The Walls of Air Page 0,140

was silence again. In the dim bluish shadows, Rudy could see several of the other mages in tears - for the Archmage, for the world whose fringes they had been on, and for the dream of that vanished city to which they had once all aspired. But Ingold's tears had been shed in the Seaward Mountains, and he looked only empty and exhausted, as he had looked in the desert.

Thoth's golden eyes returned to an awareness of the present. 'Have you ever spent time in another being, Ingold!'

Ingold nodded. No one else moved.

Then you will understand that, after that, time meant very little to me. How long it took me to leave the Seaward Mountains, I do not know. The eaters of little insects do not count days. In part of my mind, I knew I was a man and a wizard, but there was very little in me that cared. Perhaps it was

only mourning. I hid in the rocks and moved alone through wet grasses and rain. I was nothing... nothing. But I must have known I was a man, for I travelled slowly east, and I was far out in the desert when the yearning came to me to seek the Keep of Dare in Renweth at Sarda Pass. It was a man's yearning, far beyond what a snake could feel or accomplish. Yet such was its force that I knew that I could go there only as a man. So a man I became.

'I did not know,' he finished quietly, 'that the call came from you, my friend.'

Ingold sighed. 'Perhaps it were better had you kept your belly to the ground, serpentmage.'

A single line, as fine as a pen-scratch in the corner of the long, wry mouth, briefly indicated a smile. 'It is easier to live off the land so,' Thoth replied, 'but the company becomes boring. Nevertheless, I shall carry to my grave a horror of the road runner bird.'

'Yes,' Ingold agreed reminiscently. 'I recall I had nightmares about dogs for many years.'

'Eh,'a thin voice creaked, Nan the witchwife appeared suddenly in the circle, her pale eyes sparking with malice. 'So, shall I get you some nice cricket soup, serpentmage? Or you some fat mice, Sir Tomcat? Or will you stand here talking until you fall down from hunger?

'Mother!' Kara said, shocked. 'That's -*

'I know who it is, girl,' the old lady snapped sharply. 'And I'm saying, let thepoor men eat, beforethey goto tradingwar stories about how brave they all were.' Her bent back forced her to twist her neck to look up at them, and Rudy found himself thinking that all she needed was a peaked black hat and a broomstick.

'Thank you,' Ingold said gravely. 'Your care for our comfort touches my heart.'

'Huh!' she grumbled and bustled away toward the cubbyhole that Rudy guessed must be the communal kitchen. In the doorway she swung around again, shaking her wooden spoon at them, her thick cobwebs of greyish-white hair falling down over her bony shoulders and her eyes glittering in her haglike face. 'Heart indeed!' she cackled. 'Wizards have no heart. And I tell you true, for I'm one and I haven't any more heart than a shrike.' With that she flounced out of sight.

'She's right,' Ingold said mildly. Thoth looked shocked, but Kta laughed.

'Alwir subsidizes the Wizards' Corps, the same way he does the Guards,' Gil explained as Kara, her mother, and a thin little red-haired girl served them oatbread and stewfrom a common pot. 'Bektis still dines up at the high table - I suppose because the food's better - but I expect both he and Alwir will be along later.' She grinned across the room at Aide, who sat cross-legged on a pile of bison and mammoth hides between Rudy and the sleeping Prince Tir, sharing the wizards' rough-and-ready feast. Fire flickered onthehearth, the room's only illumination, brightening over the assorted features of the very odd crew assembled there.

At Aide's side, Rudy felt that, with very little more provocation, he'd start purring like a cat. It was the first time in over two months that he'd faced the prospect of a night's sleep without four hours of guard duty first; he was bathed, shaved, and stationary, and the novelty of that was pleasant enough. He was with the woman he loved and among his own kind at last, after a journey he had never thought he'd survive. It would be odd, he mused, to sleep under a roof.

His hand sought Aide's under the