The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,78

and rocks and plants and where it snows and when-pah! What proof have you that these had anything to do with the first rising of the Dark?"

"Aide's memories..." Gil began-and stopped. She felt slow heat rising to her face, realizing that that, at least, was one source of information that could never be revealed. Particularly not now, when Alde had put herself in defiance of her brother and publicly as much as announced her intentions of wielding at least a certain degree of power in the Keep. "The record crystals..." she began again.

"Don't speak to me of them unless you can feel the air of those times!" Alwir sneered bitterly. "Women would parade the streets naked in a snowstorm if fashion dictated they must! And as for your memories, my sister..." He bent his scathing gaze upon the girl who sat, head bowed in wretched silence, across from Gil. "You know as well as I do that only men bear the memories of the House of Dare. A convenient departure from custom," he went on, swinging around to face Ingold, who had risen and gone to Gil's side. "And how well it proves your point!

"So I am to give up the reconquest of the world from the Dark and the alliance that will rejuvenate our civilization, not because you and your amorous student wish to keep the power in the Realm between you, not because you have had a price on your head in the Empire since you fled from there as an escaping slave, not because my sister scorns to marry a true man or because our allies will not tolerate seeing the likes of you in power-but because this other student of yours has foreseen that the Dark Ones will destroy Alketch-in divinations based upon ladies' millinery!"

He leaped up, moved around the table, and snatched the parchment scroll from Gil's hands. Ripping it in two, he turned and flung the pieces into the fire. " That for your answer. Where are the records from which you obtained these so-called facts?"

Gil moved toward him, blazing with icy rage. Her scholarly instincts were far too offended to permit her to feel fear; for the wanton destruction of her notes, she would gladly have killed him. But a strong hand caught her arm, staying her, and it was Ingold's calm, scratchy voice that replied.

"They are in the Church archives, Alwir," he said quietly. "I turned them all over to Bishop Govannin."

"You what?"

"I feared that they might come to harm," the wizard returned, unfazed by the Chancellor's crimson face. "My lady Govannin is-quite protective of her library."

Remembering the bitter quarrels between prelate and Chancellor that had punctuated all the long journey from Karst, Gil reflected that Ingold's talent for understatement occasionally bordered on the awesome. As for Alwir, he stood for a time unable to speak, the ugly rage of a man cheated of what he had felt to be his own settling around him like a cloud of noxious smoke. Shocked stillness had descended upon the common room; in it, the Chancellor's breath sounded thick and hard, as if he had been running.

"Very well," he said finally. "I was warned, and perhaps this is something that I have brought upon myself. Having taken you in-you and this wretched crew of vagabonds you call your intelligence corps-" The slash of his hand included the dumbstruck mages, who sat frozen in their places around the table. "-and having fed you out of the rations of my own household, I should have perhaps expected something better than this treason; but it seems that in dealing with you, Ingold Inglorion, one must be prepared for the unexpected.

"As for you others," he continued, glancing about him, "you are still my servants. As such, I expect you to fulfill your part in the invasion of the Nest to the letter. Afterward you may come or go as you choose. But I tell you this: if any word comes to me, from any source whatsoever, of what was spoken here tonight or if any mention is made of this- this ridiculous treason-of the Dark rising in Alketch, either to our allies or to anyone else in the Keep, I will turn you all over to the mercy of the Inquisitor. And believe me, it would be better then had you not been born."

His eyes traveled slowly over them, fraught with a rage-blistered menace that silenced even Kara's mother. Then he looked back at Ingold. "And as for you