01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

Moving swiftly now, Ingold sheathed his sword in a single fluid gesture, took the can, and set to work, unscrewing the filler-cap and throwing a great swatch of the clear liquid over the dry wood of the door. It glittered in the yellow firelight, its throat-catching smell mixing with the gritty foulness of the smoke, nearly choking Gil, who stood with her back pressed to the icy concrete of the wall, the muffled baby motionless in her arms. The fire's light had gone from yellow to murky orange, the brown shadows of the wizard's quick, sure movements wavering, vast and distorted, over the imprisoning walls. Ingold came hack toward her and saturated the mattress with the last of the kerosene, its stink nearly suffocating her at close range. Then he set the empty can down softly, turned and drew his sword again, all in one smooth move; all told, he had had his sword sheathed for less than forty seconds.

He returned to the center of the room, a few feet in front of the dying fire, which had fallen in on itself to a fading heap of ash and crawling embers. As the darkness grew around him, the pallid light that seemed to burn up off the blade grew brighter, bright enough to highlight his scarred face. He said softly, "Don't be afraid." Whether it was a spell he cast, or merely the strength of his personality alone, Gil did not know, but she felt her apprehension lessen, her fear give place to a queer, cold numbness. Rudy moved out of his frozen immobility, took the last stick of unburned kindling, and lit it from the remains of the blaze.

Darkness seemed to fill the room and, heavier than the darkness, a silence that breathed. In that silence Gil heard the faint blundering sounds in the hall, a kind of chitinous scratching, as if dark fumbled eyelessly through dark. Against her own heart, she could feel the baby's heart hammering with small violence, and a chill wind began to seep through the cracks in the door, touching her sweating face with feathers of cold. She could smell it, the harsh, acid blood-smell of the Dark.

Ingold's rusty voice came very calmly out of the shadows. "Rudy," he said, "take that torch and stand next to the door. Don't be afraid, but when the creature comes in, I want you to close the door behind it and light the kerosene. Will you do that?"

Empty, cold, keyed up long past the point of feeling anything, Rudy whispered, "Yeah, sure." He sidled cautiously past the wizard, the flaming wood flickering in his hand. As he took his post by the door, he could feel the presence of the thing, a nightmare aura of fear. He felt it bump the door, softly, a testing tap, far above his own eye level, and his flesh crawled at the touch. The thing would pass him-if it did pass him and didn't turn on the nearest person to it as it came through the door-within touching distance. But on the other hand, the thought crossed his mind that if it did pass him, there was nothing to prevent him from slipping out that open door and making a run for the car.

If the car would start. If, having polished off Ingold and Gil, the Dark didn't come after him anyway. No! The need was to finish it now-the Dark One, the Enemy, the thing from across the Void, the obscene intruder into the warm, soft world of the California night...

Groping for the shattered ends of his world-view, Rudy could only stand in darkness beside the door, torch in hand, and wait.

The last glow of the embers was fading, the only light in the room now Rudy's smoldering torch and the gleaming challenge of the blade that Ingold held upright before him, his eyes glittering in the reflected witchlight like the eyes of an old wolf. There was a sibilant rustle of robes as he stirred, bracing himself, a whispering sigh as the dying ashes collapsed and scattered. The wind that ruffled so coldly through the cracks in the door seemed to drop and fail.