The Walls of Air Page 0,135

wizardry near their Nests. I should have guessed that when Hoofprint of the Wind spoke of the Nest as a place

of seeing. That was how Quo was spoken of, back in the old days - and of Gae, incidentally. It needed all the forces of the Dark to break Gae,' he added. 'It wasn't ill-planned, Rudy, the final blow at Gae, Quo, Penambra - Dele, too, from what Kara said - all within a few days. The back of organized resistance was broken, and the hope of magical aid destroyed.'

Ingold sighed, his breath a thin rag of cloud in the fog. 'I had to kill him, Rudy. I couldn't let them have his powers. Perhaps he was still some sort of prisoner in his own body. Certainly - whatever it was - it had his speech, his mannerisms, his skills. But it didn't have his knowledge. Lohiro would have known that Anamara the Red and I were old classmates from years ago.' He held up his hands, the first faint smile Rudy had seen glimmering wryly through his overgrown beard. 'She knitted me these mittens the year we were lovers, back at Quo. For the fourth most powerful mage in the West of the World, she was very domestic. Lohiro would never have spoken to me casually of her death.'

'Was that what tipped you off? Rudy asked quietly.

'Partly. And - I didn't like his eyes. But from what he had been through, I didn't know.'

'So you trapped him.'

Ingold nodded miserably and trudged on through the snow. Che hung balkily back at the full stretch of his lead -neither of them had ever managed to train the stupid creature to follow, a failure that in his darker moments Rudy was inclined to attribute to the malice of the Bishop of Gae. 'I trapped him,' Ingold said, 'and I killed him. Maybe they did let him go. He spoke of the Dark as he was dying - that they are not many, but one. Maybe he had been one of them and, if I had healed him, we could have learned from him what they know, why they rose - and why they departed.'

'Yeah,' Rudy assented bluntly, 'and maybe if you healed him, the wizards of Quo wouldn't have been the only ones to seal the Dark into the citadel with them.'

Ingold sighed. 'Maybe.'

'What else could you have done?

Ingold shook his head. 'Been more clever to begin with. Realized the connection between the so-called fortunate places and the Dark. Pursued my own researches at Quo, instead of playing politics halfway across the continent. But the answer is gone, if there ever was an answer. The Dark made sure of that. And perhaps there never was an answer to begin with.'

'Sure there was,' Rudy said. He glanced over at the old man as they clambered up the last steep grade of the road, the crusted snow squeaking under their boots. 'And there is. There's got to be.'

'Does there? Ingold scrambled through the drifts at his heels, dragging the unwilling burro with his load of books behind. 'At one time I used to think there was a reason for things happening as they do and that somewhere all questions have answers. I'm not so sure of that anymore. What makes you think this one does?

'Because even after Quo was destroyed, the Dark have been after you. They've chased you from here to hell and back again to keep you from finding that answer. The Dark think you have it, and they've been one jump ahead of us through this whole game.'

Ingold sighed and stood still in the drifted road, his head bowed and his face hidden in the shadows of his hood. A flurry of snow blew down on them from above and brought with it the smell of the high peaks, of glacier ice and rock. The fog surrounded them, grey, drifting wraiths haunting the gathering darkness in the throat of the Pass. 'So we're back where we began,' he said at last. 'With the question and the answer. I'm the one they want, but they've wiped out everyone but me. Is that question or answer?

Rudy shrugged. 'Which one are you going to make it?'

Ingold glanced up at him sharply and continued walking without a reply. Rudy followed behind, testing with his staff the solid ground under the blankets of drifts. Evening was drawing on. The sharp, chill dampness of the mists seemed to eat into his bones.

Ahead of him, the old man