The Walls of Air Page 0,92

the snatch of a lullaby. The smell of food cooking came to them there, together with the odour of dirty clothes. All the sounds and smells of the Keep were there, telling of life safe from the Dark. Here in this small complex of cells was only shadow, and dust, and time.

'Gil,' Aide said slowly, 'I - I don't think I trust Alwir.' The confession of disloyalty seemed to stick in her throat. 'He - he uses things. This ' She rested her hand on a frosty crystal before her, joined spheres of glass and a meaningless tangle

of interwinding tubes. 'This is part of something that could be very important when the mages come back. But Alwir might destroy it or lock it up if he thought he could get some kind of concession from Stiarth by doing so. He's like that, Gil. Everything is like cards in his hands.'

Her voice trembled suddenly with misery. Embarrassed, Gil spoke more gruffly than she'd meant to. 'Hell, you're not the only person in the Keep who doesn't think he's God's gift to the Realm.'

'No,' Aide agreed, her lips quirking in an involuntary smile that was instantly gone. 'But I should. He's been very good to me.'

'He ought to be,' Gil commented. 'You're the source of his power. He has no legal power of his own.'

Aide shook her head. 'Only the real power,' she assented. 'Sometimes I think even his friendship with with Eldor was part of his games. But Elder was strong enough himself to keep him down, strong enough to make Alwir work for him, like a strong man riding a half-wild horse.' She sighed and rubbed at her eyes with one long, white hand. 'Maybe Eldor knew it,' she went on tiredly. 'Maybe that's why he always kept so distant from me. I don't know, Gil. I look back and I see things that happened then and I start to doubt everything. Sometimes I think Rudy's the only person who ever loved me for who I am and not for what I could be used for.'

Gil reached out and rested a comforting hand on the slender shoulder. That's what happens when you mess with power,' she said softly. 'We are what we are, God help us.'

Aide laughed suddenly, tears still filming her eyes. 'So why must I have all the disadvantages of power and none of its rewards?' She picked up the lamp, her expression wryly philosophic. 'But you see,' she said as she led the way back toward the corridor, 'why I don't think Alwir should know of all this just yet.'

They stepped into the Aisle again, into a confusion of lights and voices. There was a little group ahead in the shadows of the gates. Even from here, they could hear a woman crying. A quick glance passed between them, and they hurried up the steps.

By this time of night, not many civilians were in the Aisle. It was, Gil guessed, a few hours before the deep-night watch came on. Her own watch began at eight the following morning, but training was at six; she was uncomfortably reminded that she ought to get to sleep.

It was the red-haired woman she had seen earlier who was crying, huddled against the wall with a small group of Guards around her, the torchlight like fire over the thick, tangled rope of her hair.

Janus was saying, 'Dammit, are we going to have to post a watch to keep the people inside at night? You'd think the Dark would do that.'

'It's the food,' Gnift said simply, and those elf-bright eyes flickered toward the closed gates. 'Things are thin now. With the troops coming up from Alketch -

'Surely the Emperor can't expect us to feed his armies!' one of Alwir's lesser

captains protested.

Melantrys gave him a snort of derision. 'Hide and watch him.'

'What is it?' Aide asked. 'What's happening?'

The woman raised a face smeared with tears in the yellow torchlight. 'Oh, my lady,' she whispered. 'Oh, God help me, I never thought he'd do it. He said he would, but I didn't believe.'

'Her husband,' Janus explained briefly. 'Man named Snelgrin. He hid himself outside the Keep when the gates shut to steal food and cache it in the woods.'

'I never thought he would,' the woman moaned. 'I never thought...'

'Obviously he never thought, either,' Melantrys retorted softly. Gil remembered the couple now - Lolli was the woman's name. They were the first instance of an old-time Keep dweller marrying a Penambran newcomer. Maia had performed the