04 Mother Of Winter d-4

by Barbara Hambly

  The mousy, dirty smell of the floor, the stench of the cells around him, were overlain by a stink of charring, the dangerous ozone of lightning, and the coppery harshness of his blood. He only wanted to sleep.

  Somewhere clothing rustled. The scritch of dirty hair slipping across shoulders as someone turned his head.

  Rudy raised his head, blinking, and caught fleeting movement flit from the open door of a cell a few yards away. A foot pulled back from view.

  They were in the cells all around him, watching. Waiting for him to pass out. "Tu madre, " Rudy whispered, anger scalding him back to consciousness. He tried to rise and couldn't but managed to get to his hands and knees. When he crawled past the door, he turned to look within it-Make my day, hijoputa-but saw no one.

  Whoever they were, they were hiding. But he heard them in the corridor behind him.

  Heard them shifting, slipping, moving through the cells in front of him as well.

  Waiting.

  No, Rudy thought, every breath a separate labor, like ripping trees out of iron earth.

  No. His vision blurred. At one time he thought he saw the herdkid Geppy Nool, and Linnet's little daughter Thya, running away down the corridor from him; at another, indescribable little critters, like things from an Escher drawing, that scampered down the wall on spidery legs or ran lightly along the dirty floor in pursuit of a terrified mouse.

  He became very conscious of his heart, trying to contract with muscle that grew weaker and weaker. He couldn't seem to remember the spell to keep it going, couldn't find the power to make that spell work.

  You're the only wizard in the Keep. Alde's gonna die in childbirth if you buy it here.

  The anger at them, at those unseen watchers, flared anew. Her death would be on their hands. And they wouldn't care. The smell of their clothing, their flesh, grew stronger in his nostrils.

  He heard the scrape of an elbow, the tap of a weapon, against the flimsy wall behind him. Barely able to turn his head, he saw them only as darkness within a growing darkness. An eye flashed, and then a blade.

  Dammit, he whispered. Damn it, damn it...

  He stretched out his hand, formed in his mind the words, the gestures, the Summoning that had been done by the Guy with the Cats.

  It was like inhaling radioactive stardust, like a shot glass full of hyperdrive fuel. Rudy gasped, turned, flung lightning at the approaching shapes and heard one cry out and fall, smelled charred flesh as he scrambled to his feet, ran and staggered around another corner and down another passageway before he fell. There was a ladder down, not too far from here-he could see his own spell-marks on the wall, guiding the way. He tried to rise and fell again, though his flesh still tingled with the power he'd called. He poured it inward, blocking the effects of the poison as best he could.

  C'mon, heart, do your stuff...

  In his hand he formed the illusion of a little purple fireball and set it on the floor.

  "Okay, Lassie," he said to it. "Go get the Icefalcon."

  The fireball rolled away down the corridor in a trail of violet sparks.

  Rudy listened behind him. Nothing.

  Slowly, he began to drag himself toward the stair.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He sat on plank scaffolding in a corner of the Keep... The Keep? Dawnlight surrounded him, dove-colored and chilly. But everything within him knew that he was in the Keep.

  He seemed to be sitting at the outer edge of a maze of scaffolding, miles of it stretching away in both directions, thousands of feet along black glass walls that rose up unevenly against that orchid sky.

  He looked down and saw a chasm of shadow hundreds of feet deep, from which the spiderweb framework rose: planks and what looked like bamboo, rope bridges, all wreathed and woven with lines of magic.

  Machinery rested on some of the platforms, unfamiliar black shapes that glistened with cold crystal appurtenances in their circles of silver and smoke; more power-circles had been drawn on every jerry-built bridge and catwalk, their curves and lines reaching off into the twilight air to form a lace of unsupported magic. And on every one of those platforms and bridges and catwalks, he could see the bodies of sleeping men and women, like sentries felled by plague. Beside one, two cats were; sleeping, too.

  It is the Keep, Rudy thought. The Keep before it was finished. And the woman who sat bowed, defeated, curled within herself on the black plinth that rose out of the center of the foundation-it was the Bald Lady.

  The scaffolding where he sat he could feel the edge of the damp planks sharply against his thighs, smell the oil of the machine next to him and the heartbreaking cold-was close enough that he could see her face when she raised her head at the sound of hooves, close enough to see the stoic pain in her eyes at the sight of the man framed within the open square of what would be the Keep doors. "Rudy?"

  Alde's voice. She sounded scared. As well she might, he thought. He opened his eyes to a brief vision of her, sitting on the edge of the bed where he lay. Then he slipped back to find himself once more in the darkness of the corridor, with strange chalky creatures like legless scorpions rolling pillbug fashion down the dirty floor, and the dead herdkids standing in a row in front of him, hand in hand, watching him... "Rudy!"

  Pain went through his head as if it had been split with wedges, and he rolled over fast-someone barely got him a slop bucket before the tsunami of nausea hit. "Well, there's a waste of good rations," remarked the Icefalcon's voice. Rudy made a weary but universal gesture and after a moment ventured to open his eyes again. He was in his own small chamber. Somebody had brought in half a dozen glowstones, so the place was fairly bright, and about two-thirds of the population of the Keep seemed to have packed itself into the seven-by-fifteen cell. He revised the number downward to a score or so, including the Bishop Maia, Varkis Hogshearer and his repellent offspring, Philonis Weaver-who was one of the several nonmage Healers in the Keep patronized by those whose religious scruples kept them from consulting wizards- Lord and Lady Sketh, Koram Biggar, a whole squad of fifth level-north types and another phalanx of Sketh and Ankres henchmen, and about half the Keep Council. All of them were talking.

  ''Did you see them?" Biggar demanded. "Do you know who they were?" "The Icefalcon found you near the Brass Fountain Stairway on the fifth north,"

  Minalde said. "It's a deserted section; nobody Janus has questioned saw anything. It wasn't a... a gaboogoo, was it?"

  "I tell you there's none such in the Keep!" Old Man Wicket snapped, and Biggar groaned.

  "Don't tell me you're going to want the whole level searched again!" "Who else would do such a thing?" "Some I could name."

  Rudy didn't see who in the back had made that remark. Alde said quickly, "Whoever did it has to know that without a trained wizard in the Keep, the Keep itself is doomed."

  "Doomed is what it is anyway, begging your pardon, lady." Bannerlord Pnak Nenion pushed his way to her side, with several of his third-level-north dependents. "I tell you, there will be no good in remaining in this place, not if we had a hundred wizards."

  "And my daughter's trained," Hogshearer snapped. "Smart as a whip, she is-aren't you, Princess?-and picking up the Knowledge like she was taught from babyhood. Show them how you call fire. Show them, girl."

  "But show them outside, please," Philonis Weaver said in her soft voice. "Outside the Keep entirely, if you would, dear. Look at me, Master Rudy. Are you seeing double?" He shook his head. Her fingers rested on his wrist, cool and competent, then shifted to take the second, inner pulse.

  Weaver and two or three others in the Keep operated out of the long Church medical tradition, a combination of anatomical study, herbalism, and dream interpretation, which Ingold had learned and Rudy was learning: Weaver, though devoutly religious, was willing and happy to teach them.

  She checked under his eyelids and pressed his nails and gave him a bitter draught of betony and a tiny breath of foxglove as a stimulant, and herded out everyone except Minalde, who remained sitting quietl
y on the edge of Rudy's bed. As they passed through the door he saw Lady Sketh put an arm around Scala Hogshearer's shoulders and smile with toothy noblesse oblige. The draught cleared Rudy's mind. He was able to lay spells of healing on the deep wound in his side, though he could tell there was no infection and that the internal bleeding had already been competently stopped. He could feel traces of the poison still in his system, but even that was below danger level.

  He was naked to the waist, no real discomfort in one of the warm inner rooms of the Keep-with a bandage over the stinging wound on the back of his right arm and a mass of dressings and plasters bound on his side.

  His head ached like a thousand hangovers and his mouth tasted like a peat bog. "My vest over there, babe?"

  She made a long arm for it, where it lay with his bloodsoaked shirt on top of the chest. By the way she picked it up, he knew it still had the Cylinder in it and some if not all the ensorcelled potatoes. It clattered faintly as she set it down. "What on earth do you have in there?"

  He fished in the pockets, found the Cylinder unharmed, and scooped out the glassy dark nuggets he'd retrieved from the niche. "The Spuds of Doom," he said. Her blue eyes got huge. He'd told her what Gil had said about food and history-she knew the importance of what he'd d found. She whispered, "Oh, thank God," and closed her eyes, all the tension in her body seeming, in that one moment, to ease. "Thank God."

  "God and the Guy with the Cats." Rudy counted them quickly; all were there, as well as the smaller, unidentifiable beads. "I took enough to experiment with and left the

  rest where they were. I don't think there's a soul in the Keep but me who can get to them."

  Her hands pressed over his. "Thank God. They've been talking about leaving the Keep, you know. In Council. Bannorlord Pnak and his people, mostly..." "Leaving the Keep?" Rudy half made a move to sit, and immediately gave up the idea. "For where? Escorted by what army?"

  "For the Alketch." Minalde's voice was shaky. "Enas Barrelstave wants us to throw ourselves on the mercy of the Emperor."

  "Alketch is a war zone, and anybody who heads down there is just asking to end up dead or a slave."

  "Master Barrelstave says our only source of that information is Ingold, who might very well be a lunatic. He says, why send someone with whatever wealth can be scraped up, to buy cattle and run the risk of being robbed, when we can go there..." "Like we're not gonna be robbed wandering around in the wilderness on foot? We're fine here."

  "That's what Lord Ankres said," Minalde sighed, and moved her shoulders, as if glad to be rid of some heavy yoke. "It was... ugly. And difficult. Koram Biggar said that as long as we've the wizards, we should be fine."

  "As long as we've the wizards. " Rudy sighed and rubbed his temples. "Great. Thanks, Koram. Stick a target on my back, why don't you. When did he say this?" "This morning," Alde said. Then she smiled and rubbed her hand gently across his chest, as if stroking a dog. "But if you think Enas Barrelstave would have you assassinated just to convince people of his opinion..."

  "Naah." Rudy sighed. "Although, come to think of it, they'd have to dump me before they reached the Alketch because-according to Ingold, at least-they take a damn dim view of magic down there."

  "It wasn't the gaboogoos, was it?" Her voice was a whisper. Rudy shook his head. "Nope. It was definitely Our Side."

  He slept, and woke, and slept again, and, waking sometime in the deeps of the night, tried to contact Ingold, to no avail. Whether this was the effect of the ice-mages' enchantments or a holdover from the poison, he wasn't sure-he, could light a fire and summon illusion, but wouldn't have liked to bet his own or Alde's life on his ability to do more than that. He couldn't reach Thoth, either, nor Wend and Ilae. Wend's hushed, half-whispering voice echoed in his troubled dreams, and the way the little priest had kept looking over his shoulder as he'd said, Something is there. Philonis Weaver returned to him in the morning with more draughts and commented on how well his side was healing, but the effects of the poison were slow to disperse. He would doze, waking sometimes to find Alde sitting quietly beside him holding his hand.

  Sometimes he would hear the soft tread of a Guard outside his door. She brought him books from Ingold's library, old scrolls and a whole sheaf of Gil's notes, and for hours he searched, looking for some mention of the power that had come to him on fifth north, or the spells by which he had called lightning, or the name Brycothis. A day or two later the Icefalcon came in with the news that Bannerlord Pnak and about thirty-five of his adherents had departed, clandestinely and after helping themselves to considerably more meat and grain than the Keep could afford to lose. "By the look of things, it seems they attempted to take Yoshabel the mule as well," the White Raider added, setting down a fresh pitcher of water beside Rudy's bed. "An unwise decision, and in the event she is still with us. You should know, too, that Lady Sketh is much taken up with Varkis Hogshearer and his daughter, and has graciously deigned to receive them in her enclave."

  ''That's a change of heart," Rudy remarked. He folded together Ingold's oldest manuscript on Time and the alteration of States of Being, which he had propped against the wall beside him, and brightened the witchlight over his head for his visitor's sake, though in his heart he doubted that the Icefalcon really needed it. "I thought she didn't even speak to anybody who had less than eight different kinds of gingerbread on their House Emblem."

  "You underestimate the ennobling qualities of a mage in the family," the Icefalcon replied. He'd just come from training, his fingers bruised and bandaged and pale hair dark with sweat.

  "Master Hogshearer is received in many places in the Keep these days. I understand he's taken to promising his daughter's services, `When my little Princess is the mage of this Keep.' I think only his knowledge that his little Princess hasn't actually learned a thing keeps him from putting a pillow over your face."

  "I'm gonna friggin' kill the bastard," Rudy muttered savagely. "No wonder he and Scala have been in here twice a day asking me how I'm feeling and when can she start lessons again."

  "You thought it was out of care for your health?"

  "Yeah," Rudy snarled sarcastically. "And now you've broken my heart and I feel a setback coming on."

  "I shall commit suicide from remorse."

  "Your mother."

  The Icefalcon bowed gravely. "Your horse."

  And departed. That was annoying. But in the days that followed, various of the Guards and of Rudy's other friends in the Keep brought him news still more disquieting, news of rumor, of gossip, of whispers.

  "They're saying you should have refused to go down to the Settlements that day," Lord Brig informed him, leaning in the doorway of the cell with the dirt of the fields thick on his heavy sheepskin boots. "That you should have known, should have sensed danger coming..."

  "Who's saying?" Rudy demanded, trying to sit up in the welter of notes and scrolls and codexes scattered over the counterpane, and His Lordship shook his head.

  "Some laundresses, who heard it from one of the potters... The usual latrine chat. It's absurd, I know." He ran a hand over his dark tousle of hair. "Just thought you ought to know."

  "I can see the argument with Ingold," Rudy said to Minalde when she came in later, exhausted and speechless with exasperation after a particularly contentious meeting of the Council. "Yeah, maybe he shouldn't go off scavenging every summer like he does, though if he hadn't, we'd never have gotten that oil of vitriol to experiment with for killing slunch. But why they should extend that to me..."

  "Because you're here," Minalde said softly. "Because you're one of the things that keeps me in power. Because without you, an alliance between Lady Sketh and Lord Ankres might just prove strong enough to take control of Tir away from me."

  She rested a hand on her belly protectively, and Rudy saw how thin it was, its rings abandoned when they no longer fit. He reached out and laid his own on hers.

  "Lord Sketh is a cousin of mine, you know. He's started calling Tir 'cousin,' and telling him ho
w he has to learn to be a man. If he can get Lord Ankres on his side, he has the position to step into regency, and control of the Keep."

  "He can't do that, can he?" Rudy asked uneasily. "What's Lord Ankres got against you?"

  Her hand moved gently over the child within her. "That I've given myself to a wizard. That I've violated Church. It's one reason I've been so careful with you, Rudy. The child could be anyone's; no one can prove who the father is. Yes, everyone knows-but most people don't want to. Ankres has a very strong sense of what's proper. It's what has kept him loyal to me, but this has put his loyalty to the test. And now Lady Sketh is working on having an alternative mage, should anything happen to you." But with all that, Rudy knew in his heart he couldn't stop teaching Scala whatever the girl could learn. He put her to memorizing the less devastating of the Runes-though they were all pretty dangerous-and noted uneasily that she'd acquired a string of what looked like real pearls around her unwashed neck, pearls he'd last seen on Lady Sketh.

  "I can't learn these," Scala whined.

  He set the notes aside, almost subconsciously putting them between his own body and the wall.

  Scala threw the wax tablet down on the bed. "They're too hard." Rudy opened his mouth to say, Tough noogie, kid, but something in those puffy, defiant eyes stopped him. Cripes, old Varkis is probably all over her butt to learn something he can trade on, he thought.

  His voice was gentle when he said, "Magic's hard, Scala. It's hard for me. It makes me nuts when Ingold tells me to figure out something for myself." He reached out, trying not to wince at the pain in his side, and picked up the tablet from the faded quilt.

  "You know how he taught me the Runes? We were camped out one night in the desert-"

  And Ingold had been in the midst of his black depression after the destruction of Quo, but Rudy suspected that hadn't affected his teaching style all that much. "-and he wrote out the whole cycle of them, all forty-seven, in a circle around the campfire. He didn't tell me what they were for and he didn't tell me to memorize them. He just assumed from then on that I knew them, and when he told me how to use one or another, I'd damn well better know what it looked like."