01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

He had hardly spoken to Alde during the day. She had turned away from him, silent and more shy than before, as if withdrawing herself after the shattering intimacy of last night. Rudy was puzzled but not surprised; they had taken each other in the passion that followed tension and terror; such things could change drastically come morning. It could be grief at Medda's death, though she must have known, after the Guards led the poor, stumbling zombie who had been her oldest companion out of the camp, that there was no way to bring her along with the train. It could be shame, either at the act of sex itself or at its implicit betrayal of her dead King. Rudy wondered about that. Alde seldom spoke of Eldor and shied almost visibly at the mention of his name. It might be shame that she'd lain with a commoner-though from remarks about history that Gil had dropped in passing, that wasn't something that seemed to bother female royalty much-or, more likely, fear and a kind of revulsion that she'd lain with a wizard. Alde was a good daughter of the Church. Rudy remembered the look in her eyes, awe and a wild kind of horror, staring into his across the new brightness of the flames.

But whatever her reasons, he sensed in her no anger toward him, only a terrible emotional confusion. And he knew, looking back at the square gray silhouette of the wagon top against the fading salmon of the sky, that he must bide his time. Rudy had been around enough to know that sleeping with someone once could happen to and with literally anybody. It was the second time, and those after, that had meaning. Impatient as he was to be with her again, he was aware that to rush her would be fatal. He knew Alde and knew that behind her deceptive gentleness lay a core of steel. For all her quiet diffidence, she was not a woman who could be bullied into bed.

And that would be fine, he thought, as his breathing suddenly constricted, if she were the only one involved.

He forced himself to turn his eyes away.

"Now." Ingold halted on the grassy open ground that lay between the edge of the camp proper and the guard line where the watch fires were being kindled. Here they were alone, camp and lines both fading into the featureless gray of the evening. The wind blew the cold rain-smell down around them, surging through the grass and over the bare patches of stony ground beneath their feet. "You told me this morning how you called fire at need last night. Show me what you did."

Rudy gathered a few sticks together that had been dropped from the making of the watch fires and found a patch of dry ground. With his thumbnail he peeled enough dry bark to make a little tinder and sat cross-legged beside that small pinch of wood, his cloak wrapped about him. He relaxed his body and mind, shutting out the smells of the camp, the smoke and scent of wet grass, and the lowing of the cattle. He saw only the twigs and the bark, and how the stuff would catch. Smokier than last night's leaves, he thought. A little spot, like one made with a magnifying glass in the sun... a different smell from the leaves...

The fire came much more quickly than it had come before.

There was a hint of triumph mixed with anxiety in the glance Rudy gave Ingold. The older wizard watched the new flames impassively for a moment, then without moving put them out. He produced the stump of a candle from somewhere about his person and held it a few feet from Rudy's eyes.

"Light the candle," he instructed.

Rudy did.

Ingold blew it out thoughtfully and regarded him for a moment in silence through the whitish drift of the smoke. Then he set it aside. From a pouch in his belt he fished a piece of string with a dangling bit of lead on it like a fishing-sinker. He held the string before him and steadied the suspended weight to stillness with his free hand.

"Make it move."

It was like starting the fire, only different.

"Hmm." Ingold gathered the plumb weight into his hand again and put it away without speaking.

A little ripple of evening wind stirred the grasses beside them. Rudy fidgeted, his mind shying from the implications of what he had done. "What is it?" he asked nervously. "I mean-how can I do this?"

The wizard straightened his sleeves. "You know that," he said. "Better than I do." Their eyes met and held. Between them passed the understanding of something known only to those who had felt what it was. There were not even words for it among those who did not know already. "The question is the answer, Rudy. The question is always the answer. But as to your Power, I'd say you were born with it, as we all are."

We, Rudy thought. We. He stammered, knowing Ingold must be right, his mind fighting the nets of the impossible. "But-I mean-I never could do this before."

"In your own world you couldn't," Ingold said. "Or possibly you could-did you ever try?"