The Walls of Air Page 0,55

sort of an opposite to a gaenguo. The atmosphere disrupts magic rather than channels it. Interesting,' she murmured.

'Interesting how?' Aide glanced curiously up at Gil, holding her son's hands in her own.

'Because it looks as if by that time they had completely disassociated the idea of the Dark from the Nests. Which is less surprising than it seems,' she went on, 'when you consider that the bonfire was the first line of defence against the Dark. Which, of course, is why we have no records at all from the Time of the Dark itself.'

Aide let Tir down, and the child crawled determinedly away in pursuit of his ball. 'How vexing,' she said, inadequately.

'Well, more than that.' Gil sat on the narrow bed of grain sacks and covered her cold feet with her cloak. 'It left everybody completely unprepared for it when it happened again. I mean, before last summer nobody had even heard of the Dark.'

'Oh, but we had,' Aide protested. 'That's what - In a way it worked against Ingold, you see. When I was a little girl, my nurse Medda used to tell me not to get out of bed and run about the house at night because the Dark Ones would eat me up. I think all nurses used to tell their children that.' Her voice

faltered - in the end it had been Medda who had been eaten up by the Dark. 'It was something you grew out of. Most little children believed in the Dark Ones. It was only their parents who didn't.'

Gil momentarily pictured the probable fate of any shabby and unlikely pilgrim who tried to convince the authorities that the bogeyman was really going to devour America. 'I'm surprised Eldor believed him,' she murmured.

'Eldor- ' Minalde paused. 'Eldor was very exceptional. And he trusted Ingold. Ingold was his tutor when he was a child.'

Gil glanced up quickly, hearing the sudden tension that choked off Aide's voice. The younger girl was looking determinedly away into the distance, fighting the film of tears that had appeared so abruptly in her eyes. Whatever her love for Rudy, Gil thought, there is a love there which can never be denied. In the strained silence which followed, Melantrys' voice could be heard, arguing with Seya about whether or not she should get rid of her cloak in a sword fight.

Then Aide forced a small rueful smile and brushed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. 'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay.'

'No,' Aide said. 'It's just that sometimes I don't understand what there was between me and - and Eldor. As if I never understood it. I thought I could make him love me if I loved him hard enough. Maybe I was just being stupid.' She wiped her eyes again. 'But it hurts, you know, when you give everything you have and the one you give it to just just looks at it and turns aside.' She glanced away again, unable to meet Gil's eyes. Gil, clumsy-tongued and unhandy with her own or anyone else's emotions, could find nothing to say.

But Aide seemed to take no offence at the silence. In fact, she seemed to find a kind of comfort in it. Tir, having reached the end of the room, came crawling back toward the girls with his usual single-minded determination, and Aide smiled as she bent

to help him stand once more. He was very much like Aide, Gil thought, watching mother and child together - small-boned and compact, with her wide morning-glory-blue eyes. Just as well, she added to herself, that there's so little of Eldor in his only child. When you're carrying on an affair with a man the Church says is a servant of Satan, it's no help to have the echo of his predecessor before your eyes every time you turn around.

Aide looked up suddenly, as if deliberately putting aside the pain and confusion of that first, hopeless love. 'So where were you?' she asked Gil. The Guards said you'd left right after breakfast.'

'Oh.' Gil shrugged. 'Exploring, looking for something, really... You've never run across any mention anywhere of a - a kind of observation room in the Keep, have you? A room with a black stone table in it, with a crystal kind of thing in the middle?'

'No.' Then Aide frowned, her black brows drawing down into two swooping wings. 'But that's funny - it sounds so familiar. A table - has it a crystal disc, set into the top of the table?'

'Yeah,' Gil said.