And yet, beside the silent passing of the Dark Ones toward Gae, Alwir, Eldor, and even he had already begun to seem very small and insignificant. His suspicion had strengthened to virtual certainty; he knew in his heart what was awaiting the Dark there. And he knew what would have to be done.
He sank, exhausted, down on a bench and leaned his head against the mingled colors of the tapestry behind him. The bullion stitching of it scratched his cheek; distantly, dark against the shaded glow of the banked white lamps, he saw Brother Wend wiping his hands, his dark eyes weary and defeated. Eldor had ceased to toss and rave. Exhausted and broken from repeated purgings, he lay with his half-open eyes sunk into skull-like sockets, staring blindly at the ceiling above him. Rudy's glance crossed Wend's, and the little priest shook his head.
Rudy sighed, mumbled a curse, and tried to find the energy to stand. "Maybe if we..."
"No," Wend said. "I do not think there is anything we can do for him now." His head and face had been shaved anew for his return to grace, and the razor burns stood out red and ugly against his pallor.
"There's got to be," Rudy said doggedly. "Where the hell is Gil?"
"Perhaps she could not find the sealed door." Wend moved stiffly to a carved chair and slumped down on its yellow silk cushions. The coarse burlap of his sleeves had been rolled up over his elbows; he continued to wipe his hands, slowly and mechanically, as he spoke. "Perhaps Thoth is dead, as my lady said. The poison-I-I did not mean..."
"Hell, I know Govannin." Rudy sighed. "I'd hate like hell to try and stand against her will on something I was sure of, let alone something I wasn't." He tried to remember how long it had been since the arrest of the wizards, but the days slipped from his mind as the pestles and tubes and herbs had slithered from his nerveless fingers. He ran his hands through his long hair, as if trying to clear cobwebs from his brain. "There's got to be something..."
Wend shook his head. "We have done what we can," he said quietly. "Elder has been weakened by his wounds and by the long debilitation and undernourishment in the Nest."
"And it may be," a woman's soft voice added, making both men turn in surprise, "that he has no further desire to live."
Aide rose quietly from the corner where she had been sitting so silently that neither of the mages had remembered her presence in the room. She still wore the dark red velvet dress that she had worn when she had come to Rudy the night before. Within the frame of her dark hair, her face looked haggard. Rudy tried to recall what he had been saying to Wend at intervals during the last few hours. He knew he had described Alwir's death, and, although Alde had long since ceased to believe in her brother's love, she need not have heard of his death so callously. Her eyes and nose looked raw from weeping, but he could not remember having heard a sound.
As she came into the brighter light and sat on the edge of Eldor's bed, Rudy could see the glisten of two white threads among the unbound blackness of her hair. She took the King's good hand, his unburned one, in hers. When she spoke, her voice was low and tired. "They are much alike, you know-Gil and Eldor. Having lost everything, they are too stubborn to die. And they are both the kind of person who would rather die under torture than admit their true feelings or ask anyone for anything." She turned Eldor's hand over in hers, stroking the fine shape of the fingers, the split and bitten nails, and the scars left by the hard mastery of the sword. "I never knew what he did feel for me," she went on quietly. "Maybe it was that he didn't trust Alwir and feared I would be his pawn. Maybe he just did not trust himself."
Rudy sagged back against the embroidered hangings and looked up into her still, ravaged face. "Maybe he just didn't know how to show love. There are people like that, too. It's hard to tell the truth, even when you want to very badly."
The long white fingers clenched suddenly over Aide's. Looking down, she saw the gun-metal eyes blinking up at her, heavy and sardonic and half-asleep. "Aide?" the King whispered.
It was the first time that Rudy had heard Eldor address his wife by her name.
"I'm here," she said.
"Are you well?"
She touched the tops of his protruding knuckles with gentle fingertips. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, I'm well."
"It is true, as they said?" he whispered. "Alwir is dead?"
"Yes," Alde replied softly. "The girl Gil-Shalos killed him in a duel."
There was silence, and then the faint, creaking breath of a laugh. A sliver of the old, amused malice gleamed in the sunken eyes. "He must have been surprised."
The corners of Aide's mouth tucked in, very slightly. "Perhaps," she said and transferred her light touch to his forehead. "No one else was. Rest yourself, my lord. Later..."
"Rest." The hideous features twitched in a grimace. "Rest indeed." His breath was coming in thick wheezes through half-uncovered teeth. "No later," he whispered, "no light. Only dreams. Tir?"
"Tir's asleep." In the grate, the log broke and crumbled, the sudden spurt of golden light showing Aide's lashes beaded with amber tears. "I'll send someone to Maia's church to fetch him if you want."
The King moved his head slightly, dissenting. "No. Look after him. Ingold promised me he would."
"And so he did," she murmured.
His hands moved restlessly, then stilled again in hers. "Ingold-where is he?" he muttered.
She hesitated and cast an agonized glance at Rudy.
"He's at Gae," Rudy said softly.
"Ah." Eldor frowned suddenly, as if at something forgotten. The effect on the rucked, scarlet flesh was horrible. "I struck him," he murmured finally. "Tell him -I am sorry."
"He knows."
Eldor sighed and shut his eyes. "You spoke of love," he said at length, "and of truth. A man may love a kitten, or a child, or a woman. My kitten, do you love this boy?"
"I love you," Alde whispered, and the burned, red fingers twitched, waving her back from him.
"You need not kiss this face to prove it."
"A woman never loves a man's face, Eldor." She leaned forward and touched his lips with hers.
They twisted into the ghastly mockery of a grin. "A brave kitten. A brave woman, maybe... Do you love this boy?"
Aide was silent for a long time, holding his hand, listening to the slow drag of his laboring breath. She finally said, "Yes. I do. I don't know how it's different, but-I love you both."
"A woman may worship a hero," the King whispered, "and love the man whom she was born to love. I was fond of the kitten and I might have loved the woman. But I never met her. I wronged her-and perhaps myself as well."
"There is time," Alde said softly and bent to kiss his lips again.
The door opened quietly, and Gil entered, the wizard Thoth leaning on her shoulder. The old man looked weary and ill, his hairless face and head as white as a skull's above the black folds of his grimy robes, but the gold eyes had lost none of their haughtiness. Silently, Wend bowed his head. The Scribe of Quo had a bitter turn of invective when he chose.
But Thoth only shook off Gil's supporting arm and moved to the side of the bed. His light fingers searched Eldor's wrist, then his forehead, the deep-sunk eyes narrowing to slits, as if the old man listened to the King's dreams. Then he said, "Leave us. No-" He shook his head as Wend rose thankfully to go. "I'll need-" He paused. The chilly amber eyes widened, resting for a long moment on his betrayer's white face. Then, without change of inflection in his harsh voice, he said, "I would like your help, little Brother. But not," he added acidly, "if it means an unseemly display of redundant contrition."