The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,79
and this besotted chit of a girl-" He broke off, the words sticking in his throat.
Gil felt Ingold's reaction, like a sudden wave of smoking heat, though she would have been at a loss to describe any change that took place in the old man at her side. But the power that blazed forth from him was like a vortex offered, an Archmage's wrath like the unveiled core of some terrible energy. She saw Alwir fall back a step before it, his face yellow with shock.
"My lord Alwir," that soft, scratchy voice said, "none of these my children are your servants, nor shall you do anything against them or against this girl."
Alwir licked his dry lips, but his throat seemed unable to produce a sound. Terror-sweat stood out on his brow and cheeks, glittering in the crystalline light. Like Gil, he had known that Ingold was Archmage of the West without truly realizing what that meant.
In the utter silence that gripped the room, Ingold's low voice was the only sound. "You will act like a fool if you choose, my lord. But do not deceive yourself that I act out of any fear or regard for you or your policies. I do what I do for the good of what is left of humankind. If your quarrel is with me, then speak to me of it; for if you harm any one of these in this room, it shall be the worse for you. Now leave us."
"You..." the Chancellor gasped hoarsely, but his breath dried in his mouth. His face was ghastly, a grotesque contortion of fear.
"Get out."
The bigger man flinched, as if from a sword thrust. He backed slowly to the door; but in the shocked stillness of the common room, all could hear when his footfalls broke into a run in the darkness of the halls.
Like the slow fading of sunset, the power that had scorched the air in the room waned, and with it the soft brilliance of the light. Gil had not moved, frozen in awe of the man who stood beside her; now she turned to him and saw how the lengthening shadows deepened the crags of his face. A last fragment of the torn parchment in the fireplace caught, and the sudden flare of light stippled his white hair in gold.
Kta's piping voice was the first to break the silence. "He will never forgive you that."
Ingold sighed and closed his eyes. "He would never have forgiven me in any case."
Gil put a hand under his arm and steered him to the thronelike seat so recently vacated by Alwir. Thoth came around the end of the table to join them and laid a slender, ink-stained hand on his shoulder.
"You are weary," the serpentmage said in his dry old voice. "You should sleep."
The other mages were drifting from the room, talking in low, frightened voices of what had passed or debating what was to be done. At one end of the table, Rudy still sat, his bulky flame thrower in his hand, turning it this way and that in the light of the fire, with Alde silent and anxious at his side. The last glow of the magelight had been superseded by the rosy colors of the fire.
Ingold raised his head finally to look at Gil. "I am sorry, child," he said quietly. "You worked hard. More than that, I'm convinced that your answer to the problem of the Dark is the true one." He reached up and took her hands. "Thank you."
There was silence, fraught with unspoken words. Looking down into his face, Gil was overwhelmed by fear for him and by the sense of shadows closing and thickening around him. Where, after all, could he go? Within the sanctuary of the Keep was Alwir; without it, the Dark.
"And in any case, tomorrow it will no longer be your concern," the wizard murmured. "It is the Winter Feast. You are free to return to your own world, without putting it in danger of invasion by the Dark. I shall send you back through the gap in the Void at sunrise-unless you stay long enough to keep the Feast with me."
His voice was pitched low, excluding the few who remained in the shadowy common room. His mouth had a set look under the tangled forest of white beard, as if braced against some bitter emotion; Gil fought her own urge to reach out and touch his rough, silky hair.