The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,115

movie pin-up girls and even Minalde , Rudy thought groggily. At this moment Gil Patterson is absolutely the most beautiful lady I have ever seen .

"What the Sam Hill is this?" she whispered, drawing back in sudden revulsion from the dangling seal.

He managed to say, "The Rune of the Chain. What they used to imprison Ingold back at Karst. Govannin brought it out for me, special."

"Sweet of her." Gil wiped her palm instinctively on her breeches. Then she drew her sword, as Rudy had done when he'd first come in contact with the thing, and gingerly cut the sable ribbons. The lead seal fell with a little scrunch into the snow; Gil kicked it aside, as far as she could. Then she set to work with the key again.

Rudy's breath felt dry and burning in his lungs, the numbness of his body broken only by fiery shoots of agony at the slightest movement. When the chain fell away, he crumpled like a soaked blanket into the snow, and darkness gathered him and warmed him.

From several miles away, he felt his body being shaken and heard Gil say, "You pass out on me now, punk, and I'll kill you."

He tried to explain to her that he was perfectly all right and he'd feel fine after he woke up again, but somehow the words never made it past his throat. Every muscle in his back screamed in red agony as he was jerked to a half-sitting position against a bony shoulder. Someone threw what felt like a ratty old army blanket over him, tipped his head back, and dumped several gallons of napalm down his throat.

Rudy came to gasping. "What the..." He struggled, trying to break clear of Gil's cloak and recognized the taste in his nasal passages as guardroom gin.

"Shut up and lie still," Gil ordered briefly. She pulled off her surcoat-it had been inherited in the first place from some other poor soul who was currently feeding the worms and was far too big for her-and threw it over the cloak. "Think you can make it as far as Gettlesand? I brought some food, but I couldn't carry much. I'll let Alde know you got away safe."

"Thanks," Rudy whispered. "Gil, thanks. I don't know how you managed to do all this, but..."

"I pinched the keys from Janus," she replied. "I suspect he knows-or anyway, he won't ask. The Icefalcon's on gate guard tonight."

Rudy tried to move one arm and was rewarded by what felt like a terminal case of cramps. "You'd better get on back, then," he whispered. "You'll both be in trouble if someone comes by and finds the gate open."

"The gate's not open," Gil said, shocked at the suggestion. "You think, after all we've been through, I'd leave the gate open?"

"But the Dark..."

She shrugged. "The Icefalcon lent me this." She pulled a little token of wood from her belt, hand-carved and old, on which Rudy could make out the carven Rune of the Veil. There seemed little point in asking how the Icefalcon had reacquired it from the late Imperial Nephew. "It should be plenty warm in the cattle pens, and I know how to get in past the wolf traps around them. Don't worry about me, punk."

He looked up at her face, as chill and aloof as marble, and wondered that he had thought of her as a mere bookworm spook when he'd met her in the warm dream world of California. He rolled up onto his side, the effort bringing blinding pain.

"Gil," he said softly, "listen to me. You've saved my life-I'll never be able to pay off that debt. But I need your help. I need it bad."

She frowned, puzzled. Stripped to her shirt sleeves in the deep cold of the night, she had begun to shiver.

Rudy sighed and tried to pull himself to a sitting position. He sank back with a stifled moan, the packed snow buckling suddenly under the hand that he dropped to catch himself. He was only barely aware of the cold of it. "Gil," he went on, "I can't go to Gettlesand just yet. There's something I have to do first, and I can't do it alone. I..." He fell silent, his eyes going past her to the moon-washed steps of the Keep.

Alwir stood there, as dark as the shadows of the Dark Ones, his great sword gleaming naked in his hand.

He came lightly down the steps, the moon's sheen like pewter on the folds of his velvet cloak. As