The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,3

remember how," he went on in his mild voice, "in the mazes of illusion that surrounded the City of Quo, you asked me once for a spell to break the wall of fog?"

"You told me the one I was using already would work just fine," Rudy recalled. "I can't say I was real pleased."

Calmly, the old man removed a speck of snow from his frayed sleeve. "If it is ever my aim to please you, Rudy, shall certainly ask you what methods I should employ." The gleam of mischief in his eyes turned his bearded face absurdly young. "But what I told you then was true. The strength of any spell is the strength of your magic-your spirit. Your power is shaped by your essence. You are your spells."

Rudy was silent, understanding this for the truth as he had not understood it in the mazes of the trackless Seaward Mountains. It was the key to human magic- perhaps the key to all things human.

"Do you feel sure of this spell, Rudy?" the wizard asked quietly. "Could you use

it again?"

"Yeah," Rudy said slowly, after long thought. "Yeah, I think so. I was scared to death, but..."

"But you kept your head," Ingold said. "And you kept your hold over the spell." Crusted frost gleamed in his scrubby beard as he nodded his head. "Do you think you could do so in the Nest of the Dark itself?"

The thought was like a hypo filled with ice water, injected directly into Rudy's heart. "Christ, I don't know! It's..." Then he saw the intentness, the calculation, in those crystal-blue eyes. "Hey, you mean- realty in the Nest of the Dark? I mean, that wasn't just a-a hypothetical question?"

The frost crackled a little as Ingold smiled. "Really, Rudy, you should know me well enough by this time to know that I seldom deal in hypotheses."

"Yeah," Rudy agreed warily. "And that's probably the scariest thing about you."

"It is the most frightening thing about any wizard. A hypothesis to anyone else is merely an overwhelming temptation to a wizard. Do you think you would be able to handle yourself in the Nest of the Dark?"

Rudy swallowed hard. "I think so." The vivid imagination which was the mainspring and curse of the mageborn sent a series of chills scampering up his spine. "That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

Ingold's eyes returned to focus from some private, inner reverie. In the starlight, they seemed bright and preternaturally clear. "The Chancellor Alwir cannot hope to reconquer Gae from the Dark without reconnaissance of their Nest there," he said quietly. "He has chosen Gae, partly because of its importance as the capital of the Realm and partly because it lies at the center of communications.

"But time is short. Our allies, from the Empire of Alketch and from the various landchiefs of the Realm, will be assembling here in the not-too-distant future. You will be leaving for Gae within a day or so."

"Okay," Rudy agreed shakily, with valiant mental adjustments. "Uh-just me?"

Ingold snorted. "Yes, just you, all by yourself," he snapped gruffly. "Of course not! For one thing, Gae is a flooded ruin-you could never hope to find your way through its streets to reach the Nest."

A drift of wind stirred his mantle and ruffled Rudy's long hair. Rudy's muscles locked at the touch of it, but he made no move. A moment later he saw the flickering shadow of a little whirlwind dancing away over the snow. He let his breath out in a shimmer of silvery smoke.

"Of the mages who survived the coming of the Dark Ones," the wizard continued quietly, "less than a dozen have powers strong enough for me to have made this test on them. They, too, are abroad in the Vale tonight. Of those, only two hail from Gae-Saerlinn. who was a healer in the lower part of town, and me."

Rudy nodded. He'd become acquainted in the last week with the other survivors of the world's wizardry. Saerlinn was a fair-haired, rather nervous young man, a few years older than his own twenty-five. He was unusual not only in the fact that he wore spectacles-uncommon enough among mages, who could generally adjust their own senses and faculties-but also because he'd managed to preserve

them unbroken on the long and desperate trek from Gae to the Vale of Renweth.

"At one time I considered leading the Gae reconnaissance myself," the old man went on, and Rudy cast him a startled, protesting glance. "But aside from the fact that, as