04 Mother Of Winter d-4 Page 10

  She turned it in her hand, seeking vainly for a flaw or a scratch or a clue. A communicator? A power-core? The leg of a footstool? Rudy would be able to feel magic in it, to touch it and sense something beyond its age. Ingold and Rudy both teased Gil about her complete lack of any sense of magic, her inability to feel it: odd, Ingold had once said, in someone who understood it so well. She thought about him, staring into the depths of the glass core, but saw only the distorted image of her own hand closed around it and the tiny reflection of the lantern's flame. Now, that was something they could use-a device that permitted communication of those who were not mageborn. A telephone. He had left her alone. The pain grew more intense, and she felt exhausted and nauseated, worse than ever before. Sword across her knees, she curled tighter within his robes, staring into the darkness that seemed to collect so thick in the buried chamber, above the mouth of the pit. Wherever he was, she thought, she was with him. Dead or alive, whatever the voices whispering in her brain told her.

  There were other voices answering them, unanswerably... thy sweet love

  remembered such joy brings

  That I would scorn to change my state with kings.She felt the ice storm hit, far above her, as if all the world had been tipped over the

  edge into the pit of Fimbul Winter, the dark beyond the Norse Gotterdammerung, the

  cold that would see no spring, as if all the earth were sinking like a shipwreck through

  blackness to cosmos' end.

  Chapter Six

  "Look, guys, it's not that I don't appreciate the hospitality, but you gotta admit it's getting a little thick in here."

  Rudy Solis started to rise, and George-the old dooic whom Rudy had decided bore a more than superficial resemblance to a comedian in his own world of that name-darted four-legged to the hole that led to the long and twisting passageway to the outer world, sat down in front of it, and bared his yellowing tusks. It was a ritual gesture-at this point Rudy didn't really think George was going to bite him, though the discolored fangs were darn good for a guy that age-but he understood what it meant and backed to the wall again. "Okay. I'm cool. So what the hell do you want?"

  None of the dooic in the cave had laid a hand on Rudy, or come near him. There were perhaps a dozen of them, a small band as dooic went, mostly the wiry, dark-furred variety, though one or two of those with graying muzzles were large enough and scarred on the wrists and back in such a way that Rudy guessed they had been domestic slaves before the rising of the Dark.

  They huddled at the far side of the low-roofed, sandy-floored chamber around a fire that George had kindled by merely looking at the wood, in the age-old manner of wizards.

  Rudy was still amazed. I'll be buggered. Dooic have magic. He could not have been more surprised if he'd learned the same thing about tree frogs. He settled down to watch the movements of the band. With one worried dark eye still on Rudy, George moved away from the entrance again, to admit three or four more of the tribe, who hauled after them dead branches and chunks of half-rotted logs. These they stacked in a corner of the cave. The cave itself, though wide and deep, was only about five feet high at its tallest, tapering at the back to little more than a horizontal crack that vanished into darkness, and the whole place reeked of carrion, smoke, and dooic.

  Not, Rudy thought, the place where he'd planned to spend the night, but it beat hell out of a slunch bed between the timberline and the glacier, with rubbery eyeless mushroom-critters dropping by for tiffin. For company he supposed it had a few points over Graw's great hall.

  On the other hand, it was the opportunity of a lifetime to study a dooic band close up. He'd tried on other occasions, in the Vale of Renweth, but dooic were elusive as foxes in the woods-and if some of them could use magic, it was no wonder he'd never been able to sneak up on them.

  Despite the fact that dooic would occasionally slaughter and devour lone travelers, he felt no threat. Unless George was a hell of a lot stronger wizard than he appeared to be, his own magic should protect him from concerted attack-and anyway, they'd shown no disposition to gang up on him.

  George had lured him here with a trail of magic, of signs traced in light in the dark air, and Rudy had followed out of a combination of intense curiosity and the knowledge that Ingold would smack him with his staff if he passed up the chance. They wanted him here.

  Had they asked him to dinner to thank him for saving the life of the hinny with the two babies? Did they think that action had made him responsible for her and them? Was she going to end up his wife, in the best tradition of pulp adventure tales? Er-none for me, thanks. He could see her among the others in the corner, pups in tow, eyes gleaming in the

  almost impenetrable smoky darkness of the cave, but she had made no move to approach him; he'd christened her Rosie after a girl he'd gone to high school with. The other mares he labeled Mom, Margaret Dumont, Alice the Goon, Gina, Cheryl, and Linda, and two days from now I won't recognize a single one of them... George, who'd gone over to the wood-bearers-all of whom moved easily on all fours, under the low pitch of the roof-now turned, as if he'd heard a noise from the passageway. He glanced back at Rudy and grunted something, accompanied by a swift, complicated gesture with his hairy, short-fingered hands. Rudy must have looked blank, because George caught the attention of another male with a piglike squeal, made another gesture, then ran, apelike on his knuckles, to the passageway and vanished into the dark.

  The other males made a flurry of gestures among themselves, incomprehensible to Rudy but speaking clearly of consternation and fear-why fear? Then four of them ran to sit in a row across the entrance, watching Rudy intently with those surprisingly human eyes.

  "I get it," Rudy said. "Sit tight, right?" As he spoke he showed his hands, palms out, empty, then thought, Oh, good. They communicate by gestures, and I've just told them all their mothers wear army boots.

  He noted how the males were sitting, arms not wrapped around their knees, but crooked at the sides, hands palms down upon the drawn-up knees. He hunkered himself carefully into the same position.

  They'd have shut the gates at the settlement hours ago. Whatever was going on up here, it would be an interesting night, provided they didn't expect him to share the dead rabbits and voles a couple of them had pulled out from behind rocks. He was starving, but even from here he could tell supper had passed its sell-by date quite some time ago.

  Everyone in the cave seemed to be listening, tense and on edge; the males across the doorway jumped at sounds, gestured, and signed to one another. At one point one of them went into the passageway, clearly to check and see if George was on his way back.

  The gaboogoos? Rudy wondered. Had the old dooic gone to chase them off again? And if so, how?

  More logs were heaped on the fire. The cave grew uncomfortably warm and phenomenally odiferous. Huge shadows humped and jittered over the low walls as the dooic moved about in the ruddy light; now and then a couple would sit down and begin to groom each other, but it never lasted long. Whatever was happening, it was bothering the whole group.

  In time the old one returned, carrying something in his enormous hands, and Rudy thought, Did Mom send him to the local SuperGrocery for something fresh for dinner?

  The bird the old dooic was carrying was not only fresh, but alive. It stirred, trying to shift bloody feathers and bating feebly with its head. As George brought it near, Rudy saw the hard gold eye, the hooked beak of a peregrine falcon, and thought, Nice rock-throwing if you could bring one of those down, pal!

  Or had something else wounded it, leaving it bleeding on the rocks below the caves? In that case, how had the old dooic located it in the dark? George held it carefully, hands wrapped gently around the bloody wings, rocking a little and muttering. The bird was either still stunned by whatever had brought it down or calmed by the dooic's spells. It did not fight, but glared around with feral topaz eyes in the near-dark. What was a peregrine doing flying after nightfall, anyway? Silence deepened in the cave.

 
Then George handed the peregrine to Mom and hunkered close to the fire. A moment later Rudy felt the magic of a Summoning of some kind-heat?

  It radiated from the close-curled, gray-furred body as if old George had turned himself into a stove. Coupled with the warmth of the fire, it was nearly unbearable, but the entire band crowded close around. Rosie the hinny scurried over to Rudy and caught his hand, trying to draw him toward the group. He followed, though the smell of the steaming group was Olympian.

  This better be good.

  Rudy turned, halfway to the group, at the sudden shriek of wind in the passageway. Rosie dragged on his hand, fear in her eyes-the wind flung back Rudy's long hair, the cold striking hard and sudden and sharp enough to stab his sinuses like a knife. The wind's voice rose, screaming in the turnings of the rock, as if a cyclone, a hurricane, the end of the world were taking place outside.

  The real cold came. And Rudy knew.

  Oh Christ, it's an ice storm.

  He stood numb as Rosie plunged back into the safe warmth of her family. For a moment Rudy felt only astonishment at the coming of such a phenomenon, out of place and season.

  And then: The Settlements!

  It was too late. Knowledge of what an ice storm's winds would do to even such stout constructions as the old stone villas, the tree-trunk walls, ripped his heart like a bayonet. Walls ruptured, roofs jerked away, humans and animals flung like rag dolls in a lawn-mower-he'd seen the ruins on the plains of Gettlesand...

  Old George grabbed him, dragged him with horrifying animal strength back into the close- mobbed dooic, as if he genuinely feared Rudy would go dashing out into the storm.

  But Rudy only thought, Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! over and over, knowing there was nothing he could do. They were dead already-frozen, pulped, and dead.

  Cold rolled into the cave like the waters of doom. The dooic crowded tighter around the fire, around the old male whose spells had saved them from other peril before. The Keep! Those black walls had resisted the anger of the Dark and would, he thought, resist the fall of the mountains themselves. But the crops would be killed, the crops they'd broken themselves all spring to plant, the crops that were their only salvation. Every head of livestock in the byres outside the Keep would perish of the outer- space cold even if they weren't dashed to pieces by the howling funnel of the wind.

  And the herdkids with them.

  Rudy screamed, "No!!!" barely aware that he had made a noise, then curled against the rock of the wall and buried his head in his arms.

  Like tornadoes, ice storms struck and passed quickly. Rudy lay listening to the mad howl of the wind, every contraction of his heart telling him that the children he'd seen questing for firewood under Lirta Graw's command, the hunter whose nose he had broken, were dead now, their bodies sieved through the smashed palisade and the meat flash-frozen where it lay. So much for human plans, human aspiration, human love... So much for anyone we love or hate or who just has their own annoying agenda.

  He shut his teeth hard against tears.

  In time he stirred, turning his concentration to his own spells of Summoning heat. The repetition of the words, the drawing of the power, took his mind temporarily from the pain. These dooic, huddled around their meager fire, had saved his life, maybe because he'd saved Rosie's and maybe because old George knew he was a wizard and could help them out-he didn't know.

  But he owed them. So he snuggled closer into the fetid congregation, noting in surprise that Mom and some of the younger hinnies were wrapped in badly cured, flayed deerhides, under which they held the cubs close to their bodies, the first evidence he'd seen of dooic using implements more complicated than a rock. Though of course, he thought, the domesticated ones had worn clothing in servitude and may have thought that was a good idea to bring back to the tribe. In time the wind died. The cold grew deeper, the freezing air flowing in... Damn, it must have come down just about on top of us. And on the Settlements. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  Still in old George's hands, the injured peregrine stared around the circle with mad yellow eyes.

  Only when his mageborn perceptions told him a crippled dawn was creeping up to warm the mountainside did Rudy wrap a deerhide over his shoulders for extra warmth and scramble, on hands and knees, up the low-roofed passageway to the surface of the ground again.

  The tunnel was slippery with ice, and absolutely black-at the top he found twenty or thirty feet of snow blocking the entrance. He gouged at it with the steel crescent of his staff, Summoning heat around the metal, so that meltwater ran down to soak his torn and filthy trousers.

  The world was a ruin in the violet gloom of snow-light and morning: pines snapped, branches stripped, birds spattered dead against the rocks. He saw what might have been gulls, though so badly damaged it was hard to tell-God knew how they got there. From a livid bank of cloud overhead a few funnels still dipped earthward, then retreated again, miles away. Five feet in front of the cave mouth a boar had been skewered on the blasted shards of an oak tree, frozen to USDA Choice. George and Mom emerged behind him, the graying female holding another deerskin around her, both peering uneasily, trading hand-signs, quick and small and silent. Rudy was barely aware of them.

  His mind felt erased. He was aware that he was looking at the end of the world, the beginning of Fimbul Winter indeed-the Ultimate Notification from the Great Darwinian Bureau in the Sky that said, "We regret to inform you that you have been selected against." He couldn't take it in.

  There'd be no crops, either at the Settlements or the Keep. Last night would have iced them where they stood. No animals left at all. Everyone in the Settlements-some nine hundred people, was dead. Everyone at the Keep would starve.

  George yowled a warning and flung up his hand. Underfoot the mountain moved, a hard, sharp twitch, then a few seconds of stillness, followed by a long slow roller-coaster sensation, as if they all stood on the belly of some monstrous anaconda as it swallowed a couple of deer.

  "Chill out." Rudy caught his balance against the sprawled, uplifted roots of a broken tree as the old dooic and his mate clung to one another, looking for someplace to run. "It's a five-two, tops. I wouldn't even get out of bed for it back home." Like many Southern Californians, Rudy was adept at playing Guess the Richter with local earthquakes. By the time lag between the kicker and the roller, he judged that the epicenter was far off.

  He picked his way through the smashed and uprooted trees, mortared together with snow frozen hard as concrete. Where the wind had scoured the snow away, weeds stood stiff, held upright by the water in their cells that had turned to ice, waiting for

  the touch of the sun that would let them lapse from pseudolife into brown and crumpled death.

  There was a little patch of slunch on the rocks. Though snow lodged in its folds, it seemed perfectly healthy. Rudy muttered, "Son of a..."

  He stepped around the rock and stopped again. Toeless footprints marked the thin snow beyond. A little blown snow had dusted into them, enough for Rudy to calculate the timing: after the winds had ceased, but during the worst of the cold. He didn't even want to think about what the temperature had been.

  Behind him he heard old George grunt, and Mom yammer in fear. Seizing his staff, Rudy ducked around the rocks, skidding on the hard snow-crust as he ran back to the mouth of the cave.

  Ingold stood there, shivering and blinking, wrapped only in the flayed hide of one of the dooic's deer.

  "I don't know what happened." The old man's voice was hoarse and hesitant, and he flinched as Rudy turned his mangled arm to the light at the mouth of the tunnel entrance, where they had taken shelter against the cold.

  Rudy had gone back to the deeper chamber to fetch firewood and kindled a small blaze in the tunnel, the heat reflecting back from the rocks. Outside, the virulent clouds were breaking, the sun beginning to melt the snow.

  Ingold was unable to summon fire; unable, Rudy guessed, to summon heat or light or any of the small magics that were wizardry's second nature. He lay against
the rock shivering with exhaustion, barely responding as Rudy examined the wounds on his arms and back, and on the back of his head.

  He looked as if he'd been attacked by maniacs wielding chisels and cleavers. The wounds reminded him of something that might have been inflicted by pincers, like an enormous lobster or a Roger Corman-sized crab. Not claws, he thought. Not teeth either, really.

  And all the while he was marveling, Ingold really did it. I'll be buggered. He actually turned himself into a goddamn bird.

  It was something he couldn't imagine himself or anyone else even trying to accomplish. He was conscious of awe and an overwhelming wish that he'd been there to watch-to see it and to see how it was done.

  But he only said, "Man, if that storm had hit while you were still on your way, you'd be dead meat!"

  Ingold raised his head a little, brought up one hand to wipe at a gash over his brow. "I had to risk it. I couldn't reach you by scrying stone-"

  "Couldn't reach me? I was tryin' all morning to get in touch with you, man! And Thoth, and the Gettlesand gang! Then I lost my crystal... I'll have to go back and look for it. But whenever I tried, I just got this... this..."

  "Weight," Ingold said, his voice almost dreamy, as if he were slipping again into sleep. He tried clumsily to pull the deerskin back over the bare, freckled gooseflesh of his shoulders, hands almost unworkable with cold.

  "Anger. Magic deep in the bones of the earth. Which is gone now, incidentally," he added, rousing a little. "I expect that after the earthquake we should have no trouble reaching Thoth."

  Rudy looked at him a little blankly, trying to work that one out. Mom emerged from the throat of the passageway to proffer an appalling double handful of what was almost certainly chewed leaves, and Rudy said, "Uh-thanks." He sniffed it-borage and willow, and he'd handled worse in five years-and passed a quick hand over it, feeling the magic already in it and adding his own spells of