It was one of the few buildings in Quo still blessed with a roof. Rain and wind crashed against the piled ruins of the storeys above, like the pounding of the mad sea. Rudy was shivering with fright and exertion as he laid Ingold down on a drift of moldering leaves and the soaked and matted remains of books. He called a faint glimmering of witchlight; by its gleam, he could see two skeletons crumpled in another corner of the room.
Ingold's face was corpselike in the ghastly light, white with shock and pain and the effort to remain conscious. Rudy could see where the points of the spear had torn into his side when he'd turned at the distraction of Rudy's yell. Just as Lohiro knew would happen, God damn it, Rudy thought furiously, working to pull off Ingold's mantle so he could get at the wound.
'Don't,' Ingold whispered desperately.
'You're hurt, man,' Rudy muttered. 'I've got to...'
'No. I'm a healer, Rudy. I'll be all right.' The old man was gasping for breath, his hand groping to press his bleeding side.
'You're gonna goddam bleed to death...'
'Don't talk like a fool.' Ingold's eyes opened, a stranger's eyes again, hard, glittering, and furious. His breath came hoarse and ragged, but already Rudy could see the flow of blood slowing between his burned fingers. 'What possessed you to bring me inside?'
The arrogance in his voice touched off Rudy's own temper. 'I
had to get you to shelter! You were bleeding like a pig!'
'And whose fault is that?' Ingold snapped. To be taken in by one of the cheapest tricks known to man, and a poor version of it at that.'
'Well, I'm sorry!' Rudy yelled, enraged. 'Next time I'll let you fight your own goddam battle!'
Equally furious, Ingold slashed back at him. 'And if you don't have the wits to realize -'
They both looked up as the witchlight faded. Rudy sensed the spell, then, the same strong force that had drained his power in the haunted woods. In the growing darkness, he felt Ingold's power reach out, trying to kindle light. It met with that same inexorable strength. By wizard sight he saw the old man sit up, then heard the rasping intake of breath at the pain. Outside, storms of hail clattered on the pavements. A blinding crack of lightning illuminated the swirling of wind-driven rain and silhouetted the tall, angular form in the black arch of the doorway.
Witchlight flickered into the room again, bluish and shadowy, playing like St. Elmo's fire over the linen-fold panelling, the charred ruins of chairs, and the glinting bullion in the decaying curtains. It threaded Lohiro's dripping gold hair with quicksilver and lost itself in his staring, inhuman eyes. The long, triangular mouth quirked up into a grin at the sight of the two bloody and sodden fugitives huddled in their corner. He came slowly down the steps into the room.
Rudy fumbled to draw his sword, but Ingold shoved him back. 'Don't be stupid.' The old man dragged himself to his feet, his own blade burning with a sudden, cold light.
Look who's talking, Rudy thought, as the wizard staggered and caught his balance on the remains of a twisted chair. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.
Whether the stagger was a deliberate fake, Rudy didn't know,
but it drew Lohiro. The prongs flashed inches from Ingold's eyes. But the old man caught the crescent with his pommel, driving the spear down and past him to stick into the wood of the floor. In the same movement, it seemed, he slashed along the haft. Lohiro released his hold on the weapon and sprang clear, empty-handed.
Ingold rushed him, the blade of his sword burning as it slashed. Then, to his horror, Rudy realized why the old man had been angry to find himself in shelter- why he had called the storm in the first place. Out of the danger of the winds, Lohiro's body changed, his form melting into the form of the Dark. Dodging the whining arc of the blade, the Dark One flickered aside and fell, not upon Ingold, but upon Rudy.
There was no time to draw his sword. Rudy flung himself flat on the floor against the wall and covered his head, choking on the smell of stone, mould, blood, and acid in the darkness that seemed to engulf him. A shower of pebbles and dead leaves was kicked over him, and he felt the edge of a ragged mantle brush his face. Somewhere in the darkness, metal whined very close to him. When he looked up, it was to see Ingold standing above him, the crimson stain spreading over his side again. Five feet away, Lohiro was pulling his spear free of the floor. He was. smiling, but there was still nothing in his eyes.
The Archmage moved in again, light on his feet, agile as a cat. The mind might have been taken over by the Dark, but the body and its training were his own. And he was fresh, Rudy thought - fresher, anyway, than Ingold, who had the long labour in the library and the slaying of the dragon behind him. Also, the Archmage wasn't conscious of trying to kill a man who had been his friend.
Rudy glanced up at Ingold. Red-rimmed eyes glittered in the black-bruised hollows of flesh. There was no pity in them, no remorse. Like Lohiro, Ingold was a machine that existed for the kill.
He ducked a feint to the eyes and the lightning head-blow that
followed, then twisted out of the way as the prongs gouged upward at groin and belly. Lohiro evaded the old man's rush, falling back to his own distance and driving in again. The prongs of the crescent glittered, catching Ingold's blade and scissoring it viciously from his hands, the metal flashing as it struck the far wall. Ingold took a step back, his hands empty.
Lohiro struck like a gold puma. Rudy never saw Ingold's hand move, but he knew it must have done so, for Lohiro, though the floor at his feet was clear, tripped and staggered in his rush. In that gained second, Rudy pulled his own blade from its scabbard and tossed it to Ingold's ready hand. If the wizard had been less exhausted, he might have been faster, but the Archmage sidestepped the rush and regained his balance. A muffled explosion of sound cracked between them, throwing Ingold back against the far wall of the room, and the spear whined in again, the crescent driving into the panels to pin Ingold's sword hand to the wood. Then the Dark One, who had been Lohiro the Archmage an instant before, struck in along the spear haft. In the closing gap between the darkness around the Dark One and the old man pinned to the wall, Rudy had a confused glimpse of Ingold's left hand reaching across his body to pull his dagger from his belt; in the inky shadows, he saw the glint of its needle point. Then he heard a cry, somewhere between a shriek and a moan, and for an instant, Rudy wasn't sure who had cried out or why.
The darkness retreated. Rudy saw Ingold again, flattened against the wall, his sword hand still pinned and his eyes shut, his face glittering with sweat. Slumped against him, slender white hands clinging to his shoulders for support, Lohiro's long body was already buckling at the knees, the gold head bowed next to Ingold's face. Slowly he slipped downward and crumpled at the old man's feet.
Ingold dropped the bloody dagger and reached across his own body to dislodge the pronged spear. By the time Rudy got over to them, he was on his knees, gathering the Archmage's bleeding form into his arms.
Lohiro's eyes opened, blinking dazedly up at the face above his. 'Ingold?' he whispered, then coughed, bringing up a trickle of blood. In the witchlight, his face was ghastly, bathed in sweat and suddenly pinched-looking, as if the flesh were falling in on the bones. Even to Rudy's inexperience, the wound was obviously mortal.
Ingold said nothing, only sat with his head lowered, his face hidden in shadow.
The Archmage whispered,'... lied. Dark here - below.' He tried to draw breath and coughed again, a hideous gurgling sound. Bony fingers picked restlessly at Ingold's sleeve. 'Trapped... maze. Coming.' He gasped, choking, and a spasm of pain passed across the thin, fox-like features. 'Healer... you can heal me... They've let me go. Free.'
Softly the old man said, 'I'm sorry, Lohiro.'