The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,59
no more need of our presence here,” the Gray Lady said, “Gyzan and I will return to Sligo. No—” She raised a hand as Shavus got quickly to his feet. “I’m not angry with you. Just please let me know if you hear anything.”
“Of course,” the Archmage promised, glad to make whatever concessions would let him out of a fight with the Ladies of the Moon.
“The Archer may remain with us as long as he pleases,” she went on, picking up her gray wool cloak from the table and swinging it over her broad, square shoulders. “Inar the Solarist has taken refuge there with us also, and we’ve had word that Vyla of Wellhaven is on her way, with two of the other exiled Hand-Prickers...”
Shavus’ intolerant blue eyes widened in alarm; Tally could easily read in them his relief that the Gray Lady was carrying away no secrets to spread among that motley gang.
“You will, of course, be welcome among us at any time,” the Lady added mildly, “since Rhion has taught even the most prejudiced among us that there are some decent Morkensiks.”
“Well, thank you, my lady.” The old man smiled.
She paused in the doorway. “Don’t smile,” she said gravely. “The day may come when you need that sanctuary. Good night.”
“Damned arrogant intellectual jackanapes,” she went on viciously, as soon as she and Tally had descended out of earshot—quite a distance for wizards. They crossed through the scriptorium, their footfalls echoing sharply in the warm, dreamy darkness where the smells of ink and parchment lingered. Gyzan had remained for a few moments to show the pieces of the scurrilous handbill to Shavus; the Lady and Tally walked down the stairs in silence, not speaking until they reached the lowest floor, the many-pillared entry hall where the colored glow of cressets in the courtyard cast dancing reflections on the marble walls. The Duke’s guests were spilling out of the main hall now and into the court, where the warm summer evening breathed with the smell of jasmine and wisteria, with the lemongrass of the torches and the thin pungence of the dust that always seemed to hang in the dry upland air.
“Listen, Tally,” the Lady said, halting in the darkness and touching the younger woman’s beribboned sleeve. “What Shavus is refusing to understand is that knowledge is not simply for use. It is for saving, for passing along, maybe to people we don’t know in the distant future. Yes, I tried, by means of spells and coercion, to get Rhion to show me where Jaldis hid his books when they stayed among us, though it is a lie to say that I used my body to try to coax that knowledge out of him... I tried because I feared that the knowledge would be lost.”
Tally frowned. “But if you don’t know who will be using it in the future, ill could come of it.”
“Ill can come of any knowledge,” the Gray Lady said softly. “There is only so much that we can control. Rhion told me that seventeen years ago nearly all Jaldis’ books were torched out of existence by the old King’s soldiers when they arrested him—when they put out his eyes, tore out his tongue, and crippled him. There was knowledge in those volumes that was lost forever, Rhion said. Now something about these rumors of conspiracy troubles me, something about the fact that they seem to be centered here, in Dun, in Fell, and wherever any of the Great Lords has a wizard in his employ. Though I’ve never liked the thought of a mage selling his powers to a Lord—it is not for such that these powers were given us by the Goddess—I will say that it does keep the Lords themselves in balance and prevent any one of them, or any Cult, from aggrandizing too greatly. Without them...”
She frowned, rubbing her hands again uneasily over the coarse wool of her cloak. “Without them it would become a contest of strongmen.” She glanced up at Tally in the woven shadows, studying her face.
“We need Jaldis’ books, Tally,” she said softly. “Rhion told me before he left that Jaldis turned them over into your father’s keeping.”
Tally was silent for a long time. She was remembering the handbill she had found, remembering others that had appeared, pasted to the walls of taverns and public baths; remembering the way Esrex had looked at her sons, and the black-robed priests of the Hidden God who seemed always to be about