The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,60

the court these days.

But they were Jaldis’ books, Jaldis’ secrets. He had trusted her with them, as he trusted her father and trusted Rhion. “I—I can’t,” she said softly and wondered if the Gray Lady would put a geas of some sort upon her, as she had put a geas upon the strawberries, to draw her out of the city that morning. She turned away, crossing the vestibule to the doors. The Lady walked with her, her soft-booted feet making little sound on the speckled red terrazzo of the floor.

“He is my friend,” Tally finished simply, turning within the shadow of the great bronze doors. “And Rhion...”

“I understand.” And in the darkness she could hear the sadness in the Lady’s voice.

“If what Shavus says is true,” Tally went on hopefully, “they’ll... they’ll be bringing Rhion and Jaldis back through the Void at the summer solstice, when they can raise enough power on the other side—Nessa, Harospix, Erigalt, and the others.” She shivered with the thought, the desperate hope, of seeing Rhion alive and safe and with her again. Please, Goddess, she prayed to Mhorvianne, the bright-haired lady of illicit loves, please bring him back safe. “That’s only a few weeks.”

But somehow she heard in her own voice the note of false heartiness she would have pitied in another, and cringed from it.

“So it is,” the Lady said quietly. She drew her cloak about her, though the darkness outside, alive with torches like jeweled gold lace, was balmy with the summer’s lazy warmth. “And perhaps all will be well. If it is not...” She reached out and touched the younger woman’s hand.

Her voice sank almost to a whisper, sweet and strangely audible beneath the voices of servants and grooms, the jingling of horse gear, and the laughter of guests in the court beyond the arcade where they stood. “If it is not, remember that you and your children will always find sanctuary in the Drowned Lands.”

Another shadow seemed to thicken from the general gloom behind them; Tally got a brief glimpse of Gyzan the Archer. Then the two wizards stepped back and seemed to melt into the darkness again, becoming one with the shifting reflections of torchlight beneath the arcade.

Tally straightened the collar of pearls and feathers about her neck and tucked with her fingers at the stray tendrils of her hair, preparing to return to the lights and music of the feast. Beneath the green silk of her husband’s colors and the thick bullion and pearls, her heart was beating fast. Shavus had brought the others of their Order, to watch beside the Well until the turn of summer—and at the turn of summer, they would bring Rhion and Jaldis back.

If something hadn’t happened in that other world.

If they could even find that other world in the darkness of the Void.

Mhorvianne, guide them... Goddess of the Moon, help them...

Resolutely stifling the fear that had walked with her every day since the equinox of spring, she started back along the arcade toward the main palace. As she did so a moving shadow caught her eye, slipping from pillar to pillar. At first she thought it was Gyzan and the Lady, but a moment later, as the shadow stepped into the court and vanished into the crowd, she saw that it was only a servant, hastening on some errand from the empty library to the color and life of the feast.

Twelve

“WHY WASN’T I TOLD you were going to do a major ceremonial last night?”

Von Rath looked quickly up from his breakfast porridge and then away. In the buttercup brilliance of the sunlight pouring through the wide dining-room windows he looked ghastly, drawn and gray and sleepless. As if, Rhion thought, even after he had gone to bed, staggering from the drugs he had taken, he had not slept, but had only lain awake in the whispering darkness, wanting more.

“Baldur only came to me after you had left for the village.” Von Rath set his spoon meticulously across the top of the bowl of barely touched oatmeal. On the other side of the room, Poincelles was consuming a hearty plate of bacon and eggs in blithe disregard of Himmler’s recommendation that SS Troopers breakfast upon porridge and mineral water—Himmler owned the largest mineral water concession in Germany. On top of Rhion’s memories of last night the greasy smell of the bacon was nauseating. Neither Baldur nor Gall were anywhere to be seen.

A little too airily von Rath went on, “Oh, perhaps we should