The Walls of Air Page 0,76

time when there are evil ghosts abroad upon the land?'

As if summoned by the speaking of the name, winds rattled in the glass and feathers of the magic-post, the white sunlight winked from the spinning metal, and the wild rose petals tore loose to lie in the grass like sacrificial blood. There was a stirring among the Raiders; a head or two turned, not toward the post, but toward the emptiness of the desert. Yet there was nothing there, nothing but the arctic cold.

Ingold leaned upon the spear. 'Tell me of these evil ghosts,' he said.

Zyagarnalhotep regarded these two ragged pilgrims from the lands of his enemies for a moment in silence, as if gauging what each of them was worth. Rudy had the uncomfortable feeling that they were far from out of it yet. But the chief only said, 'Come. Eat with me, you and your Little Insect who knows spells, and we will speak of this thing.'

Hoofprint of the Wind's shelter was larger than others in the camp, but, like most of them, indistinguishable from a thicket of mesquite at more than a few feet away. The faintest drift of smoke marked its fire, with a whiff of meat cooking. Ingold unerringly picked out the concealed entrance and led the way into the dugout room. 'Is it safe?' Rudy asked softly, with a worried glance back at the warriors still grouped and talking quietly outside.

'Is anything you've done for the past four days?' Ingold replied tartly. 'Sit down and let me see your leg.'

The place was narrow and low-roofed, intensely gloomy, and smelling of crushed sage, dirt, and wood-smoke. Bison and mammoth furs strewed the floor, and Rudy eased himself down on to one of these while Ingold sorted through the various pouches and packets he habitually carried concealed about his person.

Another horrible suspicion assailed Rudy. 'Hey -

Ingold glanced up.

'It wasn't all a test, was it? I mean, to see how well I'd get along on my own?'

'It was not,' the wizard stated drily and began to unwrap the crusted bandages on Rudy's ankle and calf. 'For one thing, you aren't fit to be tested on anything yet, and a test of this sort would be tantamount to murder. When I have call to murder my assistants, I do so deliberately and after fair warning. For another, I should have failed you the moment you went haring off out of camp into a storm without stopping to ascertain whether I had really vanished or not.'

'Yeah, but I-' The sense of what the old man said sank in. 'Hunh?'

Ingold sighed and sat back on his heels. 'It's the oldest trick in the book, Rudy,' he explained patiently. 'If you want to separate two partners, one of the quickest ways of doing so is to throw a cloak ing-spell of some kind over one of them when the other one's back is turned. You were asleep, weren't you? I thought so. The other partner is

bound to go pelting away in the opposite direction, yelling his friend's name, without stopping to make a careful search of the place or even take a second look. Merely a few minutes unguarded would have suited their purposes. The storm only made the situation worse.'

They - who?' Rudy winced as Ingold applied the thin paste of powdered herbs and water to the half-healed mess of his scabbing wound.

The old man looked up at him again and dried his hands on a corner of his patched and fraying mantle. 'The Dark Ones,' he said sombrely. The same ones, I think, that have followed us from Renweth. There weren't many of them, but there were enough to keep me pinned in a cave in the bank till morning. I'm going to need another piece out of your sur-coat, Rudy. We haven't anything else to bind this with.'

Rudy obliged him, reflecting philosophically that at this point a few more tatters made little difference. He knew he looked like some gorily exaggerated beggar out of an Ingmar Bergman movie, with his filthy rags, long hair, bruised face, and four days' worth of black stubble on his jaw. Ingold looked little better, worn out, filthy, and shabby, like a St. Francis after a bar fight. The last four days hadn't been easy ones on him, either.

'It wasn't neglect that kept me from tracking you and catching you up immediately,' Ingold went on, bending down to rewrap the wound. The Dark pursued me for two nights, and I couldn't afford to