The Walls of Air Page 0,131

the nearest one, a beautiful woman stood with her feet on the back of a crooked devil, her left hand raised against a swarm of inaccurate, fishlike representations of the Dark Ones, her right arm and cloak sheltering a crowd of kneeling supplicants. By the light of the waning and cloud-crossed moon, the painting had a startling and primitive beauty, the

colours lost in the moonlight but the outlines of the figures strikingly clear. For some reason, it reminded Rudy of the runes on the Keep doors.

'Possibly,' Ingold replied, in answer to his question. 'But I hardly think they will unbar their doors at night.'

'It's you and me for the Church, then,' Rudy sighed, and started off through the shadows of the narrow streets, with Ingold drifting like a ghost at his heels. The poison, Rudy thought, was working its way out of the old man's system; if he seldom spoke, at least he seemed to realize whom he was talking to when he did. But Rudy missed his humour, the wry fatalism of his outlook, and the brief, flickering grin that so changed his nondescript face.

When they reached the Church, however, Ingold surprised Rudy by leading the way around to the back, where a narrow cell was built on to the rear of the fortresslike structure. He knocked on the heavy door. There was movement inside and the sound of sliding bars. The door was opened quickly and quickly closed behind them.

A short and slightly chubby young priest had let them in, a candle in his hand. 'Be welcome...' he began, and then saw Ingold's face. In the soft amber light, the blood drained from his own face.

The priest's sudden silence called Ingold from his thoughts, and he looked at the young man, puzzled.

The priest whispered, 'It was you.'

Ingold frowned. 'Have we met?'

The priest turned hastily away and fumblingly set the candle on the room's small table. 'No no, of course not. I - please be welcome in this house. It is late for travellers -like yourselves -' He barred the door behind them, and Rudy saw that his hands were shaking. 'I am Brother Wend,' he said, turning back and revealing an earnest, young face for a man in his early twenties. He was wearing the grey robe of a Servant of the Church. His head was shaved; but, by- the colour of his black eyebrows and sincere brown eyes, Rudy guessed his hair had been black or dark brown, like his own.

'I am the priest of this village,' Brother Wend said, babbling to cover up nervousness or fear. 'The only one now, I'm afraid. Will you sup?'

'We've eaten, thanks,' Rudy said, which was true - and besides, he reflected, if things here were as bad as he'd seen them in the Keep, food was tight all over. 'All we ask is a bed on your floor and stabling for our burro.'

'Certainly - of course.'

The priest went with him to put Che in the stables. While Rudy bedded the donkey down, he filled the priest in on all the news he could - of the fall of Gae, the retreat to Renweth, Alwir's army, and the destruction of Quo. He did not mention that Ingold was a wizard, nor indicate his own powers. Ingold, after the briefest exchange of amenities, had withdrawn to sit beside the small fire on the hearth and brood in silence. But throughout the evening, as Rudy and Brother Wend talked quietly in the

shadows of the little room, the young priest's eyes kept straying back to Ingold, as if trying to match the man with some memory, and Rudy could see that the memory frightened him.

Rudy was just settling himself to sleep on the floor near the hearth when hurried knocking sounded at the door. Without hesitation, Brother Wend rose and slid back the bolts to let in two small children from the darkness outside. They were a pair of girls, eight and nine years of age, sandy-haired and hazel-eyed like the people of Gettlesand. In a babbling treble duet they outlined a confused tale of yellow sickness and fever and their mother and their little sister Danila, and last summer and tonight, clutching at the young man's sleeves and staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes. Wend nodded, murmuring soothingly to them, and turned back to his guests.

'I must go,' he said softly.

'One or the other of us will let you back in,' Rudy promised. 'Go carefully.'

When the priest had gone, Rudy got