01 THE TIME OF THE DARK d-1 Page 4

  Rudy had been driving and dealing with cars and motorcycles half his life-not always with legal sanctions-but it took all his expertise to nurse the failing Chevy the mile or two from the last lighted billboard to the rutted track of the service road. The lag and jerk of the big V-8 engine as he maneuvered through potholes, gravel slides, and the ruinous washes of old stream beds made him wonder if the problem wasn't simply a blocked line. He itched to climb out, raise the hood, and check-except that he had nothing resembling a light with him, and the odds were that, once stopped, nothing short of total rebuilding would get the stupid car started again. The feeble glare of the headlights picked out landmarks he knew from his motorcycle trips back this way: an oak tree twisted into the shape of a disapproving monk, gloomily damning the couples who came out here to park; a rock like a sleeping buffalo, silhouetted against the star-luminous sky. Rudy's hobby of hunting with bow and arrow had given him a familiarity with half the wild country left in Southern California, a knowledge of these silent desert hills as casual as his knowledge of the inner workings of a V-8 engine or of the floor plan of his own sparsely furnished apartment. He was as much at home here as he was anywhere else.

  Sometimes more so. Maybe the hunting was the reason, or maybe only the excuse. There were times when he simply took pleasure in being alone, a different pleasure from what was to be had from partying and raising hell, from horsing around with the guys at the body shop, from ratpack weekends in the desert. Never self-analytical, Rudy only understood that he needed the solitude, needed the touch of the empty land and the demand for slow skill and perfect accuracy. Perhaps it was this that had kept him on the edge of the biker crowd; he'd become acquainted with them at the body shop but never of them. Or perhaps it was simple cowardice.

  Whatever his reasons, he was accepted for what he was; and though not part of any motorcycle gang, as an airbrush painter and pinstriper at Wild David's body shop in Fontana, he was part of that world. Hence, he understood his inclusion in Tarot's party-not that anybody in Southern California was excluded from Tarot's party. Tarot's local reputation included an apocryphal story about being a former member of the Hell's Angels. But, thinking the matter over as he guided the thrombotic car deeper and deeper into the blackness of the hills, Rudy couldn't imagine any gang admitting a member as essentially chickenhearted as Jim Carrow.

  The car's front wheels dropped suddenly into a twelve-inch water-cut in the road with a heart-rending scrape of oil pan against rock. Rudy tried the engine twice and got only a tired whirring in response. He opened the door and climbed cautiously out, boots slipping on the round stones of the dry stream bed. Two days of continuous partying didn't help his footing much. He ascertained at once that pushing wouldn't help matters, for the car was nose-down with its front bumper inches from the far bank of the gully. It might, he decided, kneeling in the soft sand, be possible to back out if the engine could be started, but it wasn't something he'd want to try at one-thirty in the morning.

  Disgusted, he straightened up.

  Starlight showed him the shape and roll of the hills, the shallow valley opening out to his right, with a dark clustering of dry, black-leaved citrus trees. The shack-a cabin,

  really- would be over there in the dense shadow of the hill, a hundred yards farther on.

  Made it, he thought. Thank God for small favors.

  It was surprising how silent the night was. There was little silence in the world; even away from people, there was usually street noise, airplanes, air conditioning. The cooling metal of the car's engine ticked softly in the darkness; now and then, dried grass sighed at the memory of wind. Rudy's eyes, adjusting to the wan glow of the Milky Way, slowly made out the edges of the cabin's roof line, the shapes of long grass and twisted trees. His footfalls seemed very loud in that world of darkness.

  Walking carefully, if not precisely staggering, he collected two six-packs of beer from the back seat and the remainder of his bottle of muscatel from the front. His head was beginning to ache. Just what I need. A busted fuel pump and a hangover to fix it with. They'll probably figure I took the beer money and headed for Mexico.

  He made his way up to the shack.

  It stood solitary against the dark of the hills, the long grass around its peeling walls concealing the fossilized remains of dead farm equipment and broken bottles, the shabby asphalt tile of the roof sagging under the weight of accumulated leaves. He mounted the crazy front steps and set down his burdens on the narrow front porch, the mild chill of the sweet-scented night making him shiver as he stripped off his greasy denim jacket, wrapped it around his hand, and punched out a pane of the window beside the door to let himself in.

  The lights worked, surprisingly. Hookup to the power tines in the grove, he decided, taking a quick look around the dingy kitchen. So did the sink, giving cold water but not hot. Well, you can't have everything. In the cupboard under the sink he found three cans of pork and beans with prices stamped on them that were at least four years old, and a kerosene stove with half a can of kerosene.

  Not bad, he reflected, if I had anything to cook. Further exploration revealed a minuscule bathroom and a cell-like bedroom at the end of a narrow hall, with a sagging cot whose threadbare mattress would have been thrown out of any jail in the state as cruel and unusual.

  Nothing to write home about, he thought, returning to the kitchen and thence to the star-limned silence of the front porch. He donned his jacket, on which the faded blue denim was rather gaudily illuminated with a flaming skull with roses in its eyes, and settled back against the doorjamb to polish off the muscatel and watch the night in peace. As the dark quiet of the hills soaked into his soul, he decided that there was, after all, something to be said for the place, a perfection of solitude in many ways superior to all the beer busts thrown by all the rock stars of California.

  After a long time of silence he returned inside to sleep.

  He woke up wondering what he'd done to annoy the little man with the sledgehammer who lived inside his head. He rolled over, to his instant regret, and wondered if he was going to die.

  The room was barely light. He lay for a time staring at the shadows of the dry, cobwebby rafters, memories of yesterday and last night leaking back to his protesting consciousness: Tarot's party; the fact that it was Monday and he was supposed to be back at work at the body shop, painting flaming sunsets on custom vans; last night's beer run to Barstow; and that pig of a Chevy. It might be just the fuel lines, he told himself, his mind backtracking creakily through the obstacle course of a splitting headache and assorted other symptoms of the immoderate consumption of muscatel. If that was the case, he could be under way in a few hours. If it was the pump, he was in for a long walk.

  Rudy made his way out of the house and down the steps, blinking in the pallid light of dawn. He was soon cursing the owner of the car. There wasn't anything resembling a tool in all the bushels of trash in the trunk or on the back seat.

  There was a shed half-buried in the weeds farther back in the groves behind the cottage, and he spent ten grimy minutes picking through spider-infested debris there in search of tools. The result was hardly satisfactory: a rusted Phillips screwdriver with a dog-chewed handle; a couple of blades with the business ends twisted; and an adjustable end wrench so corroded that he doubted it could be used.

  The sun was just clearing the hills as he stepped out again, wiping his hands on his jeans; all around him the clear magic colors of day were emerging from the dawn's grayed pastels. The house, formerly a nameless bulk of shadow, ripened into warm russets and weathered sepias, its windows blazing with the sun's reflected glory like the dazzle of molten electrum. As Rudy stood there in the shadow of the shed, he thought for a moment that it was this burning glare that was playing tricks on his eyes.

  Then he saw that this was not so, but for a moment he didn't know what it was. He shaded his eyes against the blinding silvery shimmer that hung in the air like a twisting slit of fire, blinking in the almost painful b
rilliance that stabbed forth as the slit, or line of brightness, widened scarcely a dozen yards in front of him. He had the momentary impression that space and reality were splitting apart, that the three dimensions of this world were merely painted on a curtain, and that air and ground and cabin and hills were being folded aside, to reveal a more piercing light, blinding darkness, and swirling nameless colors beyond. Then, through that gap, a dark form stumbled, robed and hooded in brown, a drawn sword gleaming in one hand and a trailing bundle of black velvet gripped tightly in the crook of the other arm. The sword blade was bright, as if it reflected searing light, and it smoked.

  Blinded by the intensity of the light, Rudy turned his face away, confused, disoriented, and shocked. When he turned back, the blazing vision was gone. There remained only an old man in a brown robe, an old man who held a sword in one hand and a wailing baby in the other arm.

  Rudy blinked. "What in hell was I drinking last night?" he asked aloud. "And who the hell are you?"

  The old man sheathed the sword in one smooth, competent gesture, and Rudy found himself thinking that whoever this was, he must be very quick on the draw with that thing. It looked real, too, balanced and razor-sharp. The old man replied, in a scratchy baritone, "I am called Ingold Inglorion. This is Prince Altir Endorion, last Prince of the House of Dare."

  "Hunh?"

  The old man drew back the hood from his face, revealing a countenance wholly nondescript except for the remarkable blueness of the heavy-lidded eyes and for its expression of awesome serenity. Rudy had never seen a face like that, gentle, charming, and supremely in command. It was the face of a saint, a wizard, or a nut.

  Rudy rubbed his aching eyes. "How'd you get here?"

  "I came through the Void that separates your universe from mine," Ingold explained reasonably. "You could hardly have missed it."

  He's a nut.

  Curious, Rudy walked slowly around him, keeping his distance. The guy was armed, after all, and something in the way he'd handled the sword made Rudy sure he knew how to use it. He looked like a harmless old buffer, except for the Francis of Assisi get-up, but years of association with the brotherhood of the road had given Rudy an instinctive caution of anybody who was armed, no matter how harmless he looked. Besides, anybody running around dressed like that was obviously certifiable.

  The old man watched him in return, looking rather amused, one thick-muscled hand absently caressing the child he held into muffled whimpers, then silence. Rudy noticed that the old man's dark robes and the child's blankets were rank with smoke. He supposed they could have come out of the shadows around the corner of the house in the moment the reflected sunlight had blinded him, giving the impression they'd stepped out of a kind of flaming aura, but that explanation still didn't tell him where they'd come from, or how the old man had happened to acquire the kid.

  After a long moment's silence Rudy asked, "Are you for real?"

  The old man smiled, a leaping webwork of lines springing into being among the tangle of white beard. "Are you?"

  "I mean, are you supposed to be some kind of wizard or something?"

  "Not in this universe." Ingold surveyed the young man before him for a moment, then smiled again. "It's a long story," he explained, turned, and strolled back toward the house as if he owned the place, with Rudy tagging along in his wake. "Would it be possible for me to remain here until my contact in this world can reach me? It shouldn't be long."

  What the hell? "Yeah, sure, go ahead." Rudy sighed. "I'm only here myself because my car died on me-I mean, it's not really my car-and I have to check out the pump and see if I can get it running again." Seeing Ingold's puzzled frown, he remembered the guy was supposed to be from another universe where, since they used swords-

  and he'd still like to know where the old man had picked that one up-the internal combustion engine hadn't been invented. "You do know what a car is?"

  "I'm familiar with the concept. We don't have them in my world, of course."

  "Of course."

  Ingold led the way calmly up the steps and into the house. He proceeded straight on down the hall to the bedroom, where he placed the child on the stained, lumpy mattress of the cot. The baby immediately began working himself free of his blankets, with the apparently fixed intention of rolling off and braining himself on the cement floor.

  "But who are you?" Rudy persisted, leaning in the doorway.

  "I told you, my name is Ingold. Here, enough of that... " He reached down and stopped Prince Tir from worming himself over the edge. Then he glanced back over his shoulder. "You haven't told me your name," he added.

  "Uh- Rudy Solis. Where'd you get the kid?"

  "I'm rescuing him from enemies," Ingold stated matter-of-factly.

  Wonderful, Rudy thought. First the fuel pump and now this.

  Untangled, the kid was revealed to be a crawler of six months or so, with a pink rosebud of a face, fuzzy black hair, and eyes that were the deep unearthly blue of the heart of a morning glory. Ingold set the kid back in the middle of the bed, where he promptly started for the edge again. The old man removed his dark, smoke-smelling mantle and spread it out like a groundcloth on the floor. Under it he wore a white wool robe, much patched and stained, a worn leather belt, and a low-slung sword belt that supported the sword and a short dagger in beat-up scabbards. The whole setup looked authentic as hell.

  Ingold picked up the child again and put him down on the mantle on the floor. "There," he said. "Now will you stay where you are put and fall asleep like a sensible person?"

  Prince Altir Endorion made a definite but unintelligible reply.

  "Good," Ingold said, and turned toward the door.

  "Whose kid is he?" Rudy asked, folding his arms and watching the old man and the child.

  For the first time that look of self-command broke, and grief, or the concealment of grief, tightened into the muscles of the old man's face. His voice remained perfectly steady. "He is the child of a friend of mine," he replied quietly, "who is now dead." There was a moment's silence, the old man concentrating on turning back the cuffs of his faded robe, revealing a road map of old scars striping the hard, heavy muscle of his forearms. When he looked up again, that expression of gentle amusement was back in his eyes. "Not that you believe me, of course."

  "Well, now that you mention it, I don't."

  "Good." Ingold smiled, stepping past Rudy into the narrow hall. "It's better that you shouldn't. Close the door behind you, would you, please?"

  "Because, for one thing," Rudy said, following him down the hall to the kitchen, "if you're from a whole other universe, like you say, how come you are speaking English?"

  "Oh, I'm not." Ingold located one of the six-packs of beer on the kitchen counter and extricated a can for himself and one for Rudy. "Speaking English, that is. You only hear it as English in your mind. If you were to come to my world, I could arrange the same spell to cover you."

  Oh, yeah? Rudy thought cynically. And I suppose you figured out how to operate push-tab beer cans the same way?

  "Unfortunately, there's no way I can prove this to you," Ingold went on placidly, seating himself on the corner of the grimy formica table top, the butter-colored morning sunlight gilding the worn hilt of his sword with an edge like fire. "Different universes obey different physical laws, and yours, despite its present close conjunction with my own, is very far from the heart and source of Power. The laws of physics here are very heavy, very certain and irreversible, and unaffected by... certain other considerations." He glanced out the window to his right, scanning the fall of the land beyond, judging the angle of the sun, the time of day. The expression of calculation in his eyes, adding up pieces of information that had nothing to do with Rudy or with maintaining a role, troubled Rudy with a disquieting sense that the old man was too calm about it, too matter-of-fact. He'd met masqueraders before; living in Southern California, you could hardly help it. And, young or old, all those would-be Brothers of Atlantis had the same air of being in co
stume, no matter how cool they were about it. They all knew you were noticing them.

  This old croaker didn't seem to be thinking about Rudy at all, except as a man to be dealt with in the course of something else.

  Rudy found himself thinking, He's either what he says he is, or so far out in left field he's never coming back.

  And his indignant outrage at being beguiled into admitting two possibilities at all was almost immediately superimposed on the uneasy memory of that gap of light and the colors he'd thought he'd seen beyond.

  Watch it, kiddo, he told himself. The old guy's not hitting on all his cylinders. If you're not careful, he'll have you doing it next. So he asked, "But you are a wizard in your own world?" Because the outfit couldn't be for anything else.

  Ingold hesitated, his attention returning to Rudy; then he nodded. "Yes," he said slowly.

  Rudy leaned back against the counter and took a pull at his beer. "You pretty good?"

  Ingold shrugged and seemed to relax, as if reassured by the disbelief in Rudy's tone. "I'm said to be."

  "But you can't do any magic here." A foregone conclusion-the ersatz Merlins of the world did not often operate outside a friendly environment.

  But the ersatz Merlins of the world didn't usually smile, then hide the smile, at the suggestion of fraud. "No. That isn't possible."