The Walls of Air Page 0,121

yards from the camp, Lohiro broke into a run. Ingold was on his feet instantly, striding out to meet him, catching his hands in greeting. Moonlight showed the old man and the young together, and gleamed on silver hair and gold and on the gnawed skeleton that lay half-buried in the sand at their feet.

'Ingold, you old vagabond,' Lohiro said softly. 'I knew you'd come.'

'Why did you stay?' Ingold asked later, when they'd drawn the Archmage into the circle of their fire. Lohiro glanced up from the meal of pan bread and dried meat he had been devouring. To Rudy's eyes, he looked thin and hunted; the sharp face was worn down to its elegant bones. In the bright gold mane that fell almost to his shoulders, scattered streaks of silver caught the firelight. His eyes were as they had been in Rudy's vision in the crystal - wide and variegated blue, like a kaleidoscope, flecked all through with dark and light, and containing that odd, empty expressionlessness Rudy had noticed before. After seeing Ingold before the ruins of Forn's Tower, it made sense.

'Because I couldn't get away.' Lohiro laughed, briefly and bitterly, at the sharpness of Ingold's glance. 'Oh, the Dark are gone,' he reassured them, in a taut, ironic voice. 'They left the same night, clouds of them, their darkness blotting the stars. But I - It took the lot of us to weave the maze, my friend. One man couldn't pick that mesh apart.'

'Yet they left?'

The skeletal white fingers gestured upward. 'Through the air,' he said. 'Over the maze itself.'

Ingold frowned. 'How could they? The mazes extend for miles above the town.'

Lohiro paused, then shook his head wearily. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know.'

'Were you taken by surprise?' Ingold asked quietly.

The Archmage nodded. Behind him, his staff was stuck upright in the sand like a spear, the firelight glimmering off its points.

'By the Dark Ones from the Nest in the plains as well?'

'No.' Lohiro raised his head, a little surprised at the question. 'No, they had left their Nest to join the assault on Gae. Didn't you - Of course you wouldn't know.' He sighed and rubbed his eyes. 'We knew they'd left the plains to attack Gae -oh, the night it happened, I think. We'd all been going crazy for weeks. We had councils, committees, and research throughout the watches of the night. Teams of first-year students dug through the old records in the library. Thoth the Recorder turned out his most ancient documents, things so old they were held together by cobwebs and spells alone. It reminded me of that old joke about the miser whose favourite camel had swallowed a diamond.' He shrugged. The points of his shoulder bones stood out sharply under the dark cloth of his robe. 'But we turned up nothing much to the point. Only...' He hesitated, as if struggling with himself, and the dark, swooping brows were knotted in momentary pain.

'Only - what?'

Lohiro looked up again and shook his head. 'It was very late. Thoth, Anamara, and I were still awake, but I think almost everyone else had gone to his bed. We'd all seen the fall of Gae, one way or another. There was a great heaviness over the town. Still, I don't think any of us were uneasy for our own safety. It happened - suddenly.' He snapped his long fingers. 'Like that. A great explosion -I've never seen the like. You saw what it did to the tower.'

Ingold nodded, and his voice was very tired. 'Like the experiments Hasrid used to do with blasting powder,' he agreed. 'You remember the stone house he wrecked?'

Lohiro grinned wryly. 'That was nothing,' he said, 'compared to this. This was like - I don't know. It shook the foundations of the tower to its roots. I don't think I did anything, just sat there like a fool, and that probably saved me. Anamara ran to the door and threw it open... The darkness rolled over her like a big wave. I don't think she had time to make a sound.'

Ingold looked away, and Rudy could see by the amber glow

of the fire every small muscle, from temple to jaw, thrown suddenly into harsh prominence.

Lohiro went on. 'I think Thoth called one burst of light -I don't know. Then...' He stopped, seeing Ingold's face. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly, looking down at his hands. For a long moment the terrible silence was unbroken except for the surge of the