shadows. Looking into them, Rudy knew-and knew then that she knew-what was inevitably going to be. The knowledge went through him like a bolt of lightning, but it was without any real surprise. It was as if he had always known.
They stood thus for an endless single moment of time, consumed by that shared knowledge. The only sound in the room was the soft swiftness of their breath. Then an opening door downstairs stirred the air, and the flame of the candles dipped, making the shadows bow and tremble. On that incoming cold draft, Alwir's voice echoed mellowly in the unnaturally servantless hall. "... ponies around to the courtyard. It will take most of the night to load them. Your things will go in the third cart." And though no words were audible, they heard Bektis' light voice replying, a querulous interrogation from Medda, and the sharp, sudden jingle of sword belt and mail.
Alde made a move to go, and Rudy caught at her hands. Their eyes met again, puzzled, seeking some answer to why what had been between them had happened. The liking between them had changed-everything had changed and was colored by what had passed. In her face Rudy saw desire, fear of this terrible newfound intimacy, and the reflection of his own bewilderment at a feeling he had never known himself capable of possessing. Then her cheeks flamed suddenly pink in the candlelight, and she pulled her hands away, stammering, "I-I can't-" She turned to flee.
"Alde." He called her softly back, and at the sound of his voice she stopped, her breath quick and uneven, as if she had run a long way. "I'll see you on the road tomorrow."
She whispered, "All right," and turned her eyes away. A moment later he heard her footsteps flying lightly down the hall.
Chapter Ten
A long time ago and perhaps in a previous incarnation, Rudy recalled seeing a movie called The Ten Commandments which, among other things, had contained a memorable scene of the Children of Israel getting their butts out of the Land of Egypt. Charlton Heston had lifted up his staff and they'd all been organized and ready to go, and the whole clear-out had taken about three minutes of screen time, goats and granddaddies and all, leaving not so much as a crumpled bread wrapper or a pile of dog droppings on the tidy streets of Thebes.
Karst had been stirring since several hours before dawn. Rudy, standing by the cart in which the rations earmarked for the Guards would be hauled, had a good view of most of the square, and it didn't look to him as if anybody would be going anywhere until damn near noon, if then. It had begun to rain again, and the ground was like porridge. The cart wheels bogged in it; people running back and forth on aimless errands churned it to ever-deeper ooze. Mud and rain covered everything, soaked Rudy's cloak and his clothing underneath, and plastered the clumped, dirty agglomerations of depressed-looking refugees who stood or sat around that scene of sodden chaos. Even Alwir, storming his elegant way among them, was beginning to look shopworn and dirty.
By midmorning, the square was a total confusion of people, goods, and makeshift transport. Children wandered from their parents and got lost. Escaping pigs had to be chased through the standing carts, pack beasts, and little mounds of personal belongings, upsetting everything in their flying path. The larger families and groups, and the households of minor nobles, were engaged in last-minute problem-solving sessions, among much cursing and the waving of arms, arguing whether to go north to the Keep of the landchief Harl Kinghead, south to Renweth in the mountains, following Alwir and the Council of Regents, or beyond that, over Sarda Pass, to Gettlesand, to risk the threat of the White Raiders in the minor Keeps of the landchief Tomec Tirkenson. Rudy could see Tirkenson, big, scarred, and ugly, cursing his followers into line with a vocabulary that would have curled a bullwhacker's hair.
Rudy himself could have left town at a moment's notice. From the leavings of the dead, he'd collected himself an outfit of warm clothes-a brown tunic, shirt, breeches, and boots, a hooded cloak that was too large, and a pair of gauntlet gloves stitched with gold and emeralds. His California clothes he carried in his pack, along with shaving things scrounged, like everything else, from those who had not survived the coming of the Dark to Karst, his American-made