The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,62

what ?" But he remembered where he was, and his shout was no more than a violent whisper. "He can't do that!"

"The Inquisitor told me," she went on in a low, stifled voice, "after the Council was over-oh, long after! I think the others had gone on with the talks after I left. I-I went to Alwir... He said the treaty had already been signed-that it would be announced the night after the Winter Feast, and I would marry by proxy and be sent south with Stiarth and an escort when the army leaves for Gae. Then he locked me in..."

Rudy's long acquaintance with the brotherhood of the road had given him considerable powers of self-expression. He wondered how he could possibly have been so naive as to trust Alwir's word. The lengthy tirade upon the Chancellor's ancestry, personal habits, and probable destiny that rose to his lips was partially aimed at his own stupidity as well. But he had been a wizard too long to think that such commentary would do other than waste time.

Instead, he said, "But they can't bring Tir up in Alketch!"

"They're not going to!" she whispered frantically. "Tir's going to stay here to rule the northern realms, with Alwir as the Regent." She pressed her forehead to his shoulder. "Rudy, what are we going to do?"

Damn good question , he thought, with a feeling akin to panic creeping through his heart. What could they do? The Keep was the last sanctuary from the Dark, and there was nowhere in the Keep that Alwir would not have absolute power over them. If her brother repudiated Alde and took Tir from her, she would lose what slender independence she had. Of course, then the heir of Alketch wouldn't marry her... or would he? Rudy cudgeled his fumbling brain to think and found only confusion and ignorance, his train of thought circling back on itself, like a man lost in a snowstorm.

What good would it do to escape ? he wondered. Wherever we go in the Keep, we're Alwir's prisoners. And besides, where in the Keep can we go ?

As he asked the question, the answer became immediately obvious to him.

He bent his head and kissed the frightened, upturned face. "Get your cloak, sweetheart," he said grimly. "I don't know what we're going to do, but Ingold sure as hell will."

Despite the lateness of the hour, Ingold was awake when they reached his alcove, seated in his carved chair with a moth-eaten bearskin blanket pulled around his shoulders, staring into the few coals that remained on his hearth fire. Both his white hair and the blankets on his narrow cot in the shadows at the back of the room were rumpled from unquiet sleep, and the litter of scholarship- parchments, books, those unfathomable charts of dates and food prices Gil was compiling-strewed the desk and the floor about his feet. But by the look of them, they had given the wizard no respite from the thoughts that had driven sleep from him. He appeared to have been sitting, staring silently into the fire, for some time.

He looked up as they entered, his glance going from Rudy's face to Minalde's, and his brow darkened when he saw the wrapped bundle of quilted velvet blankets that Alde bore in her arms. "What is it?" he asked quietly. "What's happened?"

Succinctly and profanely, Rudy informed him. While he did so, the wizard got to his feet, magelight brightening over his head as he handed Alde into his own chair by the fire and took Tir to lay upon the bed. Tir promptly started working to unravel himself and go exploring.

While Rudy was speaking, Alde sat, shivering a little under the bearskin that Ingold had drawn up around her shoulders, her eyes downcast, half-hidden among the fallen coils of her hair. Only when he finished did she look up. Her eyes were dry; the fear that had been in them as she'd guided Rudy, masked by the protection of his cloaking-spells, through the frowsty and smoke-stinking back corridors of the Keep to reach the Corps complex in secret was gone. It had been replaced by the look Rudy had seen in her eyes the night she'd submitted to the spell of gnodyrr, one of determination to do what must be done.

She asked softly, "Ingold... if Alwir agreed to this-this marriage-behind my back, what else might he have agreed to?"

The old man looked down at her consideringly, leaning his wide shoulders against the rounded