01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

"I don't take up much room," Ingold remarked, "and I far prefer the company. Besides," he added, picking up his teacup again, "I never have found out who ordered my arrest in Karst. While I don't believe Alwir would put me out of the way as long as he had a use for me, there are cells deep in the bowels of this Keep that are woven with a magic far deeper and stronger and far, far older than my own, cells that I could never escape. The Rune of the Chain is still somewhere in this Keep-in whose possession I cannot tell. As long as I remain in the Keep of Dare, I would really prefer to sleep among my friends."

Rudy's fingers traced idly at the moldy nap of the blanket. "You think it's like that?"

"I don't know," the wizard admitted equably. "And I should hate to find out. The wise man defends himself by never being attacked."

"You call that business last night not being attacked?"

Ingold smiled ruefully. "That was an exception," he apologized, "and unavoidable. I knew that I could draw the Dark away from Tir and hold them off long enough to let you get close to the gates. There weren't very many of them left by that time, too few to split up and still have enough power among themselves to work counterspells against me."

"I don't understand," Gil said, tossing the end of her braid back over her shoulder. "I know there weren't a lot of them-but why did they let us go? They've been following Tir clear the hell down from Karst. They know what the Keep is and they knew last night was their last chance to get at him. But they turned back and went after you. Why?"

He didn't answer at once. He lay watching the curl of the steam rising from the cup in his bandaged hands, his face in repose suddenly old and tired. Then his dark-circled eyes shifted to meet hers. "Do you remember," he said slowly, "when I almost became-lost-in the vaults at Gae? When you called me back from the stairways of the Dark?"

Gil nodded soundlessly; it had been the first day, she remembered, that she had held a sword in her hand. The darkness came back to her, the stealthy sense of lurking fear, the old man standing alone on the steps far below her, listening to a sound that she could not hear, the white radiance of his staff illuminating the shadows all around him. It had been the last day she had been a scholar, an outworlder, the person she had once been. The memory of that distant girl, alone and armed with a borrowed sword and a guttering torch against all the armies of the Dark, brought a lump to her throat that she thought would choke her.

He went on. "I guessed, then, what I know now-that Prince Tir is not their first target. Oh, they'll take him if they can get him-but, given a choice, as I gave them a choice last night, it isn't Tir they want.

"It's me."

"You?" Rudy gasped.

"Yes." The wizard sipped his tea, then set it aside. From beyond the curtain, Gnift's voice bitingly informed someone that he had less stance than a wooden-legged ice skater. "I can evidently be of more ultimate harm to them than Tir can. I suspected it before, and after last night there can be no other explanation."

"But how- I mean-your magic can't touch them," Rudy said uneasily. "To them you're just another guy with a sword. You don't know any more about the Time of the Dark than anybody else. I mean, Tir's the one who'll remember."

"I've wondered about that myself," Ingold said calmly. "And I can only conclude that I know something that I'm not yet aware that I know-some clue that hasn't fallen into place. They know what it is, and they're concerned lest I remember."

Rudy shuddered wholeheartedly. "So what are you going to do?"

The wizard shrugged. "What can I do? Take elementary precautions. But it might be well for you to reconsider your offer to accompany me to Quo."

"To hell with that," Rudy reconsidered. "You're the one who should reconsider."

"Who else can go?" Ingold reasoned. "And if I were afraid of getting myself killed, I should never have taken up this business in the first place. I should have stayed in Gettlesand and grown roses and cast horoscopes. No-all that I can do now is stay a few steps ahead of them and hope that I realize what the answer is before they catch me."

"You're crazy," Rudy stated unequivocally.

Ingold smiled. "Really, Rudy, I thought we'd long settled the question of my sanity."

"You're all crazy!" Rudy insisted. "You and Gil and Alde and the Guards... How the hell come I always end up completely surrounded by lunatics?"

The old man settled comfortably back among the blankets and picked up his tea again, the steam wreathing his face like smoke from the altar of a battered idol. "The question is the answer, Rudy-always provided you want an answer that badly."

Considering it in that light, Rudy was not entirely sure that he did.