The Walls of Air Page 0,83

the ceiling? I thought you said they were intelligent, that they had a civilization.'

'And so they did,'Ingold said. 'Of a kind. But I believe it to be a civilization of the mind, a civilization with virtually no outward expression at all. It is one to which our minds cannot penetrate; and even if they could, we could not comprehend it, any more than a sheep or a pig could comprehend a love poem

or money or the concept of honour.'

Rudy nodded, his eyes travelling slowly over those dark and gleaming walls. 'You got a point there. I could name you a couple of people who'd have a rough time with two out of three.' Beside him, he heard Ingold chuckle.

While they were speaking, Rudy became aware of the cold. It flowed down the stairway behind him, deepening and intensifying until he found himself shivering in his heavy buffalo-fur coat. Even the weather-hardened Raiders huddled together for warmth; their breath steamed in the diamond brilliance of Ingold's light. From the twisting tunnel of the endless stair behind them, Rudy heard the moaning of far-off winds, a thin keening shriek whose wildness chilled his heart. He knew they'd been descending for a long time - God only knew how deep in the earth they were. Yet the intensity of the ice storm penetrated even there. He could see the ice condensing from the moisture of their breath to frost the polished walls.

His teeth chattered as he spoke. 'So why are the bones there? Can we go see?' It crossed his mind that deeper in the caverns they might have a better chance against the unearthly cold.

Ingold pointed his staff downward at the drop. Rudy saw almost at once that it would be impossible to take the horses down the sheer fall. He wondered if the dooic, or whomever the Dark lured to their Nests, broke their ankles going over that edge.

The wizards glanced back over his shoulder at the chief of the Raiders. 'Have you ropes?' he asked.

The panther eyes under the chieftain's long, curling brows darkened. 'My friend, it is not a good thing,' Hoofprint said quietly. 'Down there are the dead. The whole cavern stinks of them. You can smell the wind that rises from the tunnels below. Better it is that you remain here with us to wait out the storm.'

Ingold turned away restlessly, as if he would pace the narrow

step. His feet touched the very edge of the chasm. 'Why are they dead?' he asked. 'How did they die?'

The chieftain sniffed, as at the question of a fool. 'You stand in the caverns of the Eaters in the Night and ask how men came to die in this place? Stay among us, Walker in the Dark. To know that the Eaters slay men is no new thing.'

Ingold only said, 'Give me a rope.'

They gave it to him.

'Rudy?'

Obediently, Rudy called light to the tip of the spear he used for a walking stick. With his fingers numb and aching in their worn gloves, he held it out over the void while Ingold dropped his own staff over the edge, then shinned down the rope with the businesslike deftness of a mountain climber. As he watched the wizard picking his way back along the cavern floor, Rudy noticed that the scavenger rats gave Ingold a wide berth. He wondered if this were a spell in itself, or if they were merely under the carefully engineered impression that the wizard was a sabre-toothed tiger. From here, he was simply a little old man, the white glow of his staff like a dwindling star above his bowed head, the brown of his robes blending in with the dry, flaky moss that crumbled to dust beneath his light tread. Rudy watched that bobbing phosphorescence play in the shadows of the stalagmites for a time, while the wizard explored what lay beyond and among them. Then it vanished abruptly through a claw-smoothed doorway, seeking deeper darkness.

Behind him, Rudy heard Hoofprint of the Wind murmur, 'Not for all the horses nor all the hunting eagles nor all the willing women of the earth would I seek thus the Eaters in the Night. Death there is in that tunnel. Cannot he smell it? This ghost that the Eaters themselves fear, this has swept these caverns end to end and slain the Eaters and their victims alike. Yet he will go to seek it, like a little priest on foot.'

The cold grew deeper and more bitter, driving men