The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,119

but from the marks of the last extremities of suffering. "I'll tell you one thing, though-poppy wouldn't do anything like that." He knelt beside the King and felt the racing pulse under the hot flesh of the wrist. Eldor regarded him unknowingly, the glazed eyes half-hidden under lashless lids. His breath came in a fast, steady whine through his teeth.

"Where did Alde go?"

Gil shook her head. "When I told her what was going on, she stuck around only long enough to wrap up Tir before she took off at a run."

"Can't say I blame her," Rudy muttered. He dragged the covers away from the restless body. "You know where Bektis keeps his medicines?"

She glanced up from the hearth, where she had been setting a kettle of water to heat. The firelight glittered on the half-dried blood on her drawn face. "The Inquisition destroyed everything of his," she said, and Rudy muttered something savagely about the Inquisition. She added, almost shyly, "But I have all of Ingold's stuff. It's-it's under my bunk, where I stashed your harp. I'll go get it." She rose to her feet, brushing ashes from her hands.

Rudy slung the covers back where they had been. Outside the closed door, the Icefalcon's cool voice could be heard, turning away servants, clerks, and Guards who had been drawn by the commotion. Rudy tried to think, his mind clouded by the long exhaustion of that horrible night. "I think you'd better stay with Eldor, Gil," he said at last. "I'll see what kind of purgatives I can find in the commons and stop by the barracks on my way back here." He shivered, realizing for the first time how damp his own clothes were. He couldn't look much better than Gil did.

From the darkness of the hall came the sudden, muffled tread of many feet and the Icefalcon's light, warning voice. "It's Govannin!" he called, and Rudy groaned.

"Christ, that's all we need," he said. A hoarse, dry voice rapped out an order, and he heard the rattling of scabbards and mail. A moment later the door opened, and the Bishop of Gae stepped into the room.

Bitter, dark eyes under those graceful, curving brows studied him, like a gardener contemplating a snail. "So you returned, mage."

He stood up, conscious of the smarting of his bruises, the ache in his shoulders, and the sting of the life returning to his frostbitten fingers. The weariness of the eternal night seemed to be grained into the flesh of his body, but anger stirred in him, like a swig of fiery brandy. In a shaking voice he said, "I was told there was a man sick here, my lady."

She gave a single dry sniff of contemptuous laughter. "I should think he is the last man you would aid."

"Yeah, you would think so," Rudy said tiredly. "And considering he's tried to break your power over the people of the Keep, he might be the last man you would aid. But whatever else I am, I'm a wizard; and though we don't make any vows and we don't preach about what people ought to do, there's an understanding among wizards that we hold our power as a trust and we help whoever needs it, whether that person has just got done cursing us, or whether it would be more convenient for our love lives if he died, or whatever. Now, if you're not going to help me, lady, you get the hell out of my way."

Govannin glanced over her shoulder at the Red Monks who filled the doorway at her back. "Arrest him."

There was a thin metallic whine as Gil pulled her blade free of its scabbard, and the light of the glowstones sang along its edge. The Red Monks hesitated visibly.

Govannin's vulture eyes never shifted. "Arrest them both. Eldor's illness is a judgment upon a man who would choose to deal with magic and the work of wizards."

Rudy shouted, "For a lady who'd use the Rune of the Chain, you talk mighty big about magic!"

The monks, startled, looked curiously at their Bishop, and her flat black eyes narrowed dangerously. "Silence me this liar."

"Is he a liar?" a soft voice inquired from the corridor. The warm white light of the room reflected off a shaved skull in the darkness, and Govannin swung around, her lips growing tight with anger.

"What affair of yours is this, you peasant upstart?"

"Peasant or not," that gentle voice replied, "I am duly ordained and chosen Bishop of Penambra, and if you, my lady,