The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,64

no power. Only friends."

Ingold turned back to her, slinging on his heavy mantle and drawing the dark hood over his rough, white hair. His shadow loomed over them, huge and batlike against the stone walls. "Never underestimate our friends, Minalde," he said gently. "In risking your life to visit Maia and the Penambrans and pleading their cause to your brother when he refused to admit them to the Keep, you made a friend; in standing against your brother in his dealings with Alketch, if for no other reason, you made others. And it so happens," he added, retrieving the wandering Prince from under the bed and wrapping him once more in his offensive swaddlings, "that Tomec Tirkenson and his rangers are staying on the fourth and fifth levels, with Maia's Penambrans. You know the backways of the Keep better than I do, my child. Would you be able to guide us unseen to the fourth level?"

It was barely the start of the day watch when Minalde returned to the Royal Sector, surrounded by her entourage.

In the Aisle, the Guards had thrown wide the gates again, and children had gone running out through the steamy dawn, to do their chores and race to the woods and cut evergreen boughs. Their singing floated back over the rucked snow and drifted faintly throughout the Keep itself. In two days it would be the Winter Feast.

But solstice cheer was hardly evident in the confusion of the lord Chancellor's quarters, and the traditional love and friendliness of the season were the farthest things from the rage-darkened countenance he showed his sister when she entered his audience hall with her train.

The opening of the doors had caught him in mid-gesticulation. He froze, mouth ajar, hand extended; all about the council table, eyes snapped to the dark doorway, now crowded with Maia's ragged guards and buckskinned Gettlesand rangers. In the split second of stopped time before the Chancellor swung around to face them, Rudy identified the others there. Vair was opulent in cut-velvet and pearls, but plain beside the emerald-green intricacies of Stiarth's gorgeous costume. Inquisitor Pinard, his white robes an advertisement of spiritual purity, stood beside the gory crimson costume of Bishop Govannin.

Alwir's face was engorged with rage; the finger that stabbed out at his sister was almost trembling with it. "You-" he began in a strangled voice, across which Govannin's dry, harsh tones cut like a knife.

"Be careful what you say, fool," she warned, and Alwir, turning, seemed to realize that they were in the presence of the ears in service to the Emperor of the South. This checked the rashness of his first words, but there was murder in his eyes as Alde and the outland chiefs stepped into the council chamber.

Against the wealth and elegance of Alwir's power. Aide's supporters did not show up well. Under Bishop Maia's tattered scarlet episcopal cloak, he wore a faded panoply of scavenged rags, topped by a sweater knitted for him by one of the Penambran ladies. Tomec Tirkenson, in his fringed buckskin shirt and fleece moccasins, looked much like the barbarians he fought. Ingold, the best-dressed of the three, might have passed for anything from a genteel beggar to a street-corner harpist, but certainly not for the Archmage of the Wizards of the West. Among them, Alde seemed to blaze, like a slip of white flame in shadows.

When Alwir spoke again, his voice was calmer but no less deadly. "I suppose you have reasons which you believe to be valid, my sister," he spat acidly, "for coming armed into my presence. But if we are to talk, it will not be in the company of these-bravos."

"These bravos, my lord, are the commanders of your outland troops," she returned, and her soft voice easily filled the council chamber.

His lip curled. "And what do military commanders have to do with statecraft and policy?"

"They die for it, my lord."

There was momentary silence. Then Alwir's face softened, and he came around the table, his hands held out to take hers, his voice gentle and beautiful. "Aide- Minalde. There are always those who die, child; always those who must sacrifice to the good of all. You know this-none better than you." He took her hands in a warm clasp, the soft modulations of his voice excluding all others around them, speaking for her ears only, as if they had been alone. "If every soldier were given his vote, no battles would ever be fought. That is why there must be leaders,