The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,58

Pinard."

And to that, Gil realized, there was no reply.

"The Church in the South is different from what it has been in the Realm of Darwath," he continued. "Here the Church has always observed the bounds of laws. But in the South, it in the law. It crowns their kings as well as blesses them; in some cases, it has selected them as well. Govannin recognizes the spiritual authority of the Inquisition."

"You mean she'd take orders from Pinard?"

He chuckled. "Govannin Narmenlion has never taken orders from anyone in her life. But she listens to him when he tells her that God's ends justify whatever means His servants choose to employ. And she has never gotten over her anger at me for taking Brother Wend away from the Church. I suppose you could say that Pinard has corrupted her, though both of them feel nothing but the highest of intentions. And because Maia of Penambra will have none of it, he runs the risk of being charged as a schismatic himself."

"Whereas he's nothing but a simple Episcopalian." Gil smiled ironically and then said abruptly, "Did you really whack off Vair's hand in an unfair fight?"

"Of course." The old impishness twinkled suddenly in his eyes. "Considering that he was mounted and armed with a long sword, while all I had was a two-foot short sword and a chain that held me by one wrist to a post-yes, I suppose you could call it unfair. This was, as you may have gathered, back in my days as a slave in the cavalry barracks at Khirsrit. I had no idea that Vair had lost his hand as a result of that fight-I did not wound him that badly, though of course, without magic, the state of the healing arts in Alketch is notorious. In fact, I scarcely gave the matter any thought, once my own wounds were healed, and I did not see Vair again. Looking back on it, I suppose it was he who tried to have me killed shortly afterward, forcing me to escape." The wizard was silent for a moment, his eyes focused on that distant vision of another self.

"Vair was never much of a swordsman," he added, glancing over at Gil. "Despite what he claims. As I remember it, I knocked the sword out of his hand at exercises or did something which earned him a bad mark from his instructor, and against all rules of the arena, he lost his temper and came back to finish the job."

"Crowning the sin of wrath with the penultimate sin of stupidity," Gil grinned suddenly. And then, with a slight frown, she asked, "Were you a mage then?"

"Do you think that I could have been?"

She shook her head. "But if you were a grown man..."

The wizard sighed. "I was twenty-two. And old enough, as our left-handed friend has pointed out, to have come to my powers, which most mages find between the ages of nine and fourteen." He settled back in his chair and drew the mantle once more around his shoulders, as if to ward against a chill.

"But there was a war, you see, after I returned from Quo. My people were borderlords in Gettlesand; my father was the Lord of Gyrfire, a principality near Dele. In the last battle before the doors of my parents' fortress, I took a head blow which all but killed me. When I woke in the slave pens of Alketch, I had no recollection of my name, my powers, or-mercifully-my role in starting the war."

She regarded him in silence for a time, seeing with sudden clarity that brilliant, arrogant, ginger-haired young man who had been Ingold Inglorion at twenty-two. "And when did you remember?" she asked softly.

"After I escaped from Khirsrit. Out in the desert. I had a fever; I nearly died then. Kta found me." Ingold paused, staring into the fire as if through the flames he could contemplate that very distant young man. "After that, I was a hermit for many years. I remembered my power and who I was. But I also remembered that it was I who had started the war, between my use of black magic and my damned meddling in what was essentially none of my business.

"It was a long time before I had the courage so much as to light a fire without flint and steel. I got over their deaths-my parents', my younger brother's- Liardin..." He shook his head, as if clearing from it the echoes of half-forgotten voices.