The Walls of Air Page 0,54

image of a stiff little boy in a powdered wig confessing to his father about who axed the cherry tree floated through Gil's mind, and she laughed. 'Maybe.'

'But if you need someone to read to you, I'll be glad to do it.'

Gil studied Aide's face for a moment in silence. She herself had closed out the UCLA library, the way some people close out bars, far too many nights not to understand. And as for having a Queen as a research assistant - Alwir, Gil reflected, will hardly miss her. 'Sure,' she said quietly. 'Any time you can get away.'

They took over the little cubbyhole in the back of the barracks of the Guards, which Ingold had once used as his quarters. It was private, yet close to the centre of things, and, Gil noted to herself, at the opposite end of the Keep from the Royal Sector and its politics. Aide took to coming there every day, usually bringing Tir with her, to work laboriously through the ancient chronicles, while Gil scribbled notes on tablets of wood coated with beeswax that she'd found in an abandoned storeroom. In another storeroom she found a desk, spindle-legged and archaic, small enough to fit into the narrow confines of her study. She used a couple of firkins of dried apples for a seat.

Thus she entered into a period of quiet scholarship, her hours of transcribing and sorting notes alternating with long, solitary rambles through the back reaches of the Keep in search of some sign of the mysterious circular chamber Rudy had described before his departure. It was from one of these that she returned one day to find Aide sitting at her desk, studying one of the tablets in the dim light.

'Is this what you do?' the younger girl asked, touching the creamy surface with a doubtful finger. 'Is this all?*

Gil looked down over her shoulder. She habitually wrote with a silver hairpin as a stylus, in a combination of English and the runes of the Wathe. The tablet had written on it:

Swarl (?) s. of Tirwis, ss. Aldor, Bet, Urgwas -

famine, snows Pass 2, Tl Gts grsnd 4 (-) - no mtn Dk -

pop Kp 12000 + 3 stmts (Big Ring,??) buried gaenguo

(?) - Bp. Kardthe, Tracho

'Sure,' she replied cheerfully. That's from the chronicles you were reading to me yesterday. It's just a condensation - Swarl, whenever the hell he ruled Renweth, had three sons named Aldor, Bet, and Urgwas...'

'Bet's a woman's name,' Aide pointed out.

'Oh.' Gil made a notation. In the Wathe, pronouns had no gender. 'Anyhow, in the second year of his reign there was a famine, and snows heavy enough to close Sarda Pass. The population of the Keep at that time was estimated at twelve thousand, with three settlements in the valley, one of which was named the Big Ring - don't ask me why. There was no mention of the Dark in the chronicle, which isn't surprising, since we have yet to find any word of the Dark in any of these chronicles, and right around the fourth year of his reign there is a statement that the Tall Gates were garrisoned, though they might have been so for years. The Bishops during his reign were Kardthe and later a man or woman named Tracho -'

'That's the old spelling for Trago. It's a man's name.'

Thanks.' Gil made another notation. 'And in his reign they buried the gaenguo, which I meant to ask you about. Isn't gaenguo the old word for a - a lucky place, or a good place?'

'Well - not so much good as just I guess awesome would be the best word.' Aide reached out with her foot and gently rolled Tir's ball back toward him where he was playing happily on the floor. 'There were supposed to be places where certain powers

were concentrated, where people could see things far off or have visions.'

Gil considered, while Tir came crawling busily back across the crackly mat of straw and old rushes that strewed the floor. Aide bent down and let the infant catch her fingers, then lifted him to a standing position beside her knees. Tir threw back his head and crowed with delight.

'You know,' Gil said thoughtfully, 'I bet what they buried was the old Nest of the Dark.' She picked up the tablet and turned it idly over in her fingers, the touch of the wax as cold and smooth as marble. 'God knows, the place is creepy enough. But it's really