01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

"Maybe." He turned his head a little to meet her eyes, and in the dimming evening light she thought he looked tired, the shadows of the porch railings barring his face but unable to hide the deepened lines around his mouth and eyes. His fingers idled with the splinters of the wood, casually, as if he were not speaking of danger into which he would walk. "But I would rather take that risk than imperil your world, your civilization, should the Dark prove able to follow me through the Void."

Then he sighed and stood up, as if dismissing the whole subject from his mind. He helped her to her feet, his hand rough and warm and powerful, but as light and deft as a jeweler's. The last glow of the day surrounded them, silhouetted against the burning windows. "I am entitled to risk my own life, Gil," he said. "But whenever I can, I draw the line at risking the lives of others, especially those who are loyal to me, as you are. So don't be concerned. We shall be quite safe."

CHAPTER THREE

"Where you headed?" Gil carefully guided the VW in a small circle, bumping slowly over stones and uneven ground, and eased it back onto the road again. The road, the hills, the dark trees of the grove had turned gray-blue and colorless in the twilight. In her rear-view mirror, Gil saw Ingold's sword blade held high in salute. She could see him on the cabin porch, straight and sturdy in his billowing dark mantle, and her heart ached with fear at the sight. Rudy, chewing on a grass blade, one sunburned arm hanging out of the open window, was about as comforting as reruns of The Crawling Eye on a dark and stormy night.

"San Bernardino," Rudy said, glancing back also at the dark form of the wizard in the shadows of the house.

"I can take you there," Gil said, negotiating a gravel slide and the deep-cut spoor of last winter's rains. "I'm heading on into Los Angeles so it's not out of my way."

"Thank you" Rudy said. "It's harder than hell to get rides at night."

Gil grinned in spite of herself. "In that jacket it would be."

Rudy laughed. "You from L.A.?"

"Not originally. I go to UCLA; I'm in the Ph.D. program in medieval history there." Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed his start of surprise, a typical reaction in men, she had found. "Originally I'm from San Marino."

"Ah," Rudy said wisely, recognizing the name of that wealthy suburb. "Rich kid."

"Not really." Gil objected more to the label than to the facts. "Well-I guess you could say that. My father's a doctor."

"Specialist?" Rudy inquired, half-teasing.

"Child psychiatrist," Gil said, with a faint grin at how well the label fitted her.

"Yow."

"They've disowned me," she added with a shrug. "So it doesn't matter." Her voice was offhand, almost apologetic. She turned on the headlights, and dust plumed whitely in their feeble glare. By their reflection Rudy could see that her face wore the shut, wary look again, a fortress defended against all comers.

"Why the hell would they disown you?" He was indignant in spite of himself for her sake. "Christ, my mother would forgive any one of my sisters for murder if she'd just finish high school."

Gil chuckled bitterly. "It's the Ph.D. mine objects to," she told him. "What up-and-coming young doctor or dentist is going to marry a research scholar in medieval history? She doesn't say that, but that's what she means." And Gil drove on for a time in silence.

The dark shapes of the hills loomed closer around the little car, the stars emerging in the luminous blue of the evening sky, small and bright with distance. Staring out into the milky darkness, Rudy identified the landmarks of his trip into the hills, rock and tree and the round, smooth shapes of the land. The green eyes of some tiny animal flashed briefly in the gloom, then vanished as a furry shape whipped across the dark surface of the road.

"So they kicked you out just because you want to get a Ph.D.?"

She shrugged. "They didn't really kick me out. I just don't go home anymore. I don't miss it," she added truthfully.

"Really? I'd miss it like hell." Rudy slouched back against the door, one arm draped out the window, the wind cool against wrist and throat. "I mean, yeah, my mom's house is like a bus stop, with the younger kids all over the place, and the cats, and her sisters, and dirty dishes all over the house, and my sisters' boyfriends hanging out in the back yard-but it's someplace to go, you know? Someplace I'll always be welcome, even if I do have to shout to make myself heard. I'd go crazy if I had to live there, but it's nice to go back."

Gil grinned at the picture he painted, mentally contrasting it with the frigid good taste of her mother's home.

"And you left your family just to go to school?" He sounded wondering, unbelieving that she could have done such a thing.

"There was nothing there for me," Gil said. "And I want to be a scholar. They can't understand that I've never wanted to do or be or have anything else."