The Walls of Air Page 0,52

north.'

'But who,' Gil insisted, 'can know the intent of God?'

'Not I, certainly. And I do not think it evil to learn from history. I am not yet one of those monks who preach the burning of all books and the telling of Scripture from memory alone. Knowledge is power, whether over the Dark Ones, over Kings who would usurp unto themselves what is rightfully

God's, or over sorcerers and mages who do not believe in God at all and whom the Devil uses for his own ends. We can combat knowledge with knowledge and their power with ours.'

'Like the Rune of the Chain? Gil countered a little bitterly. She got a dark, enigmatic look in return.

'The use of such devices is unlawful,' the Bishop said. The Rune of the Chain can be spelled to bind and cripple a wizard's power, and I have heard of its being so used. But using evil's work in any way defeats the good of the cause. Only evil can come of this quest for the Archmage of Quo."

'You don't think a wizard's power might be given to him by God?'

Her tone was perhaps more heated than she had intended. Govannin regarded her for a moment expres-sionlessly, seeming through the fog of fever and lamplight to be nothing more than a bodiless shadow and a fiery gleam of eyes. 'You rush to his defence,' she said at last, and her voice had only the calm interest of a python that watched the world and chose what prey it would. 'Beware of him, my child. He has great ability and much personal charm for a man who has traded his soul to Satan - which is what he has done, though he will not own it. Satan uses such men also, who from ignorance or pride will not see what they have done by giving in to the temptation to power. But I am old, Gil-Shalos. I have seen the other kind of wizard, evil wizards, renegades, headstrong, ambitious, and self-seeking. If you had ever met such a one, who worked for and openly welcomed the powers of Crookedness, you would never again think that the talents of a mage come from or have anything to do with God.'

'But he isn't like that!' Gil protested hotly. Images rushed to her mind and unwise words to her lips. She remembered Ingold standing in the brilliance of the magelight, holding blizzard and darkness at bay until the Guards could get Tir and Aide to the Keep, the old man walking into a tunnel of sounding blackness, surrounded by runes of power that no one else could see, and

the look in his eyes when he had handed her his glowing staff and asked her to guard his back. 'He would never bend to evil, never use his powers for ill. There can be good and bad wizards, the same way there are good and bad men...'

Govannin raised dark, elegant brows. Gil stumbled and broke off her words, her cheeks suddenly hotter than even fever could account for, glad of the veiling shadows. 'I'm sorry,' she stammered, confused. 'I spoke disrespectfully, and all you have done has been kindness to me.' It had doubtless been decades, Gil reflected, since any member of hoi polloi had so lashed out at Govannin Narmenlion.

But the Bishop was only silent for a time, a curious, considering light in her eyes. When she spoke, her dry, cracked voice was kind. 'I like you, my child,' she said. 'You are a warrior as you are a scholar, single-minded, and never without purpose. Your heart is very pure - pure in its scholarship, pure in its violence, and pure in its love. Such hearts can be hurt and can do measureless good and measureless evil, but they cannot be bought or cowed.' She put out her hand, her fingers ice-cold against Gil's cheek. 'I shall send you the Church records, if you desire it, and also someone to interpret the writing for you. The knowledge is my gift to you, with the consequences of what that knowledge shall bring.'

She held out her bony hand, and Gil dropped to one knee to kiss the dark bezel of the episcopal ring.

Later, waking in the barracks from feverish sleep, Gil wondered if this, too, had been a dream. But after supper, Minalde appeared in the barracks, bearing a heavy book which, she said, the lady Govannin had asked if she would take to Gil-Shalos.

'I was coming over anyway,' she explained, seating