that "of Thran" meant on the end of Maia's name: farmboy; plow-tailer; sharecropper, maybe; someone to be looked down upon by those scions of the ancient Houses who could boast that semiroyal "-ion" tacked onto their titles.