01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

"I shall be going with the train to Renweth. Though I am no longer considered a member of the Regents, I am still held to the vow I made Eldor before his death. I promised to see Prince Tir to a place of safety and that I will and must do, whether Alwir wishes me to or not. I am afraid, my children, that you have leagued yourselves with an outcast."

"Alwir can go to hell," Gil said shortly.

Ingold shook his head. "The man has his uses," he said. "But he finds me-unbiddable. On the road to Renweth, Tir will be in constant danger from the Dark. I cannot leave him. But Renweth will be, for me, only a stopping place, the first stage of a greater journey."

"Well, look," Rudy said after a moment's thought. "If we went with you to Quo, couldn't you send us back from there? If it's so safe, it would be the one place where the Dark Ones couldn't get through."

"True," Ingold agreed. "If you made it to Quo. I wouldn't recommend the trip. In the height of the Realm's power, few people would venture to cross the plain and the desert in winter. It's close to two thousand miles, through desolate lands. In addition to the Dark, we would be in danger from the White Raiders, the barbarian tribesmen who have waged bloody war on the outposts of the Realm for centuries."

"But you're going," Rudy pointed out.

Ingold's blunt, scarred fingers toyed with the crystal on the windowsill. "And you might be safe, traveling with me. But believe me, your chances of seeing your own world again are far greater if you remain in the Keep of Dare."

Gil was silent, her bony hands folded on her knee, staring into the murky gloom of the gatehouse. She tried to picture that fortress among the mountains, tried to picture weeks and months there alone, knowing no one, isolated as she had always been isolated. Her jaw tightened. "You will come back for us, though, won't you?"

"I brought you into this world against your will," Ingold said quietly. He laid his hands over hers, the warmth of his touch going through her, warming her, as it always did, by its vitality. "If for no other reason than that, I am responsible for you. Lohiro may have a better answer than I can give you. It may even be that he will be able to return with me to the Keep."

"Yeah," Rudy said dubiously. "But what if you can't find the wizards? What if they're locked up so tight even you can't get in? What if-Suppose the Archmage is dead?" He hadn't wanted to say it, since Ingold seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lohiro was alive, but Ingold's frown was one of consideration rather than of anxiety or annoyance.

"It's a possibility," Ingold said slowly. "I had thought of it, yes, but-I would know if Lohiro were dead." The last of the twilight glinted on his bristling white eyebrows as they drew down over his nose. 'The spells that surround Quo might mask it-but I think I would know. I know I would."

"How?" Rudy asked curiously.

"I just would. Because he is the Archmage, and I am a wizard."

"Is that why Alwir kicked you out of the council?" Gil asked, remembering the cold eyes of the Bishop and the way Alwir had spoken of Ingold at the gate below. "Because you're a wizard?"

Ingold smiled and shook his head. "No," he said. "Alwir and I are enemies of long standing. He never approved of my friendship with Eldor. And I fear he will never forgive me for being right about the dangers of coming to Karst. Alwir, as you may have guessed, has never thought much of the idea of retreating to the Keeps. The Keeps are fortresses, safe for the most part from the Dark, but limited in scope. To retreat into them will fracture the Realm beyond hope of repair and destroy thousands of years of human civilization. Such a fate is inevitable, in an isolated society, where transportation and communication are limited to the duration of the daylight; culture will wane, narrow-mindedness set in; the human outlook will shrink from urbane tolerance of all human needs to a kind of petty parochialism that cannot see beyond the bounds of its own fields. As you know from your own studies, Gil, private law begets a host of its own abuses. Decentralized, the Church will degenerate, its priests and theologians degraded into sanctified scribes and passers-out of the sacraments to a squabbling, superstitious peasantry. I fear that wizardry, too, will suffer, becoming more and more polluted with little magics, losing sight of the mainstream of its teachings. Anything that requires an organized body of knowledge will vanish-the universities, medicine, training in any form of the arts.

"Eldor was a scholar, and saw this; he knew what had happened before, through his own memories of the long years of superstition and darkness and the mean-minded fears of men to whom the unknown was always threatening. Alwir and Govannin see it coming, and know that once they let their hold on centralized power slip, nothing can get it back.

"And so, Quo could be our only hope."