The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,22

fell into the crumbling moss.

It seemed to Rudy, shielding his smoke-filled eyes, that the monstrous cavern, which could have swallowed the entire Keep and still had room to spare, was engulfed not so much by spreading flame as by a single explosion, so rapidly did the moss go up. He gasped at the sudden vacuum of oxygen, his head turning light and giddy. For a moment he feared he would pass out and fall backward down the rocks into the roaring hell of the fire. As he ran on, staggering, he felt the flesh of his right cheek blistered and the backs of his hands scorched by the tremendous heat. It seemed to him as if all the Dark Ones in the Nest were streaming past him over his head, putting out their magic to kill the flames, while he fled beneath them, seeking the magic rope, with the weight of his flame thrower dragging at his blistered hand.

Then he was falling, and consciousness left him.

He came to slowly, and in the dark.

He tasted rock and water and smelled slime and stone. Both his hands were empty.

With a cry of despair he sat up, and a strong hand pushed him down again.

Something wet and shockingly cold smeared his burned cheek.

"Sit still," Ingold's voice said, not unkindly. "I believe you've caused quite enough trouble for one evening."

Slowly, his dark-sight came into focus.

They were in a small stone room like a vault. Its single entrance looked out onto a tiny garden close where half a dozen apricot trees huddled like crones in a train station, heads down against the bitter cold. Above the stink of acid and the gritty taste of dust and powdered moss in his nostrils, Rudy could smell old snow mixed with dirt and the chill scent of bad weather to come. Just visible, outlined in darkness against the door, Kara of Ippit was making additional notes on one of her tablets, her halberd leaning against the wall at her side. The unscarred profile of her face was turned toward him, and Rudy decided that, if a man were in love with her, and didn't mind cheekbones that made him think of an outcrop of granite on a desert hillside, she'd be almost pretty to him. Rudy's pronged staff, which he had somehow kept hold of during the chaos in the Nest, was propped up nearby, its points glinting dully in what wan light managed to leak from the overcast darkness of the night sky. In a corner of the little chamber, Kta was curled up asleep, like the rag-bound mummy of an Inca child.

Rudy sighed and relaxed into the not uncomfortable bed of old leaves on which he lay. They made a tired mushing sound under the single blanket spread over them and sent up a moldery, melancholy smell. "Christ," he whispered. "I'd hoped to hell you were all three out of the Nest before the fires got out of hand."

Ingold smiled and went back to mixing herbed grease between his hands. In the dim, filtered light from outside, Rudy could make out a broken pot or bowl on the floor beside the wizard, half-filled with ice-cold well water that glittered faintly as it leaked down onto the rough stone floor. "If I hadn't stopped to fight a rearguard action against the Dark," the old man replied mildly, "I would have been in that last cavern when it exploded into flame. You didn't see me?"

Rudy's eyes widened with horror and guilt. "Jesus, no. I'm sorry, man..."

"I suppose I should be galvanized with delight that the cloaking-spell works so effectively... Hold still, I'm not going to brand you. It's only burn medicine and it's good for you. Fortunately, there was a fairly straightforward tunnel that detoured around the cavern, and I did make it out- though I had to leave the rope at the stairs."

"How come?"

"Because I was carrying you." He sat back, wiping his hands on the corner of Rudy's blanket. His rough brown mantle reeked of smoke and of all the foulness of the Nest. In the shadows of his cowl, his eyes were amused and kind. "I trust your experiment with the flame thrower proved satisfactory?"

Rudy laughed shakily, and Ingold joined in-the first time, now that Rudy thought of it, that he had heard the wizard laugh in quite some time. The driven tension had faded from his eyes, leaving only an elusive, slightly haunted expression, like an echo of what he had seen in the