The Walls of Air Page 0,13

it is. After that it will be weeks before we can get out.'

'Wouldn't it be worth it?' She glanced around, as if at the bleak world beyond the windowless walls of the Keep. 'If you could make contact with him, he could start on his way here tomorrow and you'd cut your time in half.'

'Maybe,' the wizard said quietly. 'If we find the room again. And if the crystal there is actually a means of communication, rather than simply observation. And if the image that you saw, Rudy, was not merely the echo of events long gone, or part of the illusions that surround Quo. Divination by crystal is by no means sure. You remember the Nest of the Dark in the valley to the north of here, Gil. By fire and crystal, it is still shown as blocked up, when you and I have been there and have seen that it has been open for years. And after all that,' he continued sombrely, 'we may still have to set out on this journey, when deep winter has locked down upon the plains. But I will ask you this, Gil...'

Their eyes met, and he grinned suddenly, as rueful as a schoolboy. 'It seems to be my night for asking things of you.'

She grinned back. 'I'll ask you something someday.'

The old impish expression flitted briefly across his tired eyes. 'God help me.' He smiled. 'When we are gone, as your duties with the Guards give you time - look for this room for me. Lohiro will certainly want to see it when he comes.'

'All right,' Gil agreed quietly.

'Yeah, but she'll have a hell of a time finding the place,' Rudy argued. 'I mean, since she isn't mage-born...'

Ingold and Gil exchanged a glance, a quick glitter of eyes in the light of the staff that stood between them. Then Ingold smiled. That's never stopped her.'

There was a moment of silence, then the wizard turned abruptly and vanished through the barracks door.

Gil sighed and looked back out into the random flurries of dark and light in the Aisle. In repose, Rudy noticed, her face had acquired a network of fine-penned lines around the eyes that hadn't belonged to the shy, gawky scholar in the red Volkswagen. It had been a long night, and was wearing on toward dawn. Outside, if the Dark Ones waited, they waited in silence.

Nothing like starting out on a walk of more than fifteen hundred miles with only two hours' sleep, he thought tiredly and prepared to turn into the barracks to see to his

packing. But another thought crossed his mind, and he stopped. 'Hey, Gil?'

Her attention came back from other things. The pale schoolmarm eyes turned to him.

'What would you think of somebody who - who'd leave someone he loves, to go after something he wants?'

Gil was silent for a moment, considering. 'I don't know,' she said finally. 'Maybe that's because I don't understand love very well. I see people act out of what they say is love, but it's like watching someone act from a really deep religious conviction -it's incomprehensible to me. My parents - my mother - wanted certain things for me and couldn't understand that all I wanted was to be a scholar.

Couldn't see that I'd rather live in a crummy little office in the history department of UCLA than in the classiest hundred-thousand-dollar home in Orange County. And she said she loved me. Over and over and over. So I'm the wrong expert to ask about love, Rudy. But as for leaving someone to go after something you want... Leaving them for how long? How badly do they need you to stay? It's all situational. Everything's situational.'

Manlike, Rudy shied from the specific. 'Well, like if you had only a short time together and had a choice of spending it with this person you loved or being separated from them because of - of something you wanted. Something you wanted more than anything in the world, except them.'

Gil shook her ravelled braid back over her shoulder. 'What makes you think you have a choice?' Rudy gulped. 'Hunh?'

Her voice was as chilly and neutral as her eyes. 'Only a wizard can find the City of Quo, Rudy. Ingold's got the Dark Ones on his trail, God only knows why. He needs another wizard to back him up. If you hadn't volunteered to go looking for the Archmage with him, Rudy, you'd probably have been drafted.'

A long moment of silence followed while Rudy digested that one.