soiled mantle, shaking at it, like a tugging child. 'Heal... you can. They let me go.'
Ingold's voice was a murmur for the dying man's ears alone. 'I'm sorry. They might be able to take you back, you see.'
'No,' Lohiro gasped; for a moment, his face twisted again, with anger as much as with pain. Then that passed, and he coughed, bringing up more blood. 'Don't know,' he whispered. 'Stupid... I never could... beat you. They take you... but they don't know.' He coughed again, struggling to draw himself up. Over Ingold's shoulder, Rudy could see that the younger wizard's chest bore a dark, glistening river of blood. 'They want you,' he went on, his voice fading. 'You...' 'Why?'
The blue eyes closed and gold lashes showed sharply against white skin that was already growing waxy. Lohiro rolled his head from side to side, his face convulsed with pain. 'One of them,' he whispered. 'Became one of them. They are not many
... they're one. They want you...' 'Why?' Ingold demanded.
Lohiro went on as if he had not heard. 'I know... But stupid. I'm sorry. I know...' he whispered. 'The moss... the herds of the Dark...' He coughed yet again, as if gagging on blood. '... the ice in the north...'
The gold head lolled back. A moment later the long, white fingers slipped down from Ingold's sleeves and the nimble, bony body became a dead weight in his arms. For as long, Rudy guessed, as it would take to count to a hundred, Ingold sat in the darkness, cradling the friend he had slain. Then he laid the body down gently and got to his feet, his face harsh, terrible, and as empty as that of a stone image.
'Come,' he said quietly. 'If the Dark are below, they'll be after us now.' He disappeared through a doorway, to return a few moments later leading Che. He found and sheathed his sword, while Rudy collected his own weapon and the gold-pronged spear Lohiro had carried.
Outside, the storm continued unabatedly, rain and wind slashing the town with redoubled fury. Ingold pulled up his hood, shadowing his face, and wrapped over it his sodden muffler with its trailing ends. Then he paused, turning back, gazing at Lohiro's body. It lay crumpled in the shadows where the Archmage had fallen, blood pooling on the leaf-strewn floor.
For a long time Ingold stood so, as if fixing some memory in his heart. Then, without warning, the twisted body of the dead Archmage burst into flame, the red-gold light showing clearly the sharp-boned face, the long, elegant hands, and the bright hair now transmuted to real fire. The pyre roared ceiling-high, a spreading column of heat that licked the rafters, its glare illuminating Ingold's calm, almost disinterested face and tortured eyes. Rudy watched until the body began to blacken, flesh curling from the bones in the midst of those topaz veils of heat, then turned away, unable to bear the sight. The room was filled with the odour of charred flesh.
After a time, he heard Ingold lead Che up the stairs, and he followed them out into the rain.
Thus they slipped from Quo like thieves, under cover of the hurricane winds. The Dark they left trapped within the walls of air. They left also in that town the ruins of the world's wizardry and the hopes of magical aid for humankind. Toward morning they made a cold camp in the hills above, and Rudy slept the profound sleep of total exhaustion. He woke in the afternoon to see Ingold sitting as he had last seen him, knees drawn up and arms linked around them, staring sightlessly down at the ruins by the grey ocean and weeping without a sound.
Chapter 15
Firelight touched the rocks of the arroyo and shivered like rain down the strings of Rudy's harp. He respected Ingold's dictum that he should not play it, but night after night, in the windy darkness of the desert, he was drawn to it, unwrapping it from its bindings and testing its twenty-six strings. He learned them as he had learned the runes, each note in its sequence, each with its separate beauty and use.
On the other side of the fire, Ingold was silent, as he had been silent going on five days now.
On the whole, Rudy preferred the old man's silence to his bitter sarcasm, or to that blistering politeness with which he had treated any offer of comfort regarding what had happened at Quo. If Rudy had even doubted that