They had found fuel less, everlasting lamps and the component parts of flame throwers; they had found the ancient machinery that the Keep's builders, the wizard-engineers, had used to power the air and water pumps; they had found riddles as enigmatic as the frosted gray polyhedron crystals that littered the lower labs in such useless numbers. But they had discovered no evidence that the vast hydroponics gardens had ever been used, no records of the early days of the Keep, and no sign of how the wizard-engineers had so suddenly vanished.
There was no evidence of how Dare of Renweth, builder of the Keep and founder of the line of High Kings, had defeated the Dark-nothing at all as to why the Dark Ones had ceased their ancient depredations upon humankind and returned to the black abysses that had spawned them.
Rudy stepped cautiously around an oblique corner and through a dark complex of cells where, even at this late hour, a soft flicker of greasy yellow lamplight winked through a crack in a door and quarreling voices brushed his awareness like wind as he passed. Rodent eyes sparked redly at him from the murk; somewhere a chicken clucked loudly, followed by the sodden thump of a thrown boot.
Had it been the flame throwers that defeated the Dark?
He didn't think so; the pieces he'd found in the labs were few and incomplete. Besides, the Dark had been around for centuries after Dare's time. Had some other champion of humankind arisen, some other warrior who had dealt the Dark Ones so crippling a blow as to render them unwilling to continue the attack?
How had humankind defeated the Dark?
The question is the answer , Ingold always said.
The question is always the answer.
But Rudy had cudgeled his brains over all possible answers and had found himself faced with only that question.
Maybe Tir would remember how. Maybe his father Eldor would have remembered eventually, had he not perished in the blazing ruin of the Palace at Gae. Though Tir was yet too young to speak, the baby prince gave evidence of having inherited that terrible and mysterious legacy common among the descendants of Dare of Renweth, not only from his father, but-by carrier, as it were-from Minalde as well. Her memories were vague-recognition rather than recall- but if the flame throwers were the answer, wouldn't she have known it?
And if not the flame throwers, what?
White light gleamed palely before Rudy, reflecting against the slick, black stone of the walls. He passed the head of one of the main stairways of the Keep, its smooth construction announcing that it had been built at the time of the founding of that colossal maze itself. In a cage over it hung a single glowstone. a warning to the unwary.
How else had humankind defeated the Dark? Had the wizard-engineers stood at the top of those hellish stairways that led down to their hideous domains and dumped barrels of glowstones into that chasm?
Unlikely. Early experiment had shown that sufficient numbers of the Dark Ones could damp the light of glow-stones, just as they killed fires or sucked the strength from a wizard's spell of light.
Some other weapon, buried in the deeps of time? Something Ingold might have learned of in his years of study and wandering? Some piece of knowledge that lay like an unexploded bomb in the depths of that complex mind?
Rudy would have swapped several of his younger siblings for the answer to that one.
A drift of warmer air rose from the stairway, stirring his long hair. It bore on it the soft, musical chanting of the night offices of the Church, and Rudy turned away, uneasy at the thought of the minor empire that filled the first-level warrens around that fluted Sanctuary. He had heard too many tales from the other mages in the Corps-rumors of rooms where magic would not operate and where a wizard could be imprisoned, as Ingold had been imprisoned in the doorless cell of Karst. There were whispers of black magic or such things as the Rune of the Chain, which bound and crippled a wizard's power and left him helpless to his ancient, ecclesiastical foes.
Rudy had seen the Rune of the Chain. The memory was not a pleasant one.
He turned down another corridor, past a guardroom where voices hummed above the rattle of a dice cup. For a moment the haughty, intolerant face of Bishop Govannin floated through his memory, as he had seen her in the dawn light on the steps. It pays to count one's enemies .
There was one he sure as hell didn't need a magnifying glass to find. But what, after all, could she do?
He found what he'd been seeking-a jury-rigged, ladder-like stairway leading down to a back corridor of the level below, at a healthy distance from the Church. Not even a glowstone marked it, for few people came this way; below lay only a chasm of darkness, stinking of dust and mice. The crazy rungs creaked under his weight. Steadying himself against the splintery wood, he jumped the last few feet to the floor.
It was only when he landed that he saw movement. His wizard's sight caught the glint of velvet and jewels; then, as faint as a whiff of the orris root perfume, he heard the unmistakable clink of a sword hilt on a belt buckle and the slurring whisper of a heavy cloak.
A rich, mellow voice spoke from the shadows. "Don't be so apprehensive, my dear boy. I have no intention of doing you harm."
Rudy let his breath out slowly. "That's nice to know," he remarked. "I mean, you know, halfway through the deep-night watch, you kind of wonder about the people you meet wandering around the back corridors."
"Indeed you do." Alwir opened a single pane of the lantern he bore, and dim, dappled white light filtered through the fretwork slides that surrounded the enchanted stone within. "You have let Ingold make you suspicious." He set the lantern on a ledge of projecting bricks and turned back to face Rudy, his handsome, fleshy face very white within the raven masses of his hair. "Yes," he continued, "one cannot but wonder about those who walk in the night."
Rudy realized, with a sudden chill in the pit of his stomach, that Alwir had been waiting for him. There was nothing that he could possibly reply; the smell of Minalde's perfume clung to his clothes. On the last night before we split , he thought, Alwir knew he'd be able to intercept me. Not that he'd have had much problem any other night since we got back from Quo . Rudy wiped his clammy hands on his breeches and waited in silence for what Aide's brother would say.
"They tell me you've made excellent progress in the arts of magic," Alwir went on in a conversational tone. "Your work on the flame throwers will, of course, be invaluable to us when we march against the Dark. Is it your belief that Dare of Renweth used something of the kind to invade the Nests?"
Rudy swallowed, put off balance by the small talk but unable to do anything except play along. "Uh-I don't know. We've never even found evidence that Dare did invade the Nests."
"Oh, come," Alwir chided patronizingly. "We both know he must have done so. The Dark were defeated somehow. I feel sure that your reconnaissance to Gae will reveal to us exactly how it was done-and how we, allied with the armies of Alketch, may do likewise."
"Yeah," Rudy said warily, still trying to understand this cat-and-mouse game. "There are good odds, anyway."
Alwir's smile was wide and false and cold, like something he'd stapled on. "And afterward?"
"If I'm alive afterward," Rudy replied, picking his words carefully, "we'll see."
"Indeed." Alwir was still smiling, but the lobelia-blue eyes would have scratched diamonds. As if to change the subject, he said, "I assume your liaison with my sister is a well-kept secret? Not that I don't understand her feelings," he hastened to add, cutting off Rudy's flaring words. "After all, she is young and lonely. She was grateful to you for saving her son's life-as were we all, of course. And she could hardly have fallen in love with Gil or Ingold." He sighed. "I would have prevented this if I could have. But the affair seems to have begun behind my back and was, I believe, well advanced by the time we arrived here. Was it not?"