'I don't know.' Ingold shifted his weight on his perch by the hearth and folded sword-scarred hands on his knee. 'But we can be certain that they will try. Janus, Tomec - I suggest that the corridors be patrolled, on all levels, to every corner of the Keep. That way...'

'But we haven't the men for it!' Melantrys protested. 'We've enough for a patrol of sorts,' Janus admitted. 'But if the Dark effect an entrance, it's sure we've not enough to fight at any one place, spread so thin.'

The Icefalcon cocked a pale eyebrow at the wizard. 'Are we going to fight?'

'If we can,' Ingold said. 'Your patrols can be eked out with

volunteers, Janus. Get the Keep orphans as your scouts. They're always into everything anyway; they might as well be put to use. We need to patrol the corridors, simply to know if and where the Dark break in. It isn't likely that they can,' he went on gravely, 'for the walls of the Keep have the most powerful spells of the ancient world woven into their fabric. But whether the spells have weakened, or whether the Dark have grown stronger in the intervening years, I do not know.' Despite the calm in that deep, scratchy voice, Gil thought he looked grim and driven in the uncertain flicker of the hearth-light. 'But I do know that if the Dark Ones enter the Keep, we shall have to abandon it entirely, and then we will surely be lost.'

'Abandon the Keep!' Janus cried.

'It stands to reason,' the Icefalcon agreed, leaning back against the wall behind him. He had a light and rather breathless voice that sounded disinterested even when discussing the loss of the last sanctuary left to humankind. 'AH those little stairways, miles of empty corridors... We could never drive them out.' The captains looked at one another, knowing the truth of his words.

'It's not only that,' Gil put in quietly. Their eyes turned to her, a quick glitter in the room's shifting shadows. 'What about the ventilating system?' she went on.